Jackson Lafferty

The phasing out of the Alberta Achievement Test is an opportunity for our government to find other methods that we can work with that have a northern perspective. Tools that assist in student achievement are an appropriate way that takes into account our students’ realities and also their northern context. My department staff, ECE, is working to determine what is the best tool for the Northwest Territories along with working with Alberta and the standardized tests that are most applicable and suitable for our northern context for our small communities as well. Those are just some of the...

I will have to find out exactly when that last occurred. I will follow up with the Member on the detailed information. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When the Finance Minister presented the mains and the business plan for 2015-16, he made it clear the financial realities of this government and as we move forward it’s going to be a very tough position to be in. The three-year Education Renewal and Innovation Action Plan was created to use internal and existing funding as much as we possibly can. We know that’s coming with other departments, as well, not only ECE.

In addition to the $150 million that we contribute to education boards across the Northwest Territories, we have identified $6.2 million over a three-year period...

Obviously, there are all kinds of extracurricular activities that are happening within our school systems throughout the Northwest Territories. There are 49 schools. Some may not offer full-fledged sports programs, but we continue to work with Municipal and Community Affairs dealing with sports and also the youth and how we can best deliver programs. We have been dealing with some of the community leadership. They take on the task, my department, of working with DECs and also MACA to deliver some of the fundamental sports programs that youth can be engaged in, especially youth who don’t have...

The review will be due in March, so that’s within the next couple of weeks. During the review the department obviously engaged the licenced daycare operators and also the staff, licenced family day home operators. Also, part of the process is Education, Culture and Employment regional early childhood consults. Those are the parties that have been involved along the process.

We are doing a three-year action plan on education renewal. Part of that process will capture attendance and the challenge we are faced with. The peer passing has been brought to our attention on numerous occasions and how we can deal with the matter. There are mixed feelings about that particular subject. It depends on who you talk to. We need to have all the stakeholders have a discussion on the best approach to deal with this particular matter. This is part of the discussion we are currently having as part of the action plan on ERI. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There’s been a review that’s been undertaken and I believe my department, since October, has been finalizing their input as well. So, I’ll have to get the latest status on that. I don’t have that detailed information in front of me as we speak. Mahsi.

We’re always looking for opportunities and ideas and suggestions. What the Member is referring to is a document that, if we can get our hands on – I’m assuming that he’ll be tabling the document at a later time – we can access and work with it. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Within our Education department we have contributed, over the last three years, our contribution, because I feel that Dechinta can go places with the program that they are currently delivering. They are very unique compared to other programming that we currently deliver in the Northwest Territories. So we will continue to subsidize them; we’ll continue to support them. In 2013-14, obviously, we provided $153,000 as a kick-start. In 2014-15 it went up to $415,000. So these are the discussions that we are currently having, what kinds of resources that are required. Again, they’re very different...

When it comes to literacy, we’ve made some changes. We’ve had some pilot projects in the South Slave region. We’ve had literacy coaches. It’s been very successful to date and we continue to use that as an example for other schools as well.

The pilot projects we’ve done over the years, so we’ve seen some results out of that. Within our Education Renewal and Innovation, this will obviously capture the literacy component, and we’ll be discussing further with our key stakeholders where we can best invest in certain areas, whether it comes to DECs or DEAs. They are our true partners, so we will...