Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi. There are various avenues. As I stated, there is a hotline on the website and also on the phone and the response team that consists of the regional representatives from my Department of Education, Culture and Employment to bring any concerns, to bring any ideas on how to deliver this particular program. So any other forms of communication, there’s always, as I stated before, room for improvement, how we can best communicate to the parents, to the teachers, to the children that we are teaching. So we’re doing what we can to be transparent and be accountable for the best delivery of this...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. What I said was that there are no major issues or complaints brought to our attention. With any rollout of various programs or projects in the communities, there is always room for improvement. Those are just some of the areas that come into play where teachers ask certain questions about the JK delivery or an avenue that they can turn to. There is ongoing communication dialogue between my department, DEAs and DECs and, also, working with various organizations that are currently delivering the Junior Kindergarten program. I’m a firm believer that there needs to be an open...

Mahsi. I stand by how we can work closely with the daycare operators, the preschool operators, all of those operators in the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.

Mahsi. I’m glad the Member raised the profile where 10 communities are without licenced early childhood programming. It is true; we’re providing options for the parents to have access to this different programming. There are also other programs such as Head Start and other early learning programming in our communities and in our schools.

At the same time, with any new programming, any new implementation or rolling out of various programs, there’s always a re-evaluation of our situation a year after, two years.

This is a three-year phased approach and every year, obviously, we will be re...

Mahsi. When it comes to whether it be family day homes, the daycares, we’ve made some changes already. There’s been some recommendations brought to our attention by those operators and we’ve listened to the operators, we’ve heard their concerns, we’ve made some changes. From here until we deliver to all the communities, we’re going to make those changes along the way. We have done so and we will continue to do so. Mahsi.

Mahsi Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome to our gallery, through you, Mr. Speaker, Meagan Wowk, ECE early childhood and kindergarten coordinator who is here with us today. Also, Dr. Magdalena Janus is also here with us. She is the co-creator of the EDI program from the Offord Centre for Child Studies and is training the junior kindergarten teachers on how to use the Early Development Instrument.

There are also teachers that are here with us from each of the communities offering Junior Kindergarten, except from the South Slave DEC where all their JK teachers are already trained to use the EDI. The...

Mahsi. Again, this Junior Kindergarten has been a topic of discussion for a number of years, even before I got on board as Education Minister in 2007. Through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and also earlier engagement, that the pre-learning should be first and foremost a priority of this government. That’s why we laid down the early childhood development, the overall framework, the 10-year agreement. So this is an area that I feel will benefit the communities and the 23 communities that we service. We have the teachers here today being trained on the EDI, we have teachers that...

On May 23rd I met with the DEA chairs, and this particular subject came up. Due to the fact that I’ve listened to the DEA chairs and superintendents, who were part of the discussion, as well, that I should give some flexibility, which I have. Whether it be part time or full time, I gave them the flexibility. The DEAs can decide on that; not only that, the other areas, if it’s going to be full-time, part-time or optional programming. We gave them the option to deliver this into the communities. That’s the reason why we have 23 communities.

I’m the Minister responsible for the whole Northwest...

The recommendation is with me, as the Minister responsible, and there have been various discussions that took place for over a year, since 2011 until today, even the latest there has been some correspondence that came to my attention that I need to follow up. There are some legality and network issues that we need to deal with.

Again, it is a large file, so we want to have the best product for the whole Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Again, I have to emphasize that during the life of this Assembly, we will be delivering and signing off this document. Mahsi.

As I stated, with a large file such as this, we’re getting a lot of feedback from various parties and we’re followed up with those concerns or issues brought to our attention. There are some general ideas of where we should be focusing on.

All the great work that the Safety Advisory Committee recommended to my office, we are building on that, and again, we want to deliver that during the life of this Assembly, send out the final agreement and start implementing it. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.