GRU, Alm.del - 2019-20 - Bilag 50: ICC´s - (Inuit Circumpolar Council - input til Kongeriets Artiske Strategi 2021-2030

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GRU Alm.del Bilag 50
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OUTCOME DOCUMENT

INUIT EDUCATION SUMMIT

Nuuk, Greenland 13-15 February 2018

Responding

to a call in 2014 by Inuit leaders from Chukotka, Alaska, Canada, and

Greenland to education experts and practitioners to convene in a summit focussed on

Inuit education prior to the 2018 General Assembly of the Inuit Circumpolar Council

(ICC);

Recalling

specific related mandates given by Inuit leaders at the 2014 ICC General

Assembly, through the

Kitigaaryuit Declaration,

as follows:

Article 43.

Mandate

ICC leadership to promote educational exchanges,

share best educational practices, and host a summit of experts and

practitioners from across the circumpolar Arctic to recommend ways to

develop or enhance culturally appropriate curriculum;

Article 44.

Support

training, recruitment, and retention programs for

Inuit in all professions;

Article 45.

Mandate

ICC leadership to continue its promotion and

leadership of projects and initiatives to strengthen the Inuit language,

including the

Assessing, Monitoring, and Promoting Arctic Indigenous

Languages

project through the Arctic Council;

Thankful

to ICC Greenland for the opportunity of meeting here in Nuuk 13-15 February

2018 to share positive Inuit-focussed education polices and strategies, as well as our

education challenges across Inuit Nunaat;

Recalling

the ILO Convention 169 and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous

Peoples which affirm the rights of Inuit to establish and control their educational

systems and institutions appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning;

Further Recalling

that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child asserts the rights of

children to a quality education at the highest levels;

Acknowledging

that each Inuit region in Chukotka, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland have

different colonial histories resulting in different educational challenges across the

circumpolar Arctic;

Further acknowledging

the numerous similarities facing Inuit and their educational

institutions, grounded in their shared culture, history, and world views, are important

starting points to share best educational practices, develop enhanced culturally

appropriate curricula and learning resources, and jointly conceive and implement

successful Inuit-focussed educational policies;

GRU, Alm.del - 2019-20 - Bilag 50: ICC´s - (Inuit Circumpolar Council - input til Kongeriets Artiske Strategi 2021-2030

Celebrating

the resilience of Inuit, our culture, and our demonstrated successes in

educational approaches and adaptability in the midst of dominant cultures and in the

face of a rapidly-changing world;

Understanding

that new educational approaches by Inuit educators must include both

Inuit-focussed pedagogies and innovative educational approaches adapted from wider

global research and proven methods;

Agreeing

that the Inuit language and the challenges it faces from second- or foreign-

language speakers within our lands, territories, and culture is the key and most

important component of any Inuit-focussed educational policies that Inuit may wish to

further or develop;

Acknowledging

that disparities are sustained through colonizing pedagogy and that

institutional biases result in the predictability of student performance, Inuit lag far

behind others in dominant cultures in terms of formal educational success and in some

cases this lag has achieved near crisis levels;

Understanding

that among the many ways of helping improve graduation rates is to

address the significant socio-economic disparities faced by Inuit;

Further Understanding

that other ways to improve graduation rates is to address

cultural and linguistic disparities;

Celebrating

the incredible depth and breadth of knowledge and wisdom held by Inuit

elders and others who continue to be the most important teachers Inuit have;

Mindful

of the need to find innovative ways of accrediting our elders and other Inuit

knowledge holders amongst us so that they may be certified as the competent and

invaluable teachers that they truly are, within the larger educational environments that

all Inuit live in today;

Acknowledging

that as Inuit

we know best what is best for our children and as such we

can and should define what teacher credentialing processes and post-secondary

requirements in teacher preservice programs should consist of to ensure our worldview

and perspectives is an integral part;

Building

on Inuit educational approaches, pedagogies, and models that successfully

integrate the sciences, arts, humanities, and other disciplines into the natural and

familiar environments that Inuit children live in;

Mindful

of the need to foster much greater growth in post-secondary training that is

both appropriate for Inuit and which will allow Inuit individuals and communities to take

advantage of wider global opportunities and to do so by gaining a better understanding

of the role that mastering both primary and globally-dominant languages play in

attaining this goal;

GRU, Alm.del - 2019-20 - Bilag 50: ICC´s - (Inuit Circumpolar Council - input til Kongeriets Artiske Strategi 2021-2030

WE, THE PARTICIPANTS AT THE INUIT EDUCATION SUMMIT, AGREE THAT WE WILL:



Transmit the Inuit worldview and knowledge to Inuit students in all the work we

do, whether it be through language of instruction or Inuit pedagogical methods;



Improve and enhance Inuit education systems at all levels, in particular early

childhood, middle, secondary, and post-secondary learning in ways that reflect

and strengthen our culture and give the best possible opportunities to Inuit;



Call upon the educational authorities and political bodies in our respective

regions to work with us in developing Inuit-focussed pedagogies that are

sufficiently funded and allow Inuit to determine how best to implement them;



Call upon the educational authorities and political bodies in our respective

regions to provide for sufficient funding for the development of Inuit-focussed

teaching materials.



Commit to include youth, elders, and parents in the development of innovative

Inuit-focussed educational initiatives;



Commit to develop fully-funded evaluation methods that use valid measures in

areas of language proficiency and knowledge acquisition across all levels of

education in each of Chukotka, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, and to do so in

comparable ways;



Commit to communicate with each other after leaving Nuuk by sharing

additional details of our own educational and pedagogical successes and

challenges and, when requested, assist each other in attaining our respective

educational and pedagogical goals;



Ask ICC to establish a forum and committee with membership from all Inuit

regions in order to help facilitate our commitment to communicate, share, and

assist each other in our common and respective educational responsibilities;



Ask ICC to develop funding mechanisms to establish a secretariat that would

enable the equitable sharing of educational resources across the circumpolar

regions in accessible languages or dialects and to find ways to overcome some

possible barriers such as copyright and jurisdictional challenges;



Ask ICC to prepare a report of this Education Summit to assist each country

office of ICC to work with their respective boards, memberships, and

educational institutions to prepare Inuit-focussed recommendations to the next

ICC General Assembly in Utqiaġvik, Alaska in July 2018;

AS AGREED BY INUIT GATHERED AT THE CIRCUMPOLAR INUIT EDUCATION SUMMIT

NUUK, GREENLAND

GRU, Alm.del - 2019-20 - Bilag 50: ICC´s - (Inuit Circumpolar Council - input til Kongeriets Artiske Strategi 2021-2030

15 FEBRUARY 2018