Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Indirectly, yes. This government controls the funding flow to the boards, so there’s an expectation that the boards will follow the philosophy of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment when they’re providing the schooling. But boards are given a significant amount of freedom because they’re elected locally, and as long as they’re delivering the service as set out in the Education Act and subject to the directives and standards that we have in the department, then they can set their program delivery pretty much autonomously.

Mr. Chairman, there’s been nothing but some general discussion about where it might fit. Some of that will depend on some program decisions and the overall discussion we have to have with the three boards in Yellowknife.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have committed in this House to make a presentation to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to go through the policies underlying the program, outlining what the benefits are now, and discuss with the Members what might be some options for change within the program. So it is my intention to do that with the Standing Committee on Social Programs, hopefully within the next little while.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I mentioned to Mr. Delorey earlier, this sort of program I think is on everybody's radar right now. It is an extremely important type of program, but, unfortunately, we haven't identified any money to add into the formula for schools. So the schools are going to have to look for opportunities to partner up. I know, for instance, the Yellowknife Catholic Schools have gotten some short-term contracts with Aurora College for the use of the facility. They did make it available, as I said earlier, to the Dogrib Community Services Board for some of their students to...

Mr. Chairman, this is negotiated as part of the contract with the NWTTA, so there is no discretion. This is an agree-to amount that is stipulated in that contract.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, like the Member, am interested in ensuring that we have adequate programming space for all our students in the Northwest Territories, and one of the first things I did after becoming Minister was to take a look at what we had in terms of leases and where we might have opportunities opening up. So I asked the department when the lease would be expiring on Northern United Place and finding out that it was coming up in a few years, directed that they work with the college and Public Works and Services to do an examination of what we should be looking at, whether it...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, what I could do is if the interest of the committee is travel, what I do have is I have a listing of travel broken out for the whole department, and perhaps I could just run through that listing. This wouldn’t be under this task then, this would include all of it, so you get the total travel budget all at once if you’d like, you can tell where it is coming from. But I could break it out for the committee all at once here, and that might be the easiest way to do it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The curriculum should reflect the local culture and history all the time and it can. What we can do in curriculum development is make sure the suggestions are made for specific things to consider when dealing with curriculum.

The issue of treaties has been raised by other people. I think it’s one there is a real interest in seeing there be something mentioned in school about treaties and it would certainly be appropriate in the social studies course. At the current time the curriculum for kindergarten to Grade 9 social studies is under review, and we can make sure...

I take the Member’s comments and would agree with him that museums are an important aspect of life in the North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Mr. Pokiak is talking about two different issues. One of the issues is whether or not children are all at the same grade level if they're in the same grade. It's not uncommon that you have differences. For instance, in a Grade 4 classroom you will have some children who are reading at a Grade 2 level and you may have some children who are reading at a Grade 6 level. The teachers can typically deal with the different groups they have. Some kids will need extra help and some kids will need extra challenge. So it isn't unusual to have in a classroom a...