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Kuujjuaq, Nunavik—In Inuktitut, arsaniq means “northern lights” which is also the name of the only school in Kangiqsujuaq, a remote Inuit community in Northern Quebec. This is fitting, given that the school has become a beacon of hope for those looking to fix an education system in need of repair.
Located about 10 kilometres from the southern shores of the Hudson Strait and some 2,000 kilometres north of Montreal, Arsaniq School serves as Kangiqsujuaq’s primary and secondary school and has an enrolment of more than 200 students. Given the community’s small population of 450, this seems impressive until you consider the school’s graduation rates: in 2008-2009 just four left with a diploma and fewer still enter post-secondary education each year.
Story #1 Measuring what matters
Story #2 Case Study: Kihew Waciston Cree Immersion School
Story #3 Case Study: Partnering With Parents and Communities in Education
Kangiqsujuaq is not alone. According to a new report from the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) 60% of young Inuit adults aged 20 to 24 have not completed high school (compared to 13% of non-Aboriginal young adults), and only 4% of adult Inuit aged 25 to 64 had completed a university program, compared to 23% of non-Aboriginal adults.
The report, The State of Aboriginal Learning In Canada: A Holistic Approach to Measuring Success, contains the most comprehensive look at Aboriginal learning ever published—featuring a portrait of lifelong learning that extends beyond the classroom to encompass learning that takes place in the home, the community, the workplace and on the land.
It’s this perspective that has informed a promising research project currently underway in Kangiqsujuaq. Led by a team of researchers that includes McGill University’s Donald Taylor, the unique project is using the power of community to help turn the tide against dropout rates.
Rather than focusing solely on changing the attitudes and behaviour of individual students, Taylor and his team went beyond the classroom and engaged all 450 residents of the northern town in what can only be called an exercise in community transformation.
Funded in part by CCL, the team (which includes local teachers, researchers from McGill and the University of Montréal and members of the Kativik School Board) sent a survey about education issues to every resident in Kangiqsujuaq. Survey questions included “Do you think education is important?” and “Do you think children need to go to school every day?”
The survey was completed by nearly 90% of the population and helped generate a community-wide conversation about the future of education.
Over the next few months, the team will hold a series of town meetings to discuss the results in detail. Taylor expects that when people see the survey results, which were overwhelmingly positive regarding the importance of education, the community will mobilize to enact real change.
Taylor, who’s been working with Inuit in Canada’s North for decades, believes it’s a fresh approach to a common problem that is rooted in the past.
Like many Inuit towns, Kangiqsujuaq began as a trading post, eventually growing into a permanent settlement into which Inuit were coaxed—and in some cases forcibly relocated—to move to in order for their children to receive a formal education. In 1975, when Inuit negotiated the James Bay and Northern-Quebec land claim agreement, residents took control over their education and set up a regional school board.
Taylor says much good has come of the Kativik School Board; particularly an Inuit-specific curriculum that includes Inuktitut immersion from kindergarten through Grade 3. Yet he’s convinced that the source of their challenges is a system that reflects more of a Western European approach to education.
Given this, and the lingering resentment that many adult Inuit harbour toward residential schools, he says “they can hardly be expected to have any trust in formal education.”
But can such a simple solution actually help address the challenges facing Inuit education? Teacher Annie Tertiluk is convinced it can.
A local resident who has taught at almost every grade in Kangiqsujuaq over the past 25 years, Tertiluk says people are already talking about what is happening in the community and what can be done to spark change.
“There’s a difference in attitudes” she says. “Today we had people on the FM [the popular local radio call-in show] saying that we have to get more people involved in the school.”
This response is symbolic of the powerful role of community for Inuit learners.
According to CCL’s report, in 2006 nearly 98% of Inuit over the age of 15 reported that they had received some form of support from someone in their community—a significant increase from 84% five years prior. And this commitment to community extends far beyond the Hudson Strait.
Buoyed by the early results in Kangiqsujuaq, Taylor and his team have already launched similar pilot projects in Canada’s three other Inuit regions; Nunavut, Nunatsiavut (Labrador) and Inuvialuit (Northwest Territories). Co-funded by territorial and regional governments, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and CCL, the researchers are hopeful that their unique approach will yield concrete change in the years ahead.
“We have to stop tweaking education at the edges in the northern regions,” says Taylor “and institute real change beginning in the communities.”
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