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New funds equal more teaching time per Nunavut student

"You will see a fundamental shift in the way we deliver education"

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Ed Picco, Nunavut's minister of education, says his department's increased budget will lighten the student-teacher ratio, allowing for more one-on-one teaching time. (PHOTO BY GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS)

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Nunavut teachers will see their ranks grow in the new school year, as the Nunavut government pushes to lighten their workload and provide more one-on-one teaching time for students.

Under a new funding formula, the government of Nunavut will hire more than 80 new teachers, classroom support assistants, and other staff before the end of September.

Ed Picco, Nunavut's minister of education, said local district education authorities will add a further 73 staff members to their payroll - bringing the number of new staff in schools to 156.

The funding comes from the department's $193 million budget for 2005-06.

Picco said all positions are expected to be filled by people living in Nunavut, in order to get more Inuktitut-speaking workers into schools.

According to Picco, the boosted number of teachers and other staff amounts to a historical turning point in Nunavut's quest to improve education.

"I think you're starting to see, and you will see, a fundamental shift in the way we deliver education in Nunavut," he said in an interview last week. "That fundamental shift begins with the way we fund our schools."

Picco doesn't make any excuses for the territory's previous school funding formula. The system of funding was inherited from the Northwest Territories in 1999.

"It's a bastardization of a whole slew of different categories, quotients, and additions to come up with numbers," Picco said of the old formula. "Number one, it's hard to explain it. Number two, no one can understand it. Number three, it doesn't make any sense."

Educators in Nunavut have complained about the formula since it was created around 1991. Since then, they stood by helplessly as the formula would award a new staff person to a Baffin community, but not a community in another region, even when both were in need.

But Picco said he's putting an end to that, in part, by pledging not to alter the base funding that each school receives.

He said the coming increase in school staff comes directly from tinkering with the school funding formula.

The staffing breakdown for the GN's new hires will include 13 new teachers; two program support teachers, who help other teachers with curriculum; five language specialists; and eight cousellors.

A child psychologist will also join the school system, based in Pangnirtung.

Most jobs will go to teachers trained in handling students with special needs.

Picco expects to have 40 new classroom support assistants - essentially education workers devoted to helping students with learning and behaviour problems.

The funding boost doesn't only deal with educators. The GN plans to hire 14 more janitors to handle pressure put on school infrastructure caused by a growing student population.

The department will decide where to add the new positions later this year, after the deadline for elementary and high school teachers to sign their contracts passes in May.

Christa Kunuk, chair of the Iqaluit district education authority, said her organization is grateful to see the hiring initiative.

But she's skeptical of whether the positions are completely new, or simply transfers from within the government employee roster.

"We're hoping we can work with the department of education on this," Kunuk said. "There's a very desperate need for more resources and more people. We'll be pushing for our share."

Picco's "fundamental shift" in education will touch on post-secondary education, as well.

Picco said the approved budget will act on the Aaqqigiarniq or Time to Move Forward report that laid out 75 recommendations to improve Nunavut Arctic College.

The new budget reinstates $1.3 million in base funding for the college that was lost in previous cuts.

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