As the newly elected Chairperson of NITC, I am delighted to welcome you to the Fall Edition of our newsletter.

Let me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Paul (Aarulaq) Quassa. I am originally from the Ammituq region, and was born in Maniituq, just north of the community of Igloolik. For thirteen years of my youth, I attended the qallunaaqtitut educational system, and completed my grade twelve in 1973.

Since then, I have had a very diverse career. I have worked as a broadcaster, a Land Claims Negotiator from 1985-1993, and as a journalist, both on radio and television. I also had the privilege of serving two terms as President of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated.

Today I am living in my home community of Igloolik, working with Igloolik Isuma Productions, the award winning Film Company that produced the masterpiece, “Atanajuat, the Fast Runner”, and is now developing a number of exciting film projects.

But there is one thread that has run through all my work…a commitment to training and education. I attended educational institutions for well over thirteen years and I took vocational schooling for a year in Churchill , Manitoba and attended Legal Studies with Arctic college. I have always believed in the importance of training for Inuit, and have promoted training whenever and wherever I can.

Rights acquired through the Claim
to land, water and resources have
no impact without trained Inuit to
manage and govern.

During the land claims negotiations, I took the position that institutional support for training in Nunavut was an absolutely crucial component of our Claim. The creation of hundreds of new jobs wasn't going to matter if there was no training in place to ensure that Inuit would be able to access them, and thus achieve a representative level of Inuit employment within the Nunavut government.

On top of that, rights acquired through the Claim to land, water and resources would have no impact without trained Inuit to manage and govern.

That's why we insisted during negotiations on the creation of an Implementation Training Trust, and of the NITC itself.

I have always believed that training is the long-term key to the Land Claim's success. To me, that is not just a theory. I have seen the impact of effective training first hand. I witnessed the creation of an entire Inuit workforce and industry in Nunavut - the communications sector - all brought about through talent, commitment, and, above all, training. I've seen the impact and effectiveness of our Boards of Directors improve year after year. And I've watched with pride as the number of Inuit students in post secondary educational programs rises annually.

These are the kinds of activity that NITC was created to promote, and they have been doing it successfully for over ten years now. I give credit for that to NITC's staff, and also to the outstanding work done by my predecessor, Peter Kritaqliluk. Under Peter's leadership, NITC has expanded its programs to provide a whole new level of service to its client organizations.

I look forward to talking to you about our plans, our goals, and our accomplishments through this newsletter every three months: and I also look forward to receiving your comments and suggestions.

Paul Quassa
Chairperson, NITC

Under the terms of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, NITC is required to conduct an independent evaluation of its operations every five years. The first evaluation was conducted in 1999: we are now in the process of finalizing the second evaluation, and its findings and recommendations will be published on our website upon completion.

In this second evaluation, we wanted to measure answer four key questions about NITC's operation.

• Relevance : are NITC's programs and services still relevant to our clients?
  
  
• Success : to what extent is NITC actually achieving the goals it has set for itself? What is NITC's actual impact?
  
  
• Design and Delivery : how effectively are NITC's programs and services delivered?
  
  
• Cost effectiveness : Are there alternatives for delivery that would result in more cost effective management?

To answer these questions, the evaluators conducted a survey of all our client groups, held interviews with more than thirty stakeholders, and reviewed program files, records, policies and procedures dating back to the beginning of our organization. At this point the research has been completed, and our Board is reviewing the preliminary findings.

In 2000, NITC spent more
than $2.00 to administer
every $1.00 that it provided
to students. Today, NITC
now spends less than fifty
cents for every scholarship
dollar issued.

While the final report has not yet been released, I'd like to take this opportunity to share one of those findings with our readership: it provides an interesting and encouraging comment on our work.

Among other things, we asked the evaluators to determine the ratio of NITC expenditures to funding contributions…in other words, to tell us how cost effectively we are managing our funds.

The findings in this area were very positive. Let's take the Nunavut Beneficiaries' Scholarship Program as an example.

The following table illustrates the ratio between grants and the cost of administering the program. It should be noted that this ratio has improved tremendously over the last years.

What does this mean? In 2000, NITC spent more than $2.00 to administer every $1.00 that it provided to students. Today, just four years later, the ratio has been reversed: NITC now spends less than fifty cents for every scholarship dollar issued.

The same ratio is true of our other five funding programs. In fact, our total operating expenses have declined for the last three consecutive years, while the total amount of grants and contributions issued has increased significantly.

Bottom line: we are doing more, with less, and doing it better. Our level of staffing has actually declined over the period of the evaluation; but with that reduced staff, we are issuing more grants and contributions, administering them more efficiently, and processing requests for funding more speedily than ever before. NITC can now respond to a funding request in as little as two days.

The evaluation looks at a number of NITC's Following final completion of the evaluation, our Board will discussing ways to integrate the findings and recommendations of the evaluation into our strategic plan. In our next newsletter I'll provide you with a report on the changes you can expect to see at NITC as a result of the evaluation.

Lorne Kusugak,
Chief Executive Officer

• At our September Board of Directors meeting, the NITC Board elected a new Executive Committee. Our new Chairperson is Paul Quassa of Igloolik, former president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., broadcaster, journalist, negotiator, and one of the original framers of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Hugh Nateela, appointed by the Kivalliq Inuit Association, will be taking over the Vice Chairperson's job: Hugh is Community Liaison Officer for KIA in Baker Lake . Anna Qaunaq, appointed by Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, assumes the position of Secretary Treasurer; she is currently Municipal Liaison Officer for the Hamlet of Arctic Bay, and has served as the Chair of the District Education Authority, and as President of Taqqut Cooperative.
  
  Our sincere gratitude to the outgoing Executive members, with thanks for a job well done, and our best wishes to the new officers.
  
  
• In addition to the new Executive, NITC welcomes our new Board member from the Nunavut Trust, Archie Angnakak. Archie is President of Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping Inc., a veteran consultant, manager and broadcaster and from Iqaluit, with extensive experience in training and organizational development.
  
  
• Our second annual report has just been published, and is available in either hard copy or digital versions. You can obtain a printed copy by writing to NITC, or simply by visiting our office. You can also read and download the digital version here.
  
  
• NITC's Program Officer, Donna Adams, has left the organization to join Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. As Program Officer, she worked closely with DIOs and IPGs to help them identify needs, develop options, and access NITC's programs and services smoothly. Her energy and commitment to the organization helped NITC to build the positive relationships we now enjoy with our clients. Donna will be working on the Nunavut Harvesters Support Program, and we are confident they will benefit from her expertise and professionalism as much as NITC has.
  
  
• NITC held its Fall Board of Directors meeting in Iqaluit, September 9 th .

In the last newsletter we discussed the various training approaches available to DIOs and IPGs for meeting their internal training needs. These included:

1. Mentorships
2. Arctic College Courses or other institutional courses
3. Distance Education (web based instruction, CD-ROM or DVD packages)
4. In-house workshops by outside or internal resource people
5. Assigned readings
6. Research projects
7. Practical supervised in-house work/learning assignments
8. Group discussions
9. External work placements
10. Participation in training being delivered in-house by another organization

Faced with those options, training managers are faced with the question…which method works best?

There is no one answer (of course!) - but there area questions that training designers ask themselves in order to decide which method will best meet a specific training need.

1. What options are actually available to us?

Look realistically at your real alternatives. A web based course from Queen's may seem like the perfect solution to a training need – but only if your community has high speed internet access. Forget it in Chesterfield Inlet. Mentorship programs are great: but is there a mentor available with the time, the interest, the commitment, and the skills necessary to do a good job?

Examine the options, and decide which ones are simply not realistic in your particular circumstances.

2. How much money can we spend on training?

Seminars and workshops by outside trainers and facilitators can be effective: they also tend to be expensive. Look for less expensive alternatives. For instance, there may be someone in house with all the skills and knowledge you need who would be interested in mentoring a new employee or providing a workshop for your staff.

3. What kind of training best matches the need?

Physical skills and processes are usually best taught by demonstration, observation and practice. That suggests using mentorships, skills demonstrations or internal assignments. However, knowledge-based training needs are often best met through reading or classroom-style learning.

Don't try to train someone to build a house by giving them a CD-ROM; don't try to teach someone accounting with a group discussion. Think about the kind of training need you're dealing with, and make sure the training method is appropriate for that kind of need.

4. How widely shared is the need?

If only one person in your office needs to learn a specific skill, it may be enough to provide them with some assigned readings, or a work assignment with a mentor designed to allow them to develop the required competence. However, if several people share the same training need, it may be more effective to organize a seminar or workshop.

5. How urgent is the need?

There's an advantage to using post secondary institutions to meet your training needs: the quality of instruction is generally high, materials are appropriate, and trainees get recognition and certification for their learning. However, some training needs are urgent, and cannot wait for a specific course date, it may be necessary to identify the specific, high priority needs and meet those through one-on-one instruction, while waiting for a longer term training opportunity.

6. How does the trainee learn best?

Every adult has a slightly different learning style. That's not a matter of choice or preference: it's simply a fact that everyone learns in a different way. Some people do best in a classroom or workshop setting: some acquire information more efficiently by reading, or by doing.

Effective training requires some awareness of the trainees' learning styles and preferences.

Those are some of the considerations you should keep in mind when considering how a specific learning need should be met. Here's a simple rule of thumb to sum it all up:

“From all the available options, select the method that will achieve the learning objectives most quickly, and with the least expense.”

• A reminder that the Nunavut Beneficiaries Scholarship is now accepting applications for the Winter 2004 semester.
  
  
• NITC's second five-year evaluation is currently being completed. Findings and recommendations will be published online at our website upon completion