M’CHIGEENG— Kenjgewin Teg Educational Institute (KTEI) has been forging new paths in education since its foundation and now the institution has been recognized as a provincial centre of excellence in the delivery of Indigenous early education.
“Well, yes and no,” laughed KTEI Executive Director Stephanie Roy. “We are a co-lead for a centre of excellence with the Ontario Aboriginal Head Start Association (OAHSA).”
Ms. Roy explained that the province had issued a call for proposals for three centres of excellence, a francophone, provincial system and an Indigenous based centre. “They put out the call in Early Years and we certainly supported OAHSA’s proposal,” said Ms. Roy. “We were very happy to hear that OAHSA’s proposal had been selected and we are prepared to integrally support their efforts.”
As an Indigenous educational institution that currently offers courses in early childhood education and the operator of a five-year developmental Anishinaabe emersion primary school program, KTEI is a great fit with OAHSA.
The other partner currently at the table is the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre, but as the two-year centre of excellence program moves forward and develops, other partners will be taking a seat at that table.
“The centre of excellence is two-fold, one is supporting the journey together and comes out of the province’s recently released report on how they can move forward with reconciliation,” noted Ms. Roy. “One of the key sectors is in early learning.”
The other side of the fold is “really about sharing best practices, providing resources and professional learning opportunities as they relate to early learning,” noted Ms. Roy.
“This is great news,” said Manitoulin-Sudbury District Services Board (MSDSB) CAO Fern Dominelli following a recent board meeting.
“The ministry is pleased to announce that the following candidates, who will be working in collaboration with multiple partners from across the province, have been selected to lead the provincial, Indigenous and Francophone Centres of Excellence: Provincial Centre of Excellence-Western University and Ontario Reggio Association; Indigenous Centre of Excellence-Ontario Aboriginal Head Start Association and Kenjgewin Teg Education Institute, and Francophone Centre of Excellence-College Boreal and Association francophone a l’education des services a l’enfance de l’Ontario,” wrote Shannon Fuller, assistant deputy minister of Early Years and Child Care Division with the Ministry of Education in a memo to the DSB board.
Ms. Fuller indicted that “a Secretariat will be established to coordinate province-wide planning amongst the three Centres of Excellence and ensure effective and consistent approaches in implementing goals for professional learning that embrace the unique vision of each Centre of Excellence. The secretariat will have members that balance regional and group-specific needs and strengths with a vision for supporting professional learning aligned with How Does Learning Happen?” Ms. Fuller went on to explain that, once established, the centres of excellence will support alignment with ‘How Does Learning Happen?’, Ontario’s Pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching, especially as relates to an academic subject or theoretical concept) for the Early Years and will: “promote cohesion in pedagogical approaches and practices across early year programs; build the pedagogical leadership capacity of program staff in the early years sector through innovative models and strategies that are grounded in current research and result in positive, inclusive and culturally relevant early years experiences for all children and their families and create linkages to and/or develop professional learning resources that are responsive to the needs of the sector and accessible online through a Centre of Excellence portal.”
