19e Congrès d'études inuit

Published on October 31, 2014

 An ongoing experimentation of a students and teachers networking project in Nunavik

In Nunavik, the 14 communities are not linked to each other by roads, they are only accessible by plane. A primary school exists in each village and teachers from the small communities work in an isolated context. Since 2010, a project of implementation of a new technology to support the teacher training has been experimented in the communities of Puvirnituq and Ivujivik. The project aims to integrate distance session in the intercultural and trilingual teacher training which is developed since 1984. The relevance of the development of this new tool has been already demonstrated and the use of this technology is now taking varied formulas. In the perspective of improving the general schooling process and educational achievement of Inuit youth, the authors will demonstrate that a lot can be done to bring isolated communities closer. This paper will present how Inuit students and teachers are developing ways to connect and collaborate together: networking of the students to do team work, networking between students and the professor, networking of the pupils, networking of the co-management group.

Auteures : Glorya Pellerin et Véronique Paul, UQAT, et Sarah Angiyou, Puvirnituq

 How a school project began 30 years ago in the communities of Puvirnituq and Ivujivik and what succeeding teachers and other professional want nowadays.

In Nunavik, Inuit expressed their will for taking in charge the education of their youth at the end of the 1960s. The leaders of Puvirnituq and Ivujivik communities believed it was necessary to conceive, conduct and manage their own school project, based on the educational needs of their communities. In the 1970s, they created their School Committees (IPUIT). They developed an educational project centered on the training of the teachers and other school educational resources. The development of the Inuktitut curriculum was present among those objectives. Those 2 committees met regularly and in 1984, they presented their project and asked for support to the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT). UQAT and IPUIT agreed to collaborate. Through the years, the partners learned to work together and developed an intercultural management process of the activities. A partnership for educational development based on community level has been established since then.

Over the 30 years of this project, new teachers and other professional resources have replaced the first generation of participants. Today, they express their needs to learn more about the project history, in order to take ownership of the education project in the perspective of the community development. Then, there is a need to write down this history in order to help the current Inuit professional educators to identify their own goals for the future. This paper describes the comanagement process of the educational development project and point out some historical landmarks which will help to understand the context in which teachers or other educational resources are acting.

Auteures : Siaja Mangiuk, Ivujivik, Gisèle Maheux, Glorya Pellerin et Véronique Paul, UQAT

http://inuksiutiitkatimajiit.org/#meeting