Deanna Matthews, head of Calgary-based organization Gakino’amaage: Teach For Canada, which places teachers in remote First Nations communities.Leah Hennel/The Globe and Mail
Sheryl White knew years ago that a teacher shortage was on the horizon for the school of more than 500 students she oversees in the God’s Lake Narrows First Nation, in Northern Manitoba.
Teachers from the community who had spent their careers at the school would soon be retiring, and the community did not have enough educators to replace them, says Ms. White, the director of education at the God’s Lake Narrows First Nation School Board.
Since then, she has visited job fairs at colleges and universities throughout the year hoping to entice graduates to teach at the school, with a $7,000 signing bonus along with other perks, such as two free annual trips to the south – most teachers choose to go to Winnipeg, Ms. White says – as well as fully furnished, subsidized housing.
“We don’t stop. We look year-round,” Ms. White says.
So far, the strategy is working. Of the 36 teachers at the school, 10 are from the community and rest are “non-local,” Ms. White says.
But even still, vacancies remain.
There has been no one to teach textile and industrial arts, food classes or music this year or last, Ms. White says.
The need for teachers is widespread in communities such as Ms. White’s.
Leah Hennel/The Globe and Mail
Data from Apply to Education, an online K-12 job board, show 18 per cent of available teaching positions are from First Nations, despite First Nations schools only making up approximately 3 per cent of schools in Canada.
Teacher shortages have been a persistent problem for remote First Nations communities, but this year is particularly bad because of the high cost of living, limited housing options and a comfort in staying closer to home for many recent graduates, among other issues, says Deanna Matthews, president of Gakino’amaage: Teach For Canada, an organization that works with northern First Nations to recruit and support teachers. The problem is exacerbated by the teacher shortage across the country.
Solving the teacher shortage in these communities is a matter of reconciliation, advocates for Indigenous education say, and would have huge economic benefits.
“If Indigenous communities don’t have qualified teachers, that’s an equity issue,” says Leyton Schnellert, co-lead of the Rural and Remote Teacher Education Program at the University of British Columbia. “That connects back to the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission], which is, how is it that we haven’t found a way to ensure that our Indigenous students have quality education?”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was struck to document the history and harms of the residential schools system and several of its calls to action directly address education, including closing the gaps in Indigenous children’s educational outcomes.
The high school graduation rate for Indigenous youth living on reserve is just 46 per cent, compared with 91 per cent of the non-Indigenous population, according to Statistics Canada.
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A wide gap also exists when it comes to postsecondary education, with 37 per cent of First Nations youth aged 19 to 30 having completed or recently attended a postsecondary program, compared with 72 per cent of non-Indigenous youth.
Closing the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth could have a massive economic effect.
The Centre for the Study of Living Standards, a non-profit organization in Ottawa, estimates that the cumulative economic benefits associated with closing the education gap over the 2021-2041 period could be as large as $233-billion.
A variety of measures could be adopted to help solve the teacher shortage in remote Indigenous communities, Ms. Matthews says.
“These pieces around student loan forgiveness, equity and benefits, even the northern living bonus, would make such a difference to reduce these barriers for a teacher that says, ‘I want to go, I’m not actually going to be losing money by going there,’” she says.
Last year, the federal government announced a program, set to be implemented this fall, that is expected to offer teachers up to $30,000 in student loan forgiveness over five years if they opt to work in rural and remote communities after graduation.
Incentivizing teachers to stay in a community for up to five years will help to address the problem of high turnover and its effects on students in many remote First Nations communities, says Mary Hill, the K–8 principal at Eenchokay Birchstick School in Pikangikum First Nation, in northwestern Ontario.
“They do take a little bit more time to get comfortable with teachers. So being able to keep teachers longer term, we’ve seen a great benefit with our students,” she says.
Last year, 10 teachers departed the school, but 15 hired through Gakino’amaage are in the community.
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Other barriers prevent teachers from choosing a remote community. For example, teachers in one province who might want to move to another for a period of a few years before returning risk interrupting their pensionable service and losing their seniority.
“That is absolutely an issue that should be looked at, and that’s because this is a national issue,” says Clint Johnston, president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, a national alliance of provincial and territorial teachers organizations. “There should be involvement at the national level to say, how do we facilitate and make sure that teachers can get where they want to go?” he says.
The teacher shortage across Canada, which Mr. Johnston says is at “crisis levels,” makes addressing the shortages in remote First Nations communities especially difficult.
“It has a huge impact,” Mr. Johnston says. “If there’s not enough teachers, unsurprisingly, many people will stay where they are, and most of the institutions that produce teachers are in relatively urban areas.”
At Gakino’amaage, the organization has begun partnering with school boards to facilitate leaves of absences for teachers who want to teach in the north, Ms. Matthews says.
That opportunity for teachers to gain the experience and professional development of teaching in the north, and the reciprocity between school boards and remote communities, will have significant benefits, Ms. Matthews says.
“That’s reconciliation in real time,” she says.
