Jackson Lafferty

Beginning in 2013-14, we launched territorial Elders in Schools programming dedicating just over $400,000 to ensure the elders are actively involved through NWT schools. Our contribution is to the school boards and they decide how many elders will be hired based on the numbers. Some are larger populations and some smaller. This is also a first for us. Obviously, over time this number will increase. We know the hours elders will be working in school will be minimal with $400,000, but it will be increased over time. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. That’s correct because the federal funding came directly from the feds and, obviously, we are still working with them on program delivery, but at the end of the day, they have to report to the federal government. They don’t report to us on the federal money, but they report to us on our territorial funding that we allocate to them. Mahsi.

Mr. Chair, part of the process will be the regs that will be before us would have to require those individuals to have the qualification. We will do our part, as a department, to provide the necessary training, necessary support mechanism that needs to be in place. Throughout the licenced early childhood programming, we talk about the daycares and junior kindergarten, a mixture. Yesterday, we got into more detail about how we can provide training.

That is information that is available and we will provide that specific training to qualify people in our education system to deal with the children...

Mr. Chair, the committee met, I believe, late last year and then we have been developing a terms of reference for the committee. I just got that last week or last week and a half. We are moving forward on that. It’s true that the committee has met. They are discussing options on the wage increase for minimum wage. I’m expecting a report very soon. As soon as I get that, we need to go through that. I will keep Members posted on that. Mahsi.

Mahsi. When it comes to inclusive schooling, this is what we have to date. There’s legislation that we have to follow, but we are listening to the Members. That’s the very reason we’ve listened to the Members, now we’re going to reviewing. We’re reviewing the inclusive schooling. So we want to make changes that reflect on the students’ needs as well. Based on the review, based on the input from the school boards, the school boards will be actively involved and will give us options to make some decisions if this is going to be based on students’ needs, the community’s needs and so forth. So we...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The increase is due to the fact that there is a Community Skills for Work, $290,000, provided to the college; Teacher Education Program is approximately $70,000; and also the UNW Collective Agreement, $404,000. There are also lease costs of $112,000, and then Geoscience Field Assistant Training program, $54,000. So that adds up to roughly what the Member has alluded to. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I have, to my left, deputy minister of ECE, Gabriella Eggenhofer. To my immediate right is Dana Heide, associate deputy minister. To my far right is Marissa Martin, director of finance and capital planning within ECE. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. With these kinds of experiences on trips, we bring back best practices and start implementing them in our region. Slowly we’re doing that with the Tlicho and other regions as much as possible. The sooner the better. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The Member refers to the two pilots. Again, we are working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services on part of the Healthy Family programming, so we will do what we can to deliver similar programming as we move forward with ECD Action Plan. If there has been an evaluation of the junior kindergarten, the pre-kindergarten, at this time we haven’t done a review of that, but we are fully aware of the program delivery and we’re getting as much information on the deliverance of the program. So we’re still compiling all that information.

We’ll definitely provide the detailed breakdown of how the formula funding is based on per region, per community and DEAs, DECs.