Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. About 17 years ago the Aboriginal Head Start program in Fort Providence was established, like other existing Aboriginal Head Start programs in the North. At that time it was the communities and the schools that worked together and basically developed a proposal to Health Canada and made a submission. That’s how the Aboriginal Head Start programs were started. It was basically a community initiative at that time.
I wanted to ask the Minister, can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment explain why the decision was made to offer junior kindergarten right away in small communities where Aboriginal Head Start programs currently operate? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. First, I’d like to congratulate the Aboriginal Head Start program for their 17 years of their journey on the program itself. As the Member stated, it has been successful. It’s part of the federal funding.
The junior kindergarten is an optional program to those communities that do not have educational programming. Those communities that offer Head Start programming or preschool, it’s still part of the option for parents to pursue, if they wish to do that. It is part of the option to deliver that in the communities. Mahsi.
Would the Minister consider delaying or suspending at least the options of communities that raise their concerns, and see if there’s going to be a pause in terms of trying to reflect upon the next step? Mahsi.
I believe it was in my Minister’s statement, as well, that if we delay junior kindergarten in those communities, obviously it will be detrimental to those individuals, whether they are four-year-olds in the communities.
Aboriginal Head Start has been very successful, but we have to keep in mind that I represent the whole Northwest Territories and I represent the population of the Northwest Territories. That’s the reason why we’re going forward as part of the option to deliver those programs into the communities that will benefit this JK. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
According to Ms. Reanna Erasmus, a few years ago she began working with the Head Start program. The plan was to have programs like Aboriginal Head Start in the communities, and then something changed. In the last eight months or so, the department stopped consulting with Head Start people and all of a sudden there was a junior kindergarten.
To the Minister: Why hasn’t the department sat down to determine how Head Start can inform the development of junior kindergarten in those communities? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, in fact, my department has sat down with the Head Start programming and there have been quite a few interactions. There has been correspondence, obviously going back and forth from my department to that organization, and I can provide that information to the Member, that clearly highlights all the days that they’ve met and the discussions that my department has had. Not only the Aboriginal Head Start programming, those individuals that we’ve met with engaged Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and early childhood development.
We have engaged with the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Based on the feedback came JK. Obviously, we are working with the Aboriginal Head Start program, and the JK is based on the Denendeh curricula as well.
Part of the process is we need to collaborate even more, so that’s what we’re doing. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the key word is collaboration. The expectation that is, indeed, that as we’re going down this path, we would work together.
In Fort Providence there has been a JK pilot project running since October. We have Head Start running there as well. The children go to junior kindergarten in the morning and they come to Head Start in the afternoon. The program manager, Joyce McLeod, has had to contact parents and ask them to please come and get their children because they are very, very tired. So we know for a lot of the children, a full day is too much. That’s just one of the problems that are happening with the combination of junior kindergarten and Aboriginal Head Start, yet there has been no program evaluation. No one has called Joyce McLeod to find out how the junior program is impacting Head Start in Fort Providence. This is a big oversight, Mr. Speaker.
How does the Minister account for that? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, those are the discussions that we need to have. I am going to Fort Providence and I will be meeting with that organization.
We have to keep in mind that you’re talking about eight communities. I am responsible for 33 communities and I want to deliver the most effective programming, that’s JK, into the communities. JK is based on Dene Kede and Inuinnaqtun curriculum that recognizes northern culture. It makes learning experimental.
This is the curriculum the program came out with. We have to make it a success in the communities. That’s what I’m committed to. In Fort Providence and other Aboriginal Head Start programming, we will be working with them. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
