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Education gap puts Inuit males at risk

“The results are unfortunate for men, for women and for society as a whole”

SARA MINOGUE

Click photo to enlarge
Seventeen girls and three boys graduated in May of this year from Nunavuk Sivuniksavut, a one-year pre-college academic program in Ottawa. (FILE PHOTO)

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“We were very surprised at how extensive the gender imbalance was, and also, how extensive it was in the technical programs,” said Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who completed the study this spring.

The Alaska study, called The Gender Gap at the University of Alaska, also found that more women than men return to college in their 30s or later, and that rural campuses are less likely to offer programs that attract males.

A similar pattern exists in Nunavut.

Statistics from the Financial Assistance for Nunavut Students office show that in the fall and winter sessions of the 2004-2005 school year, 258 women received funding to attend Nunavut Arctic College, southern colleges and universities and other northern colleges — almost exactly twice as many as the 130 men.

Another report on post-secondary education and labour market outcomes, released by the federal department of Indian and Northern Affairs in June, uses 2001 census data to show that Inuit women with post-secondary education have the highest female employment rates among Canadian aboriginal groups.

The trend is a problem for men and their communities because less educated men have a harder time finding jobs, are less likely to vote and are more likely to run into trouble with the law. The gender disparity can also present relationship problems.

“Marriage tends to stabilize young men and increases their labour force participation, their health and happiness, and even their life expectancy,” the Alaska report notes on page two.

“But less educated young men are less attractive marriage partners to the growing numbers of educated young women. The results are unfortunate for men, for women and for society as a whole.”

The report links the gender education gap to domestic violence, community wellness and, in the extreme, male suicide in rural Alaska.

Kleinfeld recommends creating more programs that are attractive to males and moving these programs out to the rural campuses. Those include protective services — such as law enforcement, emergency service workers and firefighters — as well as technical and engineering programs like computer repair, electrical, plumbing, maintenance and carpentry.

In some cases, it might just be a matter of re-branding programs that already exist.

The report compares the associate degree in community health, which was 88 per cent female 2003, to the associate degree in emergency services, which was 80 per cent male.

Both programs focus on the same thing: providing basic training in medical care for front-line response to medical issues. The term “community health worker,” however, is not considered manly enough to entice men into the program.

That’s a problem, the report said, because an aging population will create “an even greater demand for workers with medical training and physical strength.”

The report recognizes that the University of Alaska, like many institutions of higher education, design and offer programs based on the needs of the community, but it suggests that attracting more males into colleges “is in and of itself a social and economic need which should be taken into account in university enrollment planning.”

Changes are already underway to address the problem in Nunavut.

Nunavut Arctic College plans to start the first semester of a new internet technology program in January. That program is expected to attract mainly men.

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