Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We do have program dollars set aside to deal with early childhood program delivery. There are areas that we sponsor, whether it be the child care centres. There are pots of funds that we sponsor, whether it be partial payments of their mortgage, start-up costs and supporting the child that’s in the system as well. So those are just some of the program dollars that we can clearly identify and pass on to Regular Members for their information. Just the detail of the breakdown of various pots of funds within early childhood development. Mahsi.
Sounds like there is funding available, probably a couple of different types of programming areas. There are a couple of things, I guess. How are they available to communities and is the current funding already subscribed to, which means I guess basically is all being taken up? Is there opportunity for other communities to get involved? Should they be planning it now or in the future?
Those individual organizations, if they want to start up a service, they can go through our regional representatives. We have various programs that are available to them. Our regional representative will be more than happy to sit down with those individuals or organizations that are interested in pursuing and providing services in the community, such as early childhood. So we do have a representative at the regional level and we can provide those names and contact information as well. Mahsi.
Thank you very much. Earlier the Minister had said that two communities will pilot family resource centres this year. How long is he planning to run that and also what is the long-range forecast? Is it to run them in all of our small and remote communities as well, Mr. Chair?
We are working on an action plan, as I stated in my report. We are pursuing two pilot projects in two communities. We haven’t identified those two communities yet. We have to work with organizations, agencies, and they need to specify which communities they want us to pursue. We need to work with that. I will be tabling that document in the Legislative Assembly before session ends.
I certainly look forward to that document. Final question here is, as the Minister may have already answered it, the Early Child Development Framework for Action has not been revised since 2001, as was mentioned earlier in the Members’ statements earlier this afternoon. That work is certainly behind schedule. When will that work be completed and when will the recommended actions be funded?
The Early Childhood Development Framework, as we stated in this House, is long overdue. We’re going to be doing the consultation this fall, as I indicated in my Minister’s statement as well. We want to complete the overall review by the end of this fiscal year and get ready for the next business planning cycle so we can identify funds to start implementing that. That is the overall plan.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. We’ll be moving on to the Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here. I’d like to follow up first on the questions asked by Mr. Bromley with regard to inclusive schooling and funding for inclusive schooling. We talked a bit about it already. I’ve stated before, and I’ll repeat it today, I believe we need a full-scale review of the manner in which we fund inclusive schooling in our schools. I think there needs to be an evaluation of those students who are special needs and the level of various students with special needs and that the funding needs to be based upon the needs of the students. Some students require an awful lot more than other students do and those that require a full-time aide certainly need to be funded differently from those who simply require half an hour a day with a math or English support teacher.
I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not, I think he’s suggested that they’re looking at this issue. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not the department will consider a full-scale review. I know there was a review - at least the Minister called it a review - probably a year or two years ago now. In my mind, it wasn’t the kind of review that I’m referencing. It was a review where boards and superintendents were asked to basically itemize the special needs within their board. In my mind, that’s not a comprehensive review or evaluation of the program and funding. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s looking at this issue, will he consider a comprehensive review of how we fund special needs and how we determine the funding to go for particular students.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I did commit to look at this overall inclusive schooling. It could consist of a comprehensive overview of this inclusive schooling. Before I do that, as a department I want to share the terms of reference with the standing committee so that they can have their input as we move forward. We will be pursuing this. I’m committing to that. I will be sharing that information with the standing committee.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the commitment. I look forward to seeing the terms of reference at committee. One other thing in regard to inclusive schooling, and I would suggest that if we’re going to do a review of this program that the department offers, at the same time we should review the Inclusive Schooling Directive. We talked a bit about that yesterday. I believe it’s on the schedule for the department to review the Aboriginal Language and Culture-Based Education Directive, but I would like to ask the Minister if he would consider either adding the Inclusive Schooling Directive to the review or to the ones that the department is reviewing, or if he would consider replacing the Aboriginal Language and Culture-Based Education Directive with the Inclusive Schooling Directive for this particular fiscal year.
The directive on inclusive schooling will be considered as part of the comprehensive overall review. Once we develop the terms of reference, we will share it with our colleagues and we want to start at least late this summer or early fall and start initiating our discussion on this particular important piece of work.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the indication of timing. It’s good to hear that the directive would be included as part of the review.
I have another question with regard to schools, particularly high schools and high school curriculum and the supports for students in high school. I spoke to this earlier about the need for schools that are providing high school curriculum to students need to have somebody who does help those students with counselling, particularly counselling relative to courses and making sure they’re taking the right courses and classes to get them where they want to go beyond high school.
I’ve learned since we originally talked about this, that in smaller schools quite often it’s the principal who does take on the counselling duties. It’s sort of one of the things that is added on to the principal’s many other duties. I also want to say that it is quite a specialized job. If students are going into a post-secondary institution, there are extremely narrow requirements sometimes and I wonder whether or not the department provides any training for principals who happen to take on the role of a counsellor or if it’s somebody else who is taking on the role of counsellor for the school in addition to their other duties. I suspect there’s probably not money set aside for it, but I would like to know from the Minister if there is any thought given to the need to provide training for school counsellors, guidance counsellors, career counsellors within the department’s thinking.
Guidance counsellor has been addressed before. We provide funding to the school boards and it’s at their discretion if they’re going to hire guidance counsellors, teachers, custodial, support staff. This will definitely be addressed with them when it comes to my meeting with them as board chairs.
The Member has spoken to principal training potentially providing guidance services. I’m fully aware that there is a principals’ annual certification training that happens for principals that are coming into a new position or even existing principals. I have to find out if this is part of their training. I know they have a wide range of training that’s required for the principals. I will have to get back to the Members on the actual training component of the principal’s certification program. At the same time, I will again be talking to my colleagues, the chairpersons of the school boards, to provide more emphasis on this particular subject. That’s what we’ll be doing.
There is also – I just got the information here – several rounds of training both career focusing, resulting in over 80 teachers. That information we can provide to the Members for their information as well.
I’ll try and rephrase the question. I’m not wanting to know what training principals take. I think it’s similar to the previous situation we had with homelessness where it was done off the corner of somebody’s desk. I see that counselling within many small schools is something that’s done off the corner of somebody’s desk. They have other jobs and other priorities and this is one thing that gets added on to the many other jobs that they do. Sometimes it’s a principal but sometimes it’s another teacher. So to give the training only to principals will not solve the problem.
What I’m suggesting is that we need training for whoever is providing the service in the school, whether it’s the principal or the vice-principal or the phys. ed. teacher or the music teacher. It doesn’t matter. Somebody needs to have some sort of education, some sort of backup, some sort of document, some sort of mentor who can assist them when they are trying to provide counselling services to the kids. I leave that as a comment.
I appreciate that the Minister is going to discuss it with board chairs, but I do feel that it’s something that needs a department focus and that the department should mandate and ask the boards to do as opposed to… Sorry. They should tell the boards to do it as opposed to asking them. I think the department should facilitate getting the training that’s required and certainly there are experienced persons within our schools in the NWT who can do the kind of training that I’m thinking of. It doesn’t have to be a massive six-week course. Just a comment.
I agree with the Member. An initial thought the Member raised the issue about the principals, so I figured I would touch on the principals’ annual certification program. At the same time it should be offered to other teachers and support staff as well. This falls in line of other organizations that we work with; NWTTA as well that deals with all the teachers. I’ll get Ms. Iatridis to provide some background of other projects that are out there in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Iatridis.
ECE has a partnership with BHP Billiton to support a pilot project that focuses on career focusing. Within that pilot project we’ve identified master trainers to be able to provide career counselling in all of our schools. We’ve also expanded the pilot to include career development officers who work in our regional centres and can provide counselling to adults in adult education programs. The career focusing tool is something that we’ve adopted and received Train the Trainer program facilitation skills. It’s part of a Queens University project. Over the last few years we’ve trained 80 teachers and 11 career development officers to implement this tool and to provide high school students with career focusing skills.
Thank you, Ms. Iatridis. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.
Not at this time, Mr. Chairman. I think Mr. Bromley had some questions here.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. We’ll move on to Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to start by making a quick comment on the early childhood and making note of many of the good programs that are happening, and obviously there are plans to expand the Head Start program, and partnerships with Yukon and so on are not addressing the early childhood part or the early years part of early childhood development. I just want to make clear that there is a difference there.
The other thing is that early childhood education and child care are, strictly speaking in terms of what we’re talking about, not early childhood development. So when reference is made to that as early childhood development, I think there’s starting to be a bit of a disconnect between what Members on this side of the House are saying and what the Minister is saying. I’m just wondering if the Minister could confirm his understanding that we see a difference in early childhood development and some of these other things that are early childhood education. They’re obviously contributing to early childhood but they’re not necessarily the focus. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Lafferty.
I understand where the Member is coming from and I do agree that we need to focus on the very early stages in children’s lives. That is what we’re focusing on. Maybe it’s different terminology that we’re talking about here, but when we talk about the – and Member Bisaro also raised that issue – where having qualified people. That’s why I addressed the two year on-site, the child development care diploma that deals with ages zero to three. Indirectly or directly, it does impact on these individuals in a positive way. This is just the beginning of what we’re pursuing as part of the framework and there will be more to come. I will be interested in hearing from Members, as well, because we’ve heard from them what they want included in the framework as well. But as we move forward, we’ll be sharing that information with them.
There is a plan of action being developed, as well, from previous discussions that we’ve had with the agencies and organizations that deals directly with the ages zero to three and having parental involvement as well.
As a department, we cannot do it alone. Those are the areas that we’ll continue to focus as a department, providing funds in that area, because it is a worthwhile investment. We will do what we can as a department to work towards that initiative. Mahsi.
I’m happy to leave it at that. I do understand that we’re not going to do everything at once here. I do understand that these things take some ramping up. I’m not a big fan of throwing a huge amount of money at something and then have the dollars slack off as we learn how to spend them most effectively. We need to be appropriately thorough and comprehensive as we develop these programs, and I’ll look forward to having more discussions. But I appreciate the clarity that we are on the same wavelength there, and as I say, I will look forward to further discussions on this. I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Moving on for comments on page 10-17, activity summary, we have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the activity education and culture under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment Main Estimates 2012-2013 on page 10-17 at this time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. We’ll just give it a second to circulate a copy of the motion.
The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. The motion is not debateable. The motion is carried.
---Carried
I’d like to thank the committee for consideration of activity summary under page 10-17 in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. This has been deferred. We’ll carry on.
Page 10-18, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, education and culture, grants and contributions, grants, $52,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Contributions, on pages 10-18, 10-19 and on 10-20. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in regard to 10-19 and community library services, it’s still the focus of the community of Fort Simpson to get back to a fully functioning library, and I continue to pursue this initiative. I was just wondering, since I last raised it, how far Education, Culture and Employment have explored and worked with the community organization in addressing this concern.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Ms. Iatridis.
We would have to get more detail on that for you.
The community library in Fort Simpson was severely reduced two years ago and is now just a resource centre. The community of Fort Simpson residents were looking for assistance to upgrade, in fact, from a resource centre to a library where there are actual books. Right now there’s just a series of four computers and older books from a library. Even though it works well for residents who are used to the system, the library, the previous library was still a central point for the community and for hosting author events, et cetera. It’s central to any community. The large communities, of course, have benefited from it. I don’t have to list the many, many benefits of having a fulltime library service in a community and it’s central to the cultural importance of any community.
I’ve been raising it for a couple years and I was just wondering at what stage was ECE at with this initiative in Fort Simpson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I believe it’s been some time now since we last looked at this file. The Village of Fort Simpson is getting $53,000 at this point, in 2010-2011 actuals. We continue to provide that funding to the list of libraries in the Northwest Territories.
There have been some options thrown around. As I recall, when the Member first addressed this with us as a department, looking at options of part of the school, the school system, to be part of the library, we worked closely with the town council, as well, in Simpson, especially with the mayor, and they provided some options for us to work with at that time. It did not pan out at that time, but I can commit to the Member that I will follow through with where it’s at and where the talks have broken down, and we will revisit our discussions of the last time where we can take the next steps. I’ll do that as my commitment. Mahsi.
I think it was last fall or last spring, I think, we lost one of our library proponents that moved out of the community so I think that file did go silent for awhile, but it’s certainly still important for Fort Simpson and I look forward to the Minister’s commitment to continue to follow up and work to a better solution for Fort Simpson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Contributions on, again, pages 10-18, 10-19, 10-20, total contributions. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am trying to understand on page 10-20 the difference between the contributions to the NWT Arts Council and the contribution to the new northern arts programs. They sound rather similar to me. I am just wondering why we don’t lump them together under the Arts Council so the Arts Council has control of the whole $750,000. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Minister.
Mr. Chair, there is a separate pot of funds here, as has been identified. NWT Arts Council contributions to artists and cultural groups to support and encourage creative artistic projects in the visual, literary, performing and new media arts in the NWT; and other new northern arts programs, that is contributed for northern theatre arts, northern literary arts, northern film and media arts and arts mentorships. Those are the distinctions between those two pots of funds. We can certainly look at this area if there needs to be a combination. We need to find out why they are separated. Maybe there is a reason why there are separate pots of funds. I will definitely look into this further. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister for the commitment to look into this. I guess I would like to ask either the Minister or his delegation if they can tell me what the distinction is, the difference between these two. I know the Minister read it out but he said that is the difference. Well, they don’t sound very different to me except the titles are different. If he could give me any more information at this time, that would be appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty. Ms. Iatridis.
Mr. Chair, the description in the document does sound very similar, but the guidelines may be very different for accessing the dollars. We can get more information for you on the specific guidelines and how the two pots of funding are administered.
Thanks for the information. I would look forward to that. I guess I would just, as the Minister stated, if these can be combined, it certainly is a more efficient way of doing business. The guidelines certainly probably could be combined to cover everything that is there. Just a comment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Contributions, pages 10-18, 10-19, 10-20, total contributions, $166,985, total grants and contributions, $167,037.
Agreed.
Thank you. Education, Culture and Employment, information item, education and culture, active positions. Any questions? Ms. Bisaro.
