School officials in northern Quebec are defending a trip they took to Hawaii after a recent news story accused them of wasting taxpayers' money.

The Kativik School Board sent four of its members to Honolulu last year for a conference on aboriginal education at a cost of $23,000.

In a recent article in a Quebec newspaper, a local politician slammed the trip saying the money would have been better spent on students.

In an interview with CBC News, the board says the trip was justified.

"In terms of a direct outcome, like something that we can measure immediately, well of course there is nothing of the sort," said Jade Duchesneau Bernier, a public relations officer for the Kativik School Board. "But it really does feed into the program development work we are doing for the curriculums, cultural and language work-wise."

The board criticized the article for a lack of context, saying that sending school board officials to Nunavik communities can be just as expensive as sending them to Hawaii.

'You cannot really in all fairness compare our expenses on that level to that type of expense [at] any other school board in the province of Quebec."

The Kativik School Board was created by the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975. It provides education, primarily to Inuit, in the 14 northern Quebec communities that comprise Nunavik.

The board has offices in Kuujjuaq, Que., and Montreal.