NITC is getting ready for a busy fall. We’ll be completing and publishing our Five Year Strategic Goals, meeting with NTI and the governments of Canada and Nunavut on the implementation of Article 23, and of course working with our partner organizations to develop their training plans and programs.

Fall is also back-to-school time. I would like to personally recognize and congratulate the 170 students who are pursuing their post secondary studies this fall with the support of the Nunavut Beneficiaries Scholarship. You are the future of Nunavut…and with your contribution I know that future will be a bright one.

We welcome your comments on this newsletter, or on NITC in general. Please feel free to visit the training forum (http://www.nitc.ca/english/talkback-feedback.html), and let us know what you think.

I hope you enjoy our second newsletter!

Peter Kritaqliluk, Chairperson

Welcome to the second edition of our NITC quarterly newsletter. I hope everyone had a good summer, and that you all found the right balance of family time, vacation time, and work.

The last year has been an interesting one at NITC. As you read in our last newsletter, we’ve been preparing our strategic goals, looking at both our past and future. At our past, to figure out what our successes have been and at the lessons we’ve learned: and at our future, to set directions for our second decade of implementation.

One of the things we’ve been reviewing is NITC’s basic approach to its mandate. As we plan for our future, I thought I would use this opportunity to answer a common question about our approach.

Many people have asked us over the years why NITC doesn’t provide training directly, like a college. Here’s why.

NITC is funded by the Nunavut Implementation Training Trust, a $13 M. fund created under the Claim. That fund is the source of NITC’s operating budget, of our contribution to the scholarship funds, and of all the funding we provide to DIOs and IPGs. That’s the resource NITC has to work with.

The planners who designed NITC’s training plan had to decide how best to use that resource for training in the key areas related to the Claim. Several hundred DIO, IPG and government jobs were going to be created under the Claim…how could NITC best use the Training Trust to ensure, through training, that a fair proportion of those jobs would go to Inuit?

NITC staff and Board considered many different options. One was designing and delivering a series of workshops and courses in key areas. This was the approach taken by ATII, a highly successful, Inuit-run training organization that offered workshops in specific topics from 1986 to 1993.

But they quickly realized that this approach wouldn’t work at NITC, for several reasons.

• The diversity of needs was too great. Implementation of the Land Claim Agreement is going to require trained Inuit managers, biologists, Board members, administrators, GIS technicians, policy makers, and the dozens of other professionals. The Training Trust would not be adequate to develop training in all those areas.

• The Implementation of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement is an ongoing and long-term process. By using the Trust to design and deliver intensive training in the early years of Implementation, NITC might have met some short-term needs. But the need for training within IPGs and DIOs will continue to grow, and NITC needed a way to ensure that need could be met in the long term.
• Other organizations …notably Arctic College…were already mandated to act as a provider of education and training services for Nunavut.

So NITC adopted a more strategic approach. Instead of trying to become a training institution, NITC encourages the DIOs and IPGs themselves to become training organizations. NITC does that by:

• Providing them with funding to conduct training needs assessments, develop training plans, and establish annual training systems, policies and procedures within their organizations: and,
• Providing funding for training programs, events and courses they identified through training needs assessments.

Thus, we prepare our client organizations to identify and meet their own training needs. Training works best when it addresses the real needs of real people in a specific job. A generic workshop in Board governance, for example, can transfer some skills, and result in valuable learning: but a workshop developed for and delivered to a specific Board can address their real needs and problems much more effectively.

But more important…by creating training systems within our partner organizations, we encourage them to build training into their annual planning and budgeting cycles. Training then becomes an ongoing and permanent part of each organization, and Nunavummiut entering the workforce are assured of training that is effective and based on their real needs.

So instead of becoming a training organization, our approach has been to create training organizations. This is part of NITC’s broader goal of promoting a “culture of training” within all the organizations responsible for implementation.

Lorne Kusugak,

Chief Executive Officer

• It was a busy summer for NITC staff, who travelled across Nunavut to meet with DIOs and IPGs, promote NITC’s programs and services, and work on organizational training plans. Partner groups visited included the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, the Qikiqtaaluk Wildlife Board, the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the Nunavut Water Board, and others.
• NITC’s first published Annual Report is now online at website. You can view it or download it at http://www.nitc.ca. You can also request a hard copy by calling our offices, or emailing a request to Charlotte at nitckut@arctic.ca.
• Speaking of the website…NITC’s site seems to have been a hit…or several hits. 30,000 hits, in fact. That’s how many people have visited the site since its launch in June. One respondent, Linda George (a training consultant in Ottawa) wrote to tell us that “…I think your new website is BRILLIANT!” We’ve just uploaded some new resources, so stick around and visit.
• We’d like to say an appreciative “goodbye, and thank you” to departing Board member Joanasie Akumalik of Arctic Bay, who represented the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. As a facilitator, trainer, and consultant with extensive experience in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, Joanasie contributed greatly to the organization during his term.
• We are also very pleased to welcome our newest Board member, Paul Quassa, appointed by QIA. Paul has been deeply involved in the negotiation and Implementation of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, initially as senior negotiator, and more recently as President of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. Paul is also one Nunavut’s best-known broadcasters, and is currently seen weekly as producer and host of Qaggiq, IBC’s flagship current affairs program.
• The Kitikmeot Inuit Association has made a new Board appointment to NITC. Mary Panegyuk Coady was appointed to serve on the NITC Board over the next three years to August 31, 2006.

The last stage of any training program or event is the evaluation. You know, the boring part at the very end of the seminar, where you’re ready to leave but they make you fill out a one page form, and you struggle to remember what you liked most or least, and wonder what kind of comments they’re looking for under “comments”…should you complain that there was no tea?

It’s too bad that most evaluations stop there. It’s too bad because only a real evaluation can tell you whether or not the training actually worked.

Here are some pointers to help make sure that you get something meaningful out of your training project evaluations.

More than just a form…

Training evaluations should measure three things:

• Reaction: How did the trainee feel about the training experience? (That’s what they’re trying to measure with that form).
• Learning: Did the trainee actually acquire the skills and knowledge that the course or workshop was supposed to teach? (If the purpose of your training was to learn double-entry bookkeeping…did you learn it? Can you now actually keep a set of books?)
• Application: Is the trainee actually using the newly acquired the skills or knowledge in his/her workplace?

You can see how these three levels of evaluation differ from each other, and why each is important. It’s possible to have a really good time in a training session, and leave with a very positive feeling…but not actually learn what you went there to learn! That’s why Learning and Application must be evaluated as well.

Evaluating Reaction

Reaction evaluation is the easiest and most common form of training evaluation. It is usually measured during or immediately after a training event or program. It can help you correct problems in the program, or identify individual training needs. Some common ways of evaluating trainee reaction...

• a post-workshop questionnaire
• a weekly reaction sheet
• a suggestion box
• trainer observation
• a third-party observer
• a trainee’s committee, formed specifically to give regular feedback to the trainers, and act as trainee spokespeople

Evaluating Learning

In order to evaluate learning, you must be sure that the training session’s original objectives were very clear, defining exactly what trainees would be able to do at the end of the training session. If workshop objectives are clear and measurable, then evaluation is easy: you simply test to determine whether or not participants can do what the learning objectives said they’d be able to.

What were the objectives? Can the participant accurately describe financial management systems within the Government of Nunavut? Or type 90 words per minute with 100% accuracy? Or take a correct GPS reading?

Some ways of measuring Learning:

• written tests: useful for evaluating transfer of knowledge or information. You need to ensure that all trainees have the required language skills to respond: offer the option of verbal testing for those for whom English is a second language.
• demonstration: have the trainees actually perform the skill you’ve been teaching.
• assignment: give trainees an assignment that requires that they demonstrate mastery of the workshop content.

Evaluating Application:

This means determining whether the trainee is actually using their newly acquired the skills or knowledge in his/her workplace.

Sometimes the trainer has little control over this. Supervisors may not allow trainees the opportunity to apply their new skills in the workplace; or the learner’s working situation may change.

However, a consistent failure on the part of trainees to apply their learning “back home” sends an important message to the training program designer. Maybe the needs assessment failed to identify a trainee’s real needs: or maybe course content is inappropriate or out of date.

It’s therefore essential that some effort be made to assess application.

Some tools to assess application:

• a follow-up questionnaire, written or conducted as a telephone interview, directed to the trainees three to six months after completion of the training program, inviting them to re-assess the value of the course content, and make suggestions about what additional content should be included.
• a follow-up questionnaire, written or conducted as a telephone interview, to the trainees’ employer, inviting them to comment on the degree to which the trainee has used his/her new skills in the workplace.

To Sum Up:

That evaluation form at the end of the workshop can be useful, and trainers can often learn from the trainee feedback they receive. But those forms don’t answer the most critical question…Did It Work? Whether you’re a DIO or IPG manager who is trying to provide training to his/her staff, a trainer delivering a workshop, or a trainee who’s investing time in a workshop…that’s the only question that ultimately matters.

And that’s why evaluating Reaction, Learning, AND Application are essential.

Atuqtuarvik Corporation is an investment and loan fund created by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) and Nunavut Trust to help ensure direct Inuit participation in major economic opportunities. The Corporation provides loans and equity investments to Inuit owned businesses for the purpose of business startups, acquisition and expansion.

Through a specially designed, NITC-sponsored initiative, beneficiaries Dorothy Merritt and Tracy Wallace are being trained for the positions of Financial Manager and Account Manager.

Both Dorothy and Tracy will embark on multi-year training programs that will provide a comprehensive combination of “on-the-job” training and credit courses to obtain the internationally recognized AICB Designation, through a training protocol agreement with NITC.

Dorothy Merritt supports the Controller in the effective management and control of the Atuqtuarvik Corporation Investment and Loan Fund. She will be responsible for supporting the day-to-day administration of the Corporations’ financial, human resources and administrative systems, and for supporting the Controller in the development, implementation and refinement of systems to protect the assets of the Corporation and coordinate personnel and administrative functions of the Corporation. Prior to joining Atuqtuarvik Corporation, Dorothy worked for the Government of N.W.T. and Nunavut as the Systems Coordinator, where she was responsible for coordinating the development, maintenance and technical support of Information systems.

• The NITC Board will be meeting to review, amend and approve draft strategic goals for the organization. We’ll publish a summary in our next newsletter…watch our website for more details!
• More travel and consultation with partner organizations is coming up in the fall, with visits planned to the Nunavut Impact Review Board and the Kivalliq Wildlife Board.
• NITC’s own staff are practicing what they preach. Roxanne Sateana will be pursuing the Management Studies Program at Arctic College this fall, while Donna Adams is working on her Diploma Program in Adult Education from St. Francis Xavier University.
• A major national conference on Land Claims implementation will be taking place this fall in Ottawa. From November 11 to 14, 2003, the “Redefining Relationships" conference will bring together over 200 leaders, negotiators, policy makers, practitioners and academics from across Canada and internationally to discuss the future of Land Claims Implementation in Canada. There will be a special working session on capacity building and training, as well as sessions on resource management, self government, funding and fiscal relationships, economic development, social and cultural issues, and wildlife harvesting and management. The Conference will be co-chaired by Joe Kunuk and Richard Nerysoo, and include presentations from Inuit and First Nations land claims groups from across Canada. Check out http://www.consilium.ca/alcc for more information.
• An important note to all Nunavut students…don’t forget the deadline for applying to the Nunavut Scholarship for the winter term is DECEMBER 15th. Applications for the winter term are being accepted now. You can download an application from this site at http://www.nitc.ca/english/tools-froms.html.