IPED project organised a successful workshop on the future of Sámi education
The workshop was held online on 16-17 August 2021, and it gathered together practitioners, researchers, politicians and students from different countries and different levels of society.
Day 1
Tuija Turunen from University of Lapland opened the workshop with presenting the IPED project and the background of the project. After that, Hanna Outakoski from Umeå University gave a keynote speech with title "Future aspects of Sámi and Indigenous language education", where she discussed the topic from various perspectives, including technological aspects.
The programme continued with a panel discussion, that discussed the Needs of the Sámi educational sector in different levels, including schools, research, political and youth perspectives. The speakers of the panel were Anna-Karin Länta, head of the Sámi school board and head principal of the Sámi schools in Sweden, Lars Miguel Utsi, member of the Swedish Sámi Parliament, Pigga Keskitalo, university researcher from University of Lapland, Laila Alexandersen Nutti, university teacher and PhD student from Sámi university of Applied Sciences and Levi Karvonen from Sámi youth association Sáminuorra.
The next session was a workshop discussion about Identifying the needs of future Sámi education and educational research. The workshop was held in GatherTown workspace, where all workshop participants could move around to discuss in four different themed workstations: research initiatives, learner perspectives, teacher perspectives and content areas.
Next, Ylva Jannok Nutti from Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University of Applied Sciences addressed a keynote with tile "Future Sámi teacher education for the Sámi".
The programme continued with a workshop about Increasing Sámi linguistic and cultural knowledge, and sharing experiences, good examples and ideas in GatherTown workspace. In the end of the day, there was presentations to summarise the discussions of the workshops.
Day 2
The second workshop day started with a brainstorming session in smaller groups, aiming to map some of the whats, whys and hows of Sámi/Indigenous education.
After that, Anna-Lill Drugge from Umeå University gave a keynote with title "Future aspects of Sámi culture and history education - strategies and methods for an inclusive approach".
The next session was again held in smaller groups, where we identified possible threats, challenges, assets and solutions to Sámi/Indigenous education. The workshop concluded with short presentations from the group discussions and Tuija Turunen's wrap-up of the whole workshop series.
The workshop was the third workshop organised by project Indigenous Pedagogy in Teacher Education (IPED), funded by Academy of Finland NOS-HS workshop grant. The workshop will be hosted by Umeå University. Read more about the project goals, partners and activities in the project website.