It often appears as if circumpolar school administrators believe that the quality of education varies with the number of photocopiers purchased, the variety of textbooks available or the shape and novelty of their school buildings. The idea that a teacher might be the single most important factor in a child's education often escapes mention. Yet the failure of schools in northern Canada and Alaska to produce enough graduates to meet even the limited local demand for workers can be traced, almost certainly, to the absence of trained native teachers and to the total lack of continuity provided by southern teachers, who stay for only two or three years in the north, keeping their locus of existence firmly rooted in the south.