Nunavik set to launch its own version of Nunavut Sivuniksavut

Starting next year, students from Nunavik will be able to take college-level courses on Inuit history, politics and culture in the heart of Montreal.

Based on the long-running Nunavut Sivuniksavut program in Ottawa, the tentatively-named Nunavik Sivunitsavut program is set to begin in August2017 with between 10 and 15 students expected for the first class.

"Our focus will be Inuit history, land claims, Inuit identity, who we are today, intergovernmental relations and character and personality building," saidJason Annahatak, director of the Kativik School Board's post-secondary department.

"Empowering our students is going to be a big theme."

The program got the go-ahead after receiving $670,000 from the federal government's Post-Secondary Partnerships fund this month. The plan, however, has been in the works for more than a decade.

"Around 2005, 2006, some of the youth in our region began to notice that Nunavut Sivuniksavut was doing very well [so they] brought this idea to Nunavik leaders and said can you please start this for Nunavik," saidAnnahatak.

"It's essentially taken all of that time to come to this point to where we've received funding to develop it and launch it."

Creating partnerships

As with its Ottawa counterpart, which is associated with Algonquin College, Nunavik Sivunitsavut will workwith the CEGEP John Abbott College to offer college-level credits to itsstudents.

"They're the ones who will beallowing their name to be used as an institution that grants the credits," saidAnnahatak.

"Because John Abbot is a provincially-recognized post-secondary institution it's a very big CEGEP its partnership brings our program a lot of strength.

"If [students] want to do a second year of college, most of their credits will transfer and it'll allow them to transfer very easily into John Abbott or other college institutions in Montreal."

"For us it's exciting to be moving in a direction towards full representation of what a Canadian student body looks like," said Debbie Cribb, a communications officer with John Abbott.

"We have an Aboriginal student resource centre on site, and we have 70 students who are Aboriginal, Inuit or Mtis but we've never done something as big as this."

To be eligible for the program, students need to have finished high school and be beneficiaries of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. Classeswill likely happen in the Avataq Cultural Institute in downtown Montreal.

Similarities and Differences

Annahatak expects there to be many similarities between Nunavut SivuniksavutinOttawaand its Montreal successor, but there will alsobe differences.

"Naturally we want to give them a Nunavik flair, as our land claims and history are not exactly the same," said Annahatak.

"And we're in a Quebec context, so we're going to have to be conscious about how French fits in, and incorporate students who have gone to high school in French."

There's also the fact that the program isn't happening in a capital city. This means less political exposure for students. But, Annahatak added, "as a cultural centre, [Montreal] will still serve as a great place for our students to explore their culture and help share it with non-Inuit, and to help our students explore themselves and their own identity."

A striking need

Federal funding for the program only runs for two years, although the KativikSchool Board and other Nunavik organizations are working towardsecuring long-term funding.

"Our goal is to make it sustainable as long as 30 years, just like NS in Ottawa has gone," said Annahatak.

If need is anything to go by, Annahatak should have a solid argument. The most recent data available, from 2011, shows that only four per cent of the Nunavik population had attained a university diploma or a college or CEGEP certificate, and only one per cent held a university degree.

That's considerably lower than other Inuit Nunangat regions such as Nunavut, where around 15 per cent of the population had achieved some post secondary education certification in 2011, or Nunatsiavut, where the number was 18 per cent.

Along with securing the funding and nailing down selection criteria, there's one more crucial piece of the puzzle: finding a name.