Dene teacher education program gets boost from provincial government

A program training teachers to deliver education in the Dene language in northern communities got a funding boost this week from the Saskatchewan government.

The government is providing up to $255,000 to the First Nations University of Canada’s Dene Teacher Education Program, with the aim of educating Saskatchewan students in their first language. The program is expected to help improve student participation and graduation rates, and help teacher recruitment and retention in the north.

Gordon Wyant, Saskatchewan’s minister of advanced education, said the program is the only one of its kind in the country.

“Currently, La Loche and the Clearwater River Dene Nation are the only communities in Canada where Dene students can learn in their first language from elementary school to post-secondary,” Wyant said in a statement.

The program is a partnership between the provincial government, First Nations University of Canada, University of Regina, Clearwater River Dene Nation and Northern Lights School Division, and helps advance the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for the creation of university and college programs in Indigenous languages.

Half of the program is funded by the Dene Nation and school division, with the provincial government covering the other half.

In a statement accompanying the funding announcement, Dr. Jacqueline Ottmann, president of the First Nations University of Canada, said the program will help keep alive the language — and the wisdom it contains.

“We have a collective responsibility, as demonstrated in this collaboration, to ensure that Indigenous languages survive as valuable Indigenous knowledges are embedded within them,” Ottmann said.

“This very important program not only meets the language learning needs of Dene people in the North, it also is a real response to a TRC Call to Action.”