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NUNAVUT
The sponsors of a new documentary hope it will show the good work being done by educators to help ensure Nunavut's students are ready for life after high school.

ArcticNet funded the film Going Places: Preparing Inuit High School Students for a Changing Wider World, which was produced by Mark Sandiford, director of the award-winning film Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny.

Sandiford followed two high school principals - Jukeepa Hainnu at Quluaq School in Clyde River and Lena Metuq at Attagoyuk School in Pangnirtung - and a student from each school as they prepare to graduate. Both teachers are graduates of Nunavut's first graduate degree program, the University of Prince Edward Island's Master of Education in Leadership in Learning program.

"We were seeing if the students, parents and local DEAs felt that having Inuit leaders at the high school level made a difference in the lives of students and success of the students," said Darlene Nuqingaq, educational leadership development co-ordinator for the Nunavut Department of Education, which sponsored the film. "(It is) also to promote Inuit educators aspiring to become leaders at schools and having their communities believe in them and support them. This video gets the positive word out about what they are doing."

It also highlights the challenges educators face in the young territory. One of the most significant is the low high school graduation rate, last reported at 39 per cent. All things considered, that's high, says Fiona Walton, associate professor at UPEI's faculty of education.

"When I came here in 1982, the graduation rate was three per cent, which were largely Qallunaat kids. When I left in 1990, the graduation rate had increased to 10 per cent," Walton said. "This is a very young education system, it's a bi-cultural bilingual education system, so it is more complex, and it is a system facing tremendous social and cultural challenges. In the face of that, I consider a 35- to 39-per-cent graduation rate commendable."

Perhaps the graduation rate is not an appropriate measure of success in Nunavut, Nuqingaq suggests.

"The end goal for each child is based on their own individual needs and potential," she said. "Whatever will help that child become an able, well-rounded human being. Parents and elders want children to be able to walk here in Nunavut well and wherever they want to go, to be a citizen of the world."

Increasingly, that means being able to compete for jobs that require professional training and education. Higher education typically requires a high school diploma, and that high school diploma has to meet the standards of the post-secondary institution the student is considering.

"They should not be limited to our small community with a Grade 12 education," language specialist Simeonie Keenainak says in the film. "Their education must be on par with the rest of the world."

Shawn Sivugat, the Grade 12 Quluaq student profiled, expressed concern that curricula vary throughout the territory.

"I think they should all be the same," he says. "It would be easier for everyone."

Nuqingaq said there are regional differences and the department is working toward standardization.

"In February, at our Nunavut-wide teachers' conference, teachers will be here in Iqaluit hearing the same message and being energized to teach the mandated curricula," she said.

These challenges noted, she is excited about the creative projects she has seen that take students beyond the standard curriculum, including a social studies pilot in Iqaluit and Arviat.

"They have to pick a project that will change their community and do some sort of social action," she said. The project includes "a multiple intelligence using video or song or acting or some kind of product. I saw the results in Arviat and it was tremendous. I was blown away by the higher level of thinking."

She also praised the Skills Canada program, which leads students to previously overlooked career paths.

"Our students are getting access into a lot of careers they might not have thought of before, like film-making, journalism, hairdressing, high-level cooking," Nuqingaq added. "We had a student from here who went to the Governor-General's residence to help cook for William and Kate. We don't hear about these good news stories as much, but they are succeeding."

Such projects on a post-secondary level take time to yield results, Fiona Walton, associate professor in the UPEI Faculty of Education, said. She cites the Nunavut Teacher Education Program as one example of a program with a solid history.

"Someone said to me that if that (training) process had happened in all other domains 20 years ago, people would be in a much better position right now," she said, noting the move to allow Nunavut Arctic College to grant degrees. "In a sense, there is a catch-up process taking place. With a plethora of degree-granting programs, we could see exponential change."

Nuqingaq would like to see home-grown principals taking over more schools in Nunavut.

"Just like with a dog team, you don't stop and start," she said. "But that's what is happening in the community schools because it takes some time for the principal to understand the vision of the school. (I want) trained principals that come from the community so the community can move forward."

It's a future Walton believes can be realized.

"I see a lot of talented young people who are articulate, and know where they want to go," she said. "If they have the supports, they're going to go there. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, journalists, the whole thing."

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