Nunavut schools to gain 10 positions overall for next year

Nunavut schools will see an overall increase of 10 educator positions for the 2016/2017 school year, but some parents are unconvincedthe increase will result in any meaningful change.

"Of course more teachers is a good thing," said Franco Buscemi, a father of three school-aged children in Iqaluit,

"But it's because there are more students, so it's just to keep the status quo and keep the ratios the same."

Nunavut has the fifth lowest student-educator ratio in the country,with 13.1 students for every one educator. That's below the national average which is 13.8 to one.

The ratiodoes not reflect classsizes. It includesprincipals, vice-principals, guidance counsellors and librarians in its countofeducators. It also only counts students who attended school in September of the preceding school year.

The change in educator positions for next year is the result of fluctuations in student populations in different communities, with some communities gaining teachers and others losing them.

Although the overall trend across the territory is positive, Buscemi says it doesn't go far enough.

"The education system, I think, really needs to include non-attendees so schools are properly resourced to encourage better attendance." said Buscemi.

Nunavut's assistant deputy minister of Education, John MacDonald, saidthe process for tracking how many students attend school and, accordingly, the amount of funding and number ofeducator positions each community gets, is by no means perfect.

"Nobody can argue it would be a bad thing to provide more funding and staffing positions to schools,"saidMacDonald.

"The reality is, though, we have constraints in what we are able to do."

MacDonald said working with children and their parents to better understand the value of school attendance is a focus but spending limited resources on absent students is ultimately not productive.

"There is an opportunity for basically every school and every community to receive more teaching positions if we can, as I have said before, collectively get together and work on getting students who aren't in school, in school." said MacDonald.