Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment following up on my Member’s statement. The Aboriginal Head Start program has been providing effective early childhood education in the Northwest Territories for the past 17 years. This program has been evaluated both locally and by the federal government and has been found outstanding.
Will the Minister agree that the northern experts in early childhood development education at the Aboriginal Head Start program have much to offer in the sphere of early childhood education in the Northwest Territories moving forward? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We need to be on top of all the experts in the field of early childhood development. We’ve done our research. We’ve done our engagement with the general public and working with the early childhood educators as well. Through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Forum, we’ve reached out to all regions, the educators, grandparents, parents. So with their input, we talk about early childhood programming in the communities. Based on that, introducing Junior Kindergarten and others was their feedback and we are moving forward on wage subsidy, as well, for early childhood educators. Those are some of the areas we are moving forward with. Mahsi.
I take from that that the Minister does not agree that the northern experts in early childhood education at the Aboriginal Head Start program have much to offer in the sphere of early childhood education, which I think is a travesty and a mistreatment of our public.
Many professional educators in the Northwest Territories feel that the hybrid curriculum for Junior Kindergarten proposed by ECE is inappropriate for four-year-old children. Aboriginal Head Start experts agree and are opposed to the curriculum as it now stands. This is based on the 17 years of on-the-ground experience.
Why isn’t the Minister listening to northern educators, such as the experienced early childhood education experts at Aboriginal Head Start, concerning their reservations regarding its proposed curriculum?
I didn’t say I didn’t support those individuals who are in the field of early childhood such as the Head Start program. We do appreciate their feedback, the feedback they’ve given us over the years. We, as a department, although it is a federally funded program, we at the GNWT, ECE, work closely with them as well. So providing feedback from them, it was based on that that we developed curriculum. When there’s a survey in the communities and also research concluded that the curriculum created is appropriate for four and five-year-olds in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, this particular curriculum took a lot of research to develop. Of course, we worked with the daycare providers, as well, so that is a continuous work in progress. Mahsi.
The Minister is not listening to the Aboriginal Head Start educators. They have been trying to have their concerns related to the proposed pre-kindergarten curriculum heard by the Minister, who refuses to meet with them and his staff ignore them, but they have been unable to get a meeting with him to express those concerns.
Will the Minister, not his staff, agree to sit down with representatives from the Aboriginal Head Start program – people have been working in this area for 17 years on the ground, developing their expertise and evaluating it just as this government should be doing, but usually fails – to at least hear and discuss their concerns with what they see is a deeply flawed and potentially harmful curriculum?
Mr. Speaker, for the record, on May 14th there was an e-mail from my office to @email. There was a request for a meeting, as Mr. Bromley alluded to, and I did commit that my department would meet. Unfortunately, at that time I wasn’t available.
I did commit that my department would meet with the organization, of which they did. They provided all kinds of information to us, and we are working with that information that has been provided to us.
Next week I am travelling to the Deh Cho region. My commitment is to meet with Joyce McLeod, who is affiliated with the organization, and we’re going to share the issues that are there. Based on the feedback, obviously it will be part of the process on the Junior Kindergarten. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, their input has been ignored. They’ve put in requests to meet with the Minister – this has been going on for years now, this JK idea – and somehow the Minister has not found time to meet with this group. What does that say?
ECE seems to require bachelor’s degrees in NWT schools and they are now adding Junior Kindergarten where a teaching degree is not the standard. In fact, we’re looking for early childhood education expertise.
Will the Minister’s rule of bachelor degrees only block participation of professionals with a three-year diploma in early childhood education, which is the expertise we’re looking for, in favour of those with a bachelor’s degree who have little early childhood education training? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I do not want to dismiss those individuals who are in the education system at this point. There are some individuals who have 20 or 30 years of experience working with early childhood programs for all these years. I certainly do not want to shut the door on them. They should have the opportunity. That’s the reason why we’re providing all this training over this summer and also in the fall, so they can be prepared to roll out the Junior Kindergarten in 22 of the 29 communities that we’re establishing this fall. In fact, one additional community wanted to deliver that on top of the 22, so we are moving forward. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
