Alfred Moses

I do believe we're meeting our mandate as well as some of the recommendations that came out of the TRC Report. They are recommendations, but our government was doing a lot of this work already. We did present this to our Council of Ministers of Education across Canada this past summer. A lot of jurisdictions took interest into the work that we're doing here in the Northwest Territories in our curriculum, in our early childhood programming, so that they can look at what we're doing to meet those recommendations, and I feel that we are a leader across Canada meeting some of those recommendations...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I don't. Any students who go through our current education system go through an Aboriginal language culture-based education, so they get all the relevant information, the experiences, on-the-land programs, languages in their schools and their communities, and anyone who hasn't received it and comes back to the Northwest Territories GNWT does also have a cultural awareness program through the Human Resources Department. As well, we do have teacher cultural orientation days that our department has made mandatory to anybody who comes and works for the department of ECE...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Two of the key factors in community wellness and safety are education and partnership. Every person and organization across the Northwest Territories has something to contribute to help make our communities healthy and safe.

At the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, all of our programs and services follow a continuum of strategies, building on the foundation of others. These strategies are designed to address community and residents' needs from early childhood through to ensuring Northerners have the skills, attitudes, and opportunities for success.

Mr...

Inclusive schooling, the funding is allocated for students who do need extra help in the classroom to offset some of the concerns and developmental concerns that we're seeing in some of our students. So initially it was there to provide assistance to help our students achieve better outcomes. So that's initially what the dollars were implemented for.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier, the $5.1 million is only money coming to this government to fund junior kindergarten 2017-18. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Currently we are legislated, as I have mentioned before in this House, to fund inclusive schooling at 15 per cent. We are currently funding it at 17.1 per cent, 2.1 per cent over the legislated level. We don't have the numbers of the students who are going to be enrolled, the JK students, so we can't have an answer for that at this moment because schools are still recruiting students and we don't know what the enrolment rates are.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From the Member's statement earlier, we did contact the department and ask them to give us an update. I don’t have a firm date right now, but as soon as soon as we get it we will share it with the Members. Thank you.

This program, both the programs, have been around for a long time. When I did say we are listening, we are hearing, we are continuing to support all the students who are here today through Student Financial Assistance programming, as I mentioned before, best in the country. We are going to give them all the support they need to graduate from the program in the time that is allocated.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have mentioned in this House before, the executive council for Aurora College did consult and meet with our department. We looked at where we can look at reductions and look at our programs, and it is always being reviewed, and looking at how many graduates do we get out of the programs for the big investment that we put in. These two programs were recognized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past year, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has implemented new initiatives and improved existing programs and services to help meet our mandate commitments to address the cost of living for NWT residents.

We all understand the importance of reducing poverty and providing our residents with the tools necessary to achieve their goals and live healthy, productive lives. The work under way at the department supports those goals.

Actions in early childhood development, in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Services, have been...