What is ITEP? 

ITEP stands for the Indigenous Teacher Education Project. Our goal is to prepare future Indigenous educators to fuse their knowledge, culture, language and aspects of their tribal identities with academic classroom teaching.

Why what we do matters:

There are 22 federally recognized Tribal nations in the state of Arizona. Despite the presence of the many Tribal Nations, there are few Indigenous educators who serve Indigenous schools and communities. Before ITEP, the University of Arizona's Elementary Education program had less than 1% of teacher candidates who self-identified as Native American. Now, approximately 7% of teacher candidates in the Elementary Education program are from Indigenous backgrounds and the majority of those students are in ITEP. ITEP believes in the power of indigenizing education to sustain Indigenous cultures, knowledges, languages, and identities.

How you can help: 

Our first cohort is graduating in May 2019 and our second cohort will begin in Fall 2019. The current funding for ITEP can only support 12 candidates but we have had over 100 inquiries from members from Indigenous communities. This demonstrates the need to increase the number of Indigenous teachers serving Indigenous schools and communities. Our goal is to raise $5,000 to establish the ITEP fund to support a greater number of future Indigenous educators and build a more sustainable program. If we can recruit 5 teacher candidates from each Tribal nation, imagine the possibilities.

How will you be a part of the future of Indigenous Teacher Education?