Debates of February 24, 2005 (day 43)

Thank you, Madam Chair. This would be one of the areas that some of the money might come from. It doesn’t come from just one area. The GNWT commitment to fund ASEP is in a couple of different places. So this is as good a place as any to talk about that program. The Member is right; we’re hoping that over the course of the ASEP program that there will be 800 people trained. They won’t all be miners, but they will be trained for jobs that are related to the industry.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Zoe.

Madam Chair, could I ask the Minister, I think his department is the lead, about the total amount of money that our government is putting forward with our partners.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The GNWT will contribute a minimum of $1.5 million each year, for the next four years, to meet our partnership requirements. That money includes both mining and oil and gas. So that’s the total each year for mining and oil and gas.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Next on the list I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have to beg the chair’s indulgence and make some general comments as we go along here, because I haven’t had an opportunity to address the line item that’s important to me in the last couple of weeks. Aside from that, I think what was the key to one of my issues that came out of the election was inclusionary schooling, Madam Chair. So I gave it a lot of thought, and it's one of the big issues, of course, with moving our children along, bumping them along without giving them the skills they need. I don’t know how the system came to that place. I was trying to understand inclusionary schooling, I thought that was perhaps that, maybe the Minister can correct me if I’m wrong, was about maybe having everybody in school, including the disabled. I don’t know if it was meant to move our weaker students along in grade school, because people are graduating and they are literally barely functioning. Their reading and writing skills are very poor as they graduate. Are we graduating them just to graduate them? Are we moving our children through school so that we have a statistical increase in graduate rates and that kind of stuff? Because they really are not functioning at a Grade 12 level when we’re graduating them, Madam Chair.

I think some of the issues that were pointed out to me were because we’re not spending enough time with our students in the school and it might have something to do with the teacher ratio. Some people even suggested, Madam Chair, that I think we may need more special needs assistants, because our classes are big and they are spending time on the ones that are lagging. So the ones that are keen to go ahead are suffering. So they’re thinking if we had more teacher availability, if we organize our resources to where there was another assistant who helps the ones who are struggling get along, perhaps the rest of the balance of the children would have more time from their teacher in their regular class instead of everybody lagging behind.

I don’t know if I’m explaining it properly, Madam Chair. We’re spending all of our time at the lower end and people aren’t really achieving success on the higher end. So that kind of concerns me. How is the Minister going to address it? It has been at the forefront of our Assembly for at least the past year-and-a-half. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member has raised a lot of important issues and it will take me some time to address them. Inclusionary schooling is an idea where we say that everybody deserves an opportunity to be in a regular classroom, and the goal is to keep young people together by age grouping and working with them to realize their skills to the best of their abilities so that they can progress. It’s a program that has had tremendous success I think in the Northwest Territories. I know just a couple of weeks ago I was talking to some people in the Territories who are right now very active in working with people who have challenges, and they say that the young people that they are seeing now who have come through the school system are functioning at a much higher level than what they used to see 20 years ago when everybody didn’t necessarily get the opportunity to go through the regular program. They also pointed out that many young people of the same age are much more comfortable working with people who have challenges. So they’ve seen a benefit to the inclusionary system through that over the years.

One of the other issues the Member talked about was the issue of social promotion or social passing, which is where you are not dealing with challenges that you might otherwise have; for instance, autism or other behavioural problems. But a child who may not be able to perform at the same level as other kids in their class is kept together with that class grouping and that’s something that isn’t new in theory. It’s been around for quite some time. It has been used, more or less, over a number of years this century, depending on the philosophy of the area in which you are watching the school. So in some places in North America, it’s been used consistently for a long, long time. In other places, it’s almost like a pendulum, they have swung from social promotion to failure, to social promotion to failure in case of not meeting standards. So it’s not something that has been consistent.

In the Northwest Territories, the divisional educational councils have a final say as to which method they should use in the region, and the current understanding or the current sort of idea of what is best in the education system right now favours social promotion and keeping kids together with their same age grouping. If a child has failed because they are not successful, it often puts them into a situation where they have failed forever because they don’t ever get a chance to get back in with their age group. I think if you think back to when you were a kid in school, there weren’t many times that most of us would associate with younger kids, and that’s one of the factors that tends to drive kids away from school: forcing them to stick around with younger kids.

In a lot of the work that has been done, the studies show that kids that are held back don’t go on to graduate. So it is an area that most educators say that the best practice is to keep kids together with their age group. Teachers are taught to deal with different age groups in a classroom or different grade levels in a classroom, different standards. It’s not unusual to have kids who read at different levels in a class, and that’s always going to be true. You may have kids that can't pass a test, but you’ll still have kids who are reading three or four years ahead of others in a classroom, and you’ll have some kids that may have challenges in one area or another. I know I can speak from personal experience. I know kids who are struggling with reading at their grade level, but are doing very well in math and science at their grade level. So if you were to say that because they can’t pass their tests in literacy and that you should hold them back, then you’d be holding them back when they are capable of moving on in math and science. That just creates a situation where the kids are not motivated to continue in school. So it’s an interesting area to discuss, but, as I said, we do leave the issue to the DECs to resolve.

I would be hard pressed to disagree with the Member that we could improve on the situation both for social promotion and for dealing with children with special needs if we had more special needs assistants in the classroom. I think that’s a no-brainer. We have, over the past four or five years, dramatically increased the amount of funding that we’ve put into special needs and support for special needs in schools across the Northwest Territories. It’s gone from just over $6 million to around $16 million in the course of the last five years. We know though, from surveys that have been done, teachers tell us that they think the level of challenge they face in the classroom is far greater than that, and they would tell you that they probably need more than 15 percent support going towards special needs in order to adequately address them. So I can’t disagree with the Member that that would improve our ability to deal with those situations.

Talking about the calibre of our graduates, that’s a real challenge. I think one of the big issues that we’ve got here is oftentimes young people, when they make their choices, make them without thinking about where they are going in the future. We need to do a better job of getting parents and kids and counsellors and teachers at the school level involved together early on -- Grade 8, Grade 9 -- to understand the choices that they make in courses will determine what they come out with at the end. All it takes is 100 credits to graduate, and that doesn’t mean that everybody who gets a graduation certificate achieves the same level. There’s a tremendous difference. You can get a graduation certificate and go off to university or become an apprentice or, in fact, you can go to university without getting a graduation certificate. All the university cares about is the marks you got in specific courses. So graduation certificates just mean that you’ve gotten 100 credits with some of the courses that are stipulated, and they don’t say that you’ve achieved at a certain level and you’re able to carry on from that level into your chosen field if you have a major that you’ve built up to in the first place. I think that’s where we maybe need to put some more emphasis, is making sure that kids understand that if they choose to take a 16-level course instead of a 13-level course, instead of a 10-level or 11-level course, that there are differences and those differences are going to show up at the end of their schooling and will mean that they need more schooling if they change their mind about what they want to do.

One way we’re going to help people understand how kids are doing, and help people understand where they should maybe move with some of those choices, is we’re bringing in, as I’ve told Members, the Alberta achievement tests. So in grades 3, 6 and 9 we’re going to get a better picture of how our schools are doing and give us a better idea of where we need to strengthen approaches. Is it just counselling, or do we need to go in and strengthen how we deliver literacy programs or how we deliver numeracy programs? These tests will give us a better chance to understand all that.

The other thing that I’ve directed, is that schools have to start reporting functional grade level. I think a lot of the times parents don’t know how well their kids are doing or what level they’re functioning at. So we’ve directed that teachers have to inform the department what the functional grade level is of the students, and we’re encouraging them to share that information with their parents as well, so there is a clear understanding when children are facing challenges and then perhaps a better ability to seek out assistance when it’s needed. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Your 10 minutes are up.

---Laughter

And so are yours, Mr. Menicoche.

---Laughter

Next on the list I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll try to get in as much as I can before the Minister starts.

---Laughter

I just want to start off with saying I know how important advanced education and careers are to people, but what I think happened in the mid-1990s is starting to come back to haunt the Northwest Territories, and that is funding was at such a level where it came out of schools and basically I believe the education system got it in the mid-90s and the first things to go when dollars were tight were things like industrial arts, music, home economics and now it’s kind of come full circle. We’re starting to get some more dollars, but we don’t have a workforce. We have a graduation rate of, I think, 43 percent, which is absolutely abysmal. That’s something I think that this government needs to take quite seriously. I know the Minister has talked about testing and other things to try to get kids to graduate from high school; but if that’s not a scary stat, I don’t know what is. Forty-three percent of our children graduate from high school.

The lowest populated province of Prince Edward Island, I believe, has a graduation rate of 85 percent or 86 percent. It’s twice as much as it is here in the Northwest Territories. I think we’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do to try to…

Could we have some order in the Chamber, please. If you must, please just talk quietly amongst yourselves. Sorry for the interruption, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do believe we have a great deal of work to try to correct the course we’re on with our graduation rates being what they are. One of the things I wanted to ask the Minister about, and I know there’s some money, there’s a committee and this and that, is a stand-alone dedicated college facility for Yellowknife. I think it’s something that’s seriously needed in this community. Yellowknife does have, with no disrespect to my fellow colleagues here, over 50 percent of the population. It’s the seat of government.

We do need a college facility here; it’s long overdue. For whatever reasons, political or otherwise, a college…Actually, they didn’t even call it a college until the mid-90s, I believe. The former Premier even refused to refer to it as a college. But we need a stand-alone campus in Yellowknife. I think the current setup in an apartment building or downtown here with no parking, no access, has no room for growth. People are hesitant to go there because they can’t find parking downtown. The space is crowded. It’s just not a good setup for a college. I think that’s something the government has to take quite seriously and look at; work with different regions and people and try to have a vision for, at some point in time, getting a stand-alone college here in Yellowknife. That’s something I feel quite strongly about and I have for a long time. But it’s a fight we’ll have to take up again some other day, I suppose.

I wanted to ask the Minister, in terms of apprentices, and I know we had Apprenticeship Week two or three weeks ago and the Minister had stated that apprenticeships were up, I think it was 20 percent or 25 percent in the last couple of years. What is the ratio of apprenticeship officers to apprentices, by region, if you could give me that statistic, please? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Madam Chair, I don’t have a clue. Sorry. I can’t answer that question. I can try to get the information for the Member, but it’s not a statistic that we would keep.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll ask the Minister a question more close to home. In Yellowknife, how many apprentices are there and how many apprenticeship officers are there?

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have two apprenticeship officers in Yellowknife and the career development officers in the office help out with apprentices as well, but I can’t tell you how many apprentices are registered in Yellowknife. Again, that’s information I’d have to get for the Member. We have 300 apprentices registered in the Northwest Territories right now. I expect that most of them are registered in Yellowknife, but the exact number, I can’t tell you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think one of the things I heard on the campaign trail last fall, and that I’ve heard from constituents, is the apprenticeship officers that we have in place are doing an absolutely fantastic job, but we just don’t have enough of them and they’re overworked. I think if we had another one or two of them, we could go out, get some more businesses to sign up for apprentices and we could have more young people actually doing on-the-job training and doing their apprenticeships. That was one of the criticisms that I had heard, Madam Chair.

The other thing I just wanted to get back to was the graduation rates. I think if the government puts some more effort into the technical side of things…I know we have supported the Trades and Technology Centre at St. Patrick's and we also supported the Akaitcho Trade Centre with YK1 at Sir John, but I think it’s time we put more money into the industrial arts and home economics. I think too much emphasis in the past 10 or 12 years has been focused primarily on academics. I think we’re missing something here and it’s starting to come back to get us now, because our graduation rate isn’t where it should be. If we can channel our young people to graduate from high school, they might not be in the matriculation routing, but at least they’d graduate from high school, they’d have some skills and pride in themselves to go into the workforce and be dedicated citizens and want to stay and be productive.

Those are just comments, Madam Chair, that I’d like to give to the Minister. I do look forward to him, if he could, providing those statistics I spoke of earlier; of apprentices by region and officers by region. That would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you. First, Madam Chair, yes, we will get the information Mr. Ramsay has requested that I couldn’t give today. In terms of the graduation rate, I can’t disagree that we need a better graduation rate. I can’t disagree that the Member early on in his comments, talked about how the changes in the mid-90s to the funding for schools has impacted on courses like industrial arts. There’s no question that’s absolutely true. We have, over the past few years, put money back into funding the schools, but back in the early to mid-90s the pupil/teacher ratio in the Territories was, I believe, just under 13 to one. Obviously, that gave schools the flexibility to put people into teaching positions that would offer more electives and still not have classrooms that were too big. Clearly that can’t happen as easily now when you’re funding schools at the level of 16 to one. So, yes, there’s no question that that’s made a difference over the years.

The other thing I think we need to keep in mind is that, at the same time in the mid-90s or early '90s, only 40 percent of the kids who should have been in high school were in high school. We’ve hit 70 percent recently and that’s a pretty dramatic change for that period of time. You’re not going to get the graduates if they’re not in school. If you only have 40 percent of the young people who should be in school there, obviously, you’re not going to achieve anywhere near the Canadian average of 70 to 75 percent. We’ve now got the participation rate pretty close to the Canadian average. The challenge is to continue to improve on the graduation rate.

You know, in the early '60s the graduation rate in Canada was only about 25 percent. Now across Canada, it is about 75 percent. That’s 45 to 50 years that it has taken us to get there. Forty years. We are making fairly good progress, but it is not something that happens in one year. It’s something we have to keep working on. The changes we make by improving our kindergarten and the amount of classroom support in kindergarten doesn’t show up; the differences there don’t show up until 12 years later. So it’s a slow process, but I think we’ve made some important moves and we’re committed to carrying on with that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one quick question before I lose my time here. The Minister said that currently we have 70 percent of our students that should be in high school and 70 percent are there and we’re only graduating 43 percent…What was that number? I know he said we had 40 percent in the '90s that should have been in school. What was our graduation rate in the mid-90s? I’d like to ask the Minister what he thinks is the problem in trying…We’ve got 70 percent of our kids there. Why are we only graduating 43 percent? What is his department telling him? What are the reasons we’re only graduating 43 percent? Are they going to the workforce? Are they just quitting school? What’s happening here? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The graduation rate in the early '90s was 25 percent. So they do lag, but they are improving. You have to keep the kids in school to get the graduates. What are we doing? There is certainly a challenge to get kids to complete school. I think one of the biggest deciding factors as to whether or not young people are successful in school is family support. If kids aren’t being supported to get up in the morning and get out the door with breakfast in their stomachs, if they’re not supported, if school isn’t seen as important by the family, then it’s a real challenge to translate the kid being in school to success. One thing that we are happy to say though is that the biggest growth in our success in the Northwest Territories in the last few years has been in the smaller regional centres. That’s really what is important to see, because that’s where we’ve really been lagging over the years; seeing success coming from the smaller regional centres.

The issue of success is one we’re examining with the board chairs. How we can improve on school success? We have committed, as a department, to work with the Tlicho Community Services Board to examine why schooling appears to be more successful in that region. We’re hoping to do a video that outlines some of what we find there. Then we can share that with people across the Northwest Territories, hopefully to improve on success around the Territories.

Madam Chair, if I can, the Member asked about the college campus and I forgot to address that one. Perhaps I’ll go back to the college campus in Yellowknife. We currently have had Public Works and Services work on an evaluation of the current facility so we can do a cost-benefit analysis of keeping the campus where it is, expanding to a different location, looking at the different options. I believe they’re taking a look at seven different options and I’m hoping to have that work done this spring. Concurrent with that, the college is participating in the community-wide work which is looking at facilities for Yellowknife over the next 10 years, which will determine what is going to be needed in the community over the course of the next 10 years rather than trying to do it on a piecemeal basis. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Next on the list I have Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of comments and maybe a quick question. I like the fact that the Apprenticeship Program has not been reduced. In fact, it’s been increased and I think that’s a good thing. The Social Work Program that was offered at Aurora College, I understand, was cancelled because there were only six applicants. I was wondering if any of these applicants were maybe given another opportunity to go to school somewhere else, even if it means south. There is a lack of social workers in the Northwest Territories. We have six people who want to be social workers I think we should do what we can to try and encourage them, even if it means offering them a chance to go to school in the South. We shouldn’t lose them while they’re interested, otherwise they may find other career options. That’s all I’ve got for now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We tried to encourage the people who had signed up for the Social Work Program this year to consider going to the Yukon College and taking the course there. We actually had somebody go and talk to the prospective students and encourage them. We only had an uptake of a couple, I think, that actually went. We are, again this year, going to work with Health and Social Services to try and put a renewed emphasis on recruiting people to enrol in the program. So we haven’t given up on it, but we couldn’t proceed with the course with that level of uptake. We will continue to work with them. Actually, I’m also advised now that some of the applicants had completed some of their first-year courses, so what the college did was agree to accept them into the second year of the program and will work with them to make sure that they get any missing courses filled in over a period of time, too.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. McLeod. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of comments on this page here, with regard to the apprenticeship training, also. One of the things during my campaign, I was hoping, with regard to apprenticeship training, that we would utilize one of the base camps in Tuktoyaktuk and the people back home really liked that idea rather than flying to Inuvik. I know, earlier this year, I was going to make a presentation to the Aurora College Board of Governors, but apparently they cancelled that. I had a bunch of numbers for them to look at, but they’ve postponed that to a later time this month. I will continue to make my presentation to these guys.

I’m assuming on this page here, Mr. Chairman, that it has to do with apprenticeship training. Will this department consider any opportunities for apprenticeship training outside of Inuvik, to places like Tuktoyaktuk and utilize one of those camps? That’s my question for now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The training that’s offered in Inuvik is pre-apprenticeship training. It’s not the apprenticeship training. That’s to help people get ready to pass the trades entrance exams. The college can certainly take a look at offering that in different places, so I would encourage the Member to continue discussing with the college the use of the facilities in Tuktoyaktuk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To give you a bit of history, although I’m sure you probably know it, back in the mid-70s to early '80s, when there was a lot of activity up in the Tuktoyaktuk area, there was a thing called Tuk Tech which was utilized by a lot of people in the region. At that time everything was worked out of Fort Smith, but some of the opportunities like fourth class power engineering and hotel trades, I guess, were offered at that time. They worked really well and I’m proud to say, Mr. Chairman, that under that program, I was one of the lucky people to get my fourth class power engineering ticket.

So again, Mr. Chairman, the opportunity for a nice sized 200-man camp that can hold at least 40 students in the region was a very good opportunity. Right now in Inuvik, they just recently finished a new college there and they’re talking about residences for the college for students coming from outside Inuvik. Rather than wait for something like that, I really think, Mr. Chairman, there’s an opportunity to utilize one of the camps in Tuktoyaktuk; have the program set up and get the instructors that are available and their material and it’s going to work. I know the Minister, when I indicated this to him, told me to push forward with it, but will that be a real big consideration under this program? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The college has the ability to determine where they run their programs. It’s administered by a board and I think that they are quite interested in offering as many programs regionally as they can. To be honest though, they’re somewhat challenged because the amount of money we’re handing on to them has not increased; in fact, it has gone down over the years. So they are challenged to deliver any more programming than they otherwise would.

If the Member can demonstrate to them the economies that might occur by using the camps that may be available for very little cost in Tuktoyaktuk, then there may be some opportunities there. But it is going to have to be a college decision and it’s going to have to be done within whatever resources they have, because we don’t have any extra money at this point to hand on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. I have Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to touch on a few areas. I couldn’t swear I’m on the right page, but it seems like there’s a fair amount of latitude here. I’ve had a couple of letters from constituents who are interested in the NWT Literacy Strategy funding and these folks are both involved in adult literacy. They have communicated to me that this funding goes to a very good purpose and sees some very good results in our communities. I would like to ask the Minister for his commitment to Literacy Strategy funding and ask him if the budget for this item has been impacted by this year’s main estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that, in terms of literacy funding, the only difference is the $300,000 that I mentioned earlier that has been cut from literacy funding. That funding was in a program called Workplace Literacy. It was a program that was application-based for employers to make application to provide literacy training in the workplace. It was not being accessed, so we have cut the program by the amount of funds that were being lapsed.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then the Minister could confirm, through you, Mr. Chairman, that the other literacy funding has not been reduced for this upcoming fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If you’d look at the top of page 9-27, you’ll see literacy funding. You’ll notice that the difference between the 2004-05 main and revised estimates and the main estimates for 2005-06 is $300,000. That’s the $300,000 I spoke about.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other thing I wanted to question the Minister about is the formula funding that has been established for schools on a per-student basis and other things that are taken into account. Mr. Chairman, I’d like to ask the Minister when the formula funding was established. What year was it established in? When is the last time it was reviewed? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.