Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were a lot of recommendations that were brought up from standing committee in terms of meeting with students and staff at the Yellowknife Campus here. I guess my first question would be to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
What is the status and update of making any types of renovations or work to the Yellowknife Campus to make sure there’s enough space for our students and staff to do their work in and study in and get a quality education in a safe environment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There are 44 recommendations that have been brought to our attention, and 42 of them are either worked on or some of them are completed, and two are still outstanding that we are diligently working with the college. Since that recommendation came to our attention, we’ve been working very closely with the president of Aurora College, the Board of Governors and, more specifically, to deal with those matters that the Member is referring to, and other factors as well. Those are in the works and we will continue to keep the Members informed of our progress.
I was making references to a letter that the standing committee had made to the Minister.
In terms of the 44 recommendations, can the Minister describe what report he’s referring to in terms of the 44 recommendations?
The 44 recommendations are from the Aurora College assessment report that was completed in May 2013. Those are the recommendations that my department is working very closely with the college to make sure that all the recommendations are followed through.
I can get more into the report, but I want to just focus on a couple of the issues that some of the students not only at the Yellowknife Campus but at campuses in Smith and Inuvik also had. That’s just paying market rent during the summer. Some of our students find jobs in the communities that they work in while they’re going to school and they want to continue working in their jobs, or their significant other has a full-time job in the community and would like to stay in that community. One of the concerns that were brought up was the terms of market rent during the summer when school isn’t in.
I’d like to ask the Minister if they’ve changed their policy or are looking at changing their policy for market rents when school is not in session for the summer.
The market rent has been brought to our attention on a couple of occasions from the students and also directly from the MLAs. It was even brought up in this House. I did inform the Board of Governors that this was a concern that was brought to my attention. The Board of Governors came back and so they are looking at these areas as well. They know the pressure they’re on with the market housing. Once we complete our question period today, I will be addressing that again, the status of where we’re at with the market housing today.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really glad to see some of the progress that is being made but also commend the Board of Governors in terms of reaching out to standing committee and allowing members of standing committee to come to their Board of Governors meetings and bring up some of the concerns that we hear as standing committee and as individual Members of this Assembly.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in terms of a concern that I have with the Inuvik campus and looking at programs being distributed equally across the three campuses, has the Minister met with the Board of Governors and the executive to see how we can distribute these quality education programs across all three campuses in the Northwest Territories?
This is a very fundamental question that has been addressed to me, but we need to address being equally distributing programming into three campuses. My staff and my department are working, again, with the college to make sure that that happens. Not only that but we have been reaching out to the general public, what their real concerns are, and there’s been a lot of feedback on various programming that should be happening in some of the small communities. Beaufort-Delta is one prime example, and also the learning campuses that we have in the communities that we have. We need to expand on that. These are just some of the recommendations that have been brought to our attention and we will be following through with them.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
