Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have questions for the Minister of Education today following up on my Member’s statement. The questions that I have are about the junior kindergarten review.
Can the Minister indicate where that review currently sits in the review of junior kindergarten? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We are currently going through the review process. We’ve hired consultants to engage with the general public, the DECs, Aboriginal leadership, Aboriginal Head Start program in the communities, the licenced daycare and family day home operators, and more specifically on how the JK is being delivered in the communities. Also, there was an Arctic Aboriginal Head Start Council. Their programming, Aboriginal governments and the NWTTA is part of the process and the public engagement.
We’re expecting that report and the overall review to be completed by July 2015 and then we will sit down to figure things out from there, how it will look, and I will be sharing that with the standing committee. Mahsi.
Can the Minister please provide us with the information of who the consultant is? Can we publicly display who that consultant is, how they can be contacted for the public and DEAs to provide their comments sooner than later? Thank you.
Yes. We will provide that to the standing committee, who the actual contractor is. It’s a contractor that’s well known to deal with these matters in other jurisdictions as well. So they’re more specifically on the junior kindergarten area. We also have Dr. Andre Corriveau who’s working very closely with us on this particular file, especially when it comes to the health and social services area. This is a joint initiative between my department, Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services. So we’re doing what we can to capture everything within that review. Mahsi.
As of yesterday the Hay River DEA had not heard from this consultant. The South Slave District Education Authority had meetings just recently and nothing on their minutes indicated that they had a meeting with the consultant.
Can the Minister indicate to me when this consultant will be in the South Slave area or the Hay River area? Thank you.
When we first initiated this discussion, obviously the terms of reference were shared with the standing committee and it’s also on our website. I will be getting back to the Member more specifically when they’re going to be visiting his community, along with other Members’ communities, as well, to gather their information and do the overall review. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has talked about their website. Will the consultant have a link to their website on how to contact them directly to provide their input through the website and through public process? Thank you.
Mahsi. If the information is not there at this point, we will make sure that it is available. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
