Education and Economic Factors

Meaningful wage-employment, economic stability, and a healthy work environment are associated with good health. Therefore it is significant that for persons aged 20-54 in Nunavut, the 2006 census reported the Inuit unemployment rate at 20.8 per cent and the
non-Aboriginal employment rate at 3.9 per cent.

Income is an important determinant of health, yet no health study to date has remarked on the biggest ethnic gap between rich and poor in a single jurisdiction in Canada. The largest income differential between two ethnic groups in a province or territory is the gap between Inuit and non-Inuit in Nunavut, where 2001 Statistics Canada figures show the average Inuit income was $13,090 and the average non-Inuit income was $50,128—a gap of $37,038.19

For formal education to be worthwhile, it must be meaningful and relevant to students and parents. It must equip its students with the foundational knowledge and skills to function in society, enable them to participate in their community, and increase opportunities for employment.

Education -- Transform YOUR World One Child at a Time

With a 25 per cent graduation rate, Nunavut’s institutional education system ranks as the most ineffective in Canada. The average Aboriginal graduation rate in Canada is 54 per cent and, as Thomas Berger noted, “Only 25% of Inuit children graduate from high school, and by no means all of these graduates go on to post-secondary education.”
In 2006, 30 per cent of Inuit in the territory (aged 25-64) completed some type of postsecondary training. About 10 per cent completed a trades program, 18 per cent had a college diploma while three per cent completed university.

According to Berger, “In my judgement the failure of the school system has occurred most of all because the education system is not one that was set up for a people speaking Inuktitut. It is a bilingual system in name only, one that produces young adults who, by and large, cannot function properly in either English (because they never catch up with the English curriculum) or Inuktitut (because they learn only an immature version of their first language before switching to English).
There has been some improvement in Inuit achievement in school in recent years. There is, however, no steady arc of improvement. In fact, there is a danger of a falling back, a danger that Inuktitut will continue to lose ground, and the sense of loss in
Nunavut will become pervasive.”

Training and Education: Nunavut was created on the understanding that Inuit would assume a major role in running their government at all levels, with education services and training programs available to make this happen. It is clear from what many have said that this objective is far from being realized. Training programs for government staff who need them are rare and, as Berger reported, the public school system has much to do to prepare young people to assume highly skilled jobs. The GN must make an approach to the federal government for funding arrangements that allow for a more aggressive training regime within government over a much longer period of time than was previously contemplated at the time the NLCA was signed.