Province shelves plans for teacher exchange program

The Manitoba government has shelved plans to organize teacher exchanges to address workforce shortages and give urban and northern professionals an opportunity to learn from one another.

The now-defunct teacher interchange committee was created to bring together bureaucrats, school leaders from Winnipeg and northern Manitoba and representatives from Gakino’amaage: Teach for Canada in 2024-25.

Gakino’amaage, a national non-profit organization, works with First Nations to help them recruit, prepare and support working educators.

As of January 2025, the partners were eyeing opportunities to set up public school teachers from Winnipeg with temporary placements in the North, internal documents show.

“While there was some interest shown from teachers during information sessions, no interchange teaching agreements were finalized,” a government spokesperson said in an email.

“The pilot is not being pursued further at this time.”

A department briefing note obtained through a freedom-of-information request indicates these work arrangements were being considered to address “critical teacher shortages” in the Frontier School Division in northern Manitoba.

It’s not uncommon for remote and semi-remote communities to have certified teacher vacancy rates between 30 to 50 per cent, it states.

A government spokesperson said the department is focusing on developing a broader strategy to recruit and retain Indigenous, northern and Indigenous-language teachers.

Tony Kreml, superintendent of Seven Oaks School Division, which was identified as a potential exchange partner, said that, along with filling vacancies, the hope was that participants in this pilot would gain new cultural and pedagogical perspectives.

Kreml called it “unfortunate” that no partnerships came to fruition, owing to limited interest. At the same time, he noted many teachers in Seven Oaks have young families and other commitments in Winnipeg.

“The key is to get student-teachers north who get the bug and stay. I really think that’s the key,” said Wayne Davies, a retired teacher who organizes practicum placements at the University of Winnipeg.

Motivated by his own transformative experience working at a First Nation school in the ’90s, and reconciliation, Davies has made it his mission to expose as many education students as possible to remote classrooms.

Over the last three years, he’s travelled with students to Nelson House, Cranberry Portage and Skownan, along with other remote destinations.

These trips are singlehandedly combating stereotypes students have about northern communities being dysfunctional and dangerous, he said.

“All we’ve got to do is we’ve just got to get them there. When they see the schools, they fall in love with them,” he said, noting one of his students is teaching in Red Sucker Lake after a successful placement in the community.

Gakino’amaage runs a two-week intensive summer training course to prepare teachers for working in northern Manitoba. The course — which had been proposed as part of the interchange pilot that never launched — includes virtual and in-person lessons about Indigenous languages and histories, as well as advice from Indigenous scholars.

Its leaders indicated the spring rollout of posting short-term placements, as well as the wildfire season, proved to be barriers for recruitment in 2024-25, but they’re optimistic about future collaborations in Manitoba.

“Even when we didn’t necessarily get the outcomes (we wanted) there’s still so much benefit that comes from any opportunity to be able to collaborate,” Katie Haire, manager of senior government relations and partnerships at Gakino’amaage, said.

Gakino’amaage president Deanna Matthews echoed those comments, saying the interchange working group marked the first time all of these groups met to brainstorm about a shared challenge.

Matthews touted temporary placements as a way for teachers at any point in their career to engage in land-based learning, community building and nurture their sense of adventure. Gakino’amaage aims to set teachers up in northern schools for one to two years to provide stability to host students and communities.

The duo plans to re-engage with local stakeholders during a summit that’s being organized for educational assistants in Winnipeg later this winter.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca