A new independent review of Yukon’s education system is receiving pushback from advocates. 

Tosh Southwick, who worked on a 2023 progress report, said she “rolled her eyes” at the news of another review. 

“I think everybody in this territory could read any one of the many, many education reports that basically say the same thing over and over and over again,” Southwick said, of the review launched on Wednesday. “What we need is not more reports. We need action.” 

Ted Hupe, president of the territory’s teachers union, the Yukon Association of Education Professionals, echoed Southwick’s concerns. 

Auditor General reports from 2009 and 2019 flagged persistent achievement gaps, particularly among rural, Indigenous and special needs students — issues critics say remain unaddressed.

However, Education Minister Scott Kent defended the review, saying it fulfilled a key campaign promise.  

He said the four-member panel’s extensive education expertise will ensure the review is “thorough [and] inclusive.” The former auditor general’s reports will “play an important role,” he added. 

The panel’s final report is scheduled to be out by year end with interim reports in June and September. 

Department expands while schools served shrink

Beyond the scope of the review, critics are also targeting the education department’s structure. 

Hupe pointed to the growing disconnect: the expanding education department bureaucracy and the shrinking workload, with the First Nations School Board now managing a third of the territory’s schools.

“It has become such a big bureaucracy or a big organization that they’ve become more and more distant from the actual product, which is the students,” Hupe said.

Southwick agreed that the current structure is problematic. 

“We know that the Department of Education is bloated and that we need to shift the prioritization away from the department into the schools,” she said. 

Unlike provincial models, the Yukon’s education department plays a dual role as both policymaker and school board.

The panel’s mandate, or terms of reference, highlights the dual function as a structural situation that must be addressed.

Questions over panel representation

Hupe also expressed concern about the panelists, saying three are former education department employees, and none has taught in the Yukon. 

One of the panelists, Judy Arnold, acknowledged Hupe’s concern was “reasonable,” adding all of them had some teaching experience.

Arnold said the review’s end goal is an “implementation plan to move forward.”