Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do our fund our schools at over $155 million in the 2017-2018 school year. One in particular such is inclusive schooling, which is $26.5 million. Some of these funding formulas we are actually funding over the above legislated values, and as he mentioned with the formula funding, he has recognized that some of them include junior kindergarten; however, some do include kindergarten. We are looking at reviewing some of these funding formulas, and appreciate that the Member has brought that to our attention. We would just let the Member know that we are looking at some of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What I can commit to is that we will work with our education authorities, as we have created an accountability framework in reporting for our education authorities on how they spend their dollars for the 2017-2018 school year, and get those exact figures as we move forward. Right now, we are still looking at how many numbers we are going to get, but we can commit to working with our education authorities and getting those exact numbers and providing those reports as we do every year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To my right, I have my assistant deputy minister of Education and Culture, Ms. Rita Mueller, and Mr. Michael Reddy with our legislative division. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Under the Education Act, it requires that, when providing operation and maintenance funds to education bodies, the Department of Culture, Education and Employment must allow for a student ratio of 16 to 1. Funding for inclusive schooling supports equals to 15 per cent of all operations and maintenance funds provided in a financial year.

In terms of inclusive schooling, we do add our students. There is a good chance that we will still be above the legislated levels, and adding junior kindergarten, we will still be around somewhere like 13.1 or 13.4, so we will still be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to be here today to introduce Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Education Act. This bill seeks to change the age of entitlement to access kindergarten programs from five years old to four, as well as reduce the minimum hours of instruction required to 945 hours for grades 1 through 12.

The goal of these two major initiatives, also known as junior kindergarten and STIP, is to improve the NWT education system for all learners so that they can meet the challenges of today and into the future, and be successful in whatever they choose to do. Junior kindergarten will...

Thank you. I will go to my assistant deputy minister to answer that one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I had mentioned, we are in those discussions with YCS on how we deal with the situation. At those rates, we can't commit at that time. Yellowknife, as a whole, has some schools that have high utilization rates, but we also have schools that aren't meeting some of those high rates. We are trying to find a solution here in Yellowknife to accommodate all the students as well as staff.

Yes, all I can say to that question, and you said it perfectly, Mr. Chair, that is a hypothetical question, we do not know what the outcome of this bill is going to be at the end of today, but I can let the Member and the Members know that, as a government, we are committed to providing early childhood programs. We developed an Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan in collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Services. We are working with schools, education bodies, to address those. We have made increases to our early childhood program funding, and we are working...

Currently there isn't a timeline set in place. Obviously, we have to make sure that we do have appropriate time to go through the schools, with the staff, and have that idea of which classrooms are used for instructional hours and other classrooms that might be used for storage or other areas of use that were put forth by the school and together, collectively, decide which classrooms should be used for instructional classrooms, and identify that utilization rate. I don't have a timeline, but I will make sure the department comes back with something. I will share that with the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First and foremost, this government has set out a mandate in the 18th Legislative Assembly to provide early childhood programs throughout the NWT. This will, however, significantly change how we roll out junior kindergarten to our communities. All education authorities are well into their implementation efforts into junior kindergarten and making it a reality in every school come this academic year, in 201718. The 20 communities that currently run junior kindergartens have been doing it very well, and it has been received there very well and are highly successful.

I can't...