Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Deputy Minister Eggenhofer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The certificate course that the college would be offering would be transferable because they get accredited through southern universities just like the Teacher Education Program.
In respect to the question of when would it be feasible to have our own early childhood diploma courses offered or post-secondary degrees, I think a couple years ago we did the cost-benefit analysis of what it will cost for the college to offer this training program. I believe it came in somewhere around $750,000 to $1 million to offer the course. The issue was also to do with not enough people having expressed an interest in taking the course because the wages for early childhood educators are typically quite below what you would make in other professions. Therefore, some of the actions in the Early Childhood Action Plan drive to incent people to get in the profession, and one way of starting that was through the wage subsidy that has been successfully implemented now through the Early Childhood Action Plan as well as starting with the dual credit course to create some interest amongst Northerners to get into early childhood education. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, deputy minister. Next I have Mr. Bromley on the list.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll just follow up on a couple of things. On the last series of questions, I think the relevance is we are putting in place early childhood development programs knowing that we don’t have a lot of expertise here. The last time I looked, our graduates from ECE programs at Aurora College did not meet federal standards. It sounds like some work was done and we decided we can’t afford that. That’s unfortunate, but I do appreciate the effort to support, through scholarships, early childhood students who choose to pursue those qualifications through other routes. It would be nice to try and build that here when we can.
Also, on the ALBE programs, I want to reiterate the concerns that Ms. Bisaro had put forward last time we chatted on this page. I think had this been an Auditor General report, then last year they would have been all over this with a second report saying, “What the heck is going on here?” There’s been no response. In this case, it was our own Program Review Office that did the analysis in a sort of parallel mode to the Auditor General, and they said we have serious issues here. We don’t have a clue what’s going on, and four years later we don’t see things happening. It’s very, very disappointing.
Moving on to the culture and heritage division, I see that they oversee the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat. Is that a new role? How does that work? Typically this has been run by the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, our cultural programs, but is this new? How is this working? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is new from what we’ve heard. When we had the Aboriginal Languages Symposium we heard from various stakeholders and the general public that we need to do something about our language preservation and revitalization. They wanted us to have a system in place similar to the Languages Bureau that we had back in the 1990s. This is a similar set-up where we have an associate director in that position in the past, a director of official languages, and having a couple key staff within the museum to work very closely with the language groups. We also provide funding directly to the language groups to have a coordinator approach. This is a fairly new initiative that we’ve established. We’re at the preliminary stages but we want to make some changes that will benefit the communities. If I missed out on key points, maybe my deputy can elaborate more in detail.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the Member is right. It is new. What we’re trying out is to see if housing the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat together with the people in the museum who work so much around cultural preservation and cultural activity, whether there is going to be some synergies having Aboriginal language together with culture. It was generally quite well received. We’re monitoring closely to see if there’s a good fit. It could be equally as good a fit to have the secretariat as part of our curriculum development folks because we’re also providing language and culture through our schools. There’s no real science to it but we thought for the time being let’s see if it works.
Thank you, Ms. Eggenhofer. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that response. It’s good to learn a little bit about that. I guess I would just ask, are they physically in the museum and is that taking up space and is there a budget allocation to the museum to help support that, or is it more a virtual administration by the museum staff?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Ms. Eggenhofer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Originally the plan was to have the associate director sit in the museum, but I think there was some feedback we received around the office space encroaching on the space in the museum that was used by the public in order to see maps and stuff. There was a bit of space in the Lahm Ridge Tower, so we moved the secretariat back into the Lahm Ridge Tower and now there is full access of the public to the space in the museum.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the deputy minister for that response. My next question is in the area of early childhood development and learning. I mentioned I was very pleased to see the $1.24 million investment into this program. I wonder if I could get some specifics on what the intention is with these dollars and confirmation that these are new dollars. So, are these new dollars and where they’re going, and maybe I’ll just throw out another part to the question on the financial side. I don’t see this reflected in the budget. The budget, in fact, has gone down from the revised estimates for the current fiscal year, so I’m just wondering how this fits with that situation. Three parts to that question.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Lovely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Early Childhood Development Action Plan has $1.24 million allocated towards that. That was money that was internally reallocated from other areas within the department. In terms of what we are planning to do this fiscal year, there is some money set aside for EDI data collection and GIS mapping, public campaigns, iPads, senior secondary child development course, the early childhood program review, the early learning framework and integrated play-based curriculum, ECD symposium for daycares, competency-based assessment of early childhood development workers, and development of monitoring, evaluation and accountability plan.
Thank you for those details. Of course, I’m horrified to see more iPads out there. I know that’s going to hurt us more than it helps us. I still haven’t had an explanation. Was this reallocated from inside the early development and learning program? Have they taken the early development and learning program dollars and reallocated them to early development and learning programs?
The $1.24 million was reallocated from inclusive schooling a number of years ago, and this is, I believe, the third year of the ECD Action Plan.
When the Minister highlighted this in his opening remarks, this budget proposes an investment of $1.24 million. These dollars, in fact, were proposed and implemented several years ago. Is that correct?
That is correct. However, it’s the continued implementation of the Early Childhood Development Action Plan. As we stated earlier, that’s year three of this action plan.
Just moving on to education operations and development, let’s see if I can get through this smoke and mirrors here too. Just on student achievement, obviously, the slight rise. I think the deputy minister had it right. One data point does not make a trend. What other monitoring do we do on student achievement and do we have other sources of information other than the EDI?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Deputy Minister Eggenhofer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The primary measures are the graduation rates. They are the AAT results, and we are monitoring those closely. What we will have soon, I hope, as part of the ERI Action Plan and the 18 actions that are in this plan, all of which are geared to improve student achievements, that plan will be supported by an overall monitoring and evaluation plan that we are currently working on with the education authorities, because we want to be sure we are identifying the right kind of indicators and the right kind of performance measures, and we can’t do that in isolation. We want to do it together with our superintendents to make sure we all are in agreement that we’re measuring the right kinds of things in order to know whether the implementation of the actions under the ERI Action Plan accomplish what they have set out to accomplish.
Thank you, deputy minister. Next on my list I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow through on the early childhood but I’ll leave that, I think. No, I have to ask the question again. The certificate that we are currently issuing through Aurora College for early childhood educators, how portable is that to other jurisdictions within Canada?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I believe my deputy answered that, where through our partner from the southern institution it is an accredited program that’s transferrable to other jurisdictions across Canada. Dealing with universities from southern institutions, they are recognized from other provincial jurisdictions as well. Once we deliver that program here in the Northwest Territories, through our affiliated university partners, they are recognized in other places as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m really confused. This is a one-year course, I think, or less. I’m not sure. It may be recognized as being part of a course in the South, but can I get a certificate here in the NWT, go to a daycare or an early childhood facility in Alberta, for instance, in Edmonton, and be accepted as a fully trained early childhood educator and meet the requirements of an Alberta certification to be an early childhood educator? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the exception of one program that’s the forest management program, all the courses that the college offers in the NWT are accredited through southern institutions. I believe that it is the University of Saskatchewan that is accrediting the early childhood certificates and diplomas and any other courses the college may offer from time to time. The question then really is, is the University of Saskatchewan certificate recognized across the country. I would assume it is but I don’t want to say with certainty that U of A or Saskatchewan courses accredited through their universities would be recognized across the country. There are always issues with one university not necessarily recognizing the diplomas of other post-secondary institutions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the deputy minister. I appreciate that things are not always equal between one jurisdiction and the other, but I guess I would have thought that if we are putting on a course, we are certifying people and we are certifying them against the Saskatchewan standard, we would know how that measures up in other places. I would think that would be something that we should know as a department.
I want to change course here and ask a question about junior kindergarten funding. I have struggled to get… I don’t know if I’m asking the question incorrectly or whatever, but I’m trying to find out in terms of junior kindergarten funding, whether or not the plan that was outlined by the Premier last fall is still going to go ahead. That was a three-year plan for funding junior kindergarten. Year one was certain funds deleted from education authorities’ budgets. Year two, some more funds from certain education authorities’ budgets. Some got it back if they had JK. Then, year three, the same thing all over again.
In year one education authorities had some funds removed. JK was put in place in 22 or 23 communities. We have now put a stop to that. In school year ‘15-16, I am presuming that we will have, from what the Minister told us a few days ago, 18 or 19 schools providing junior kindergarten. My question is whether or not there is any reduction to education authority budgets to fund junior kindergarten for the ‘15-16 school year. Thank you.
Yes, there will be for the remaining this year and next year. We are using the same funding approach that was initially conceived to roll out junior kindergarten. The cost of junior kindergarten will go down. However, because we’re going from 23 communities to 19, eventually 18 communities, the cost we’re estimating is going to be reduced from about $1.8 million to $1.3 million. That $1.3 million will be divided amongst the education authorities in the same way as was initially conceived.
We were able to recoup some funding, $73,400, from going from 23 communities to 19 communities. That funding was given back to the education authorities that did contribute to the cost of junior kindergarten. Also, part of that agreement from October of last year was that the funding approach adhered to the guarantee of the 16 to one PTR. Yellowknife District No. 1 just recently benefitted from that funding approach and was provided with $225,000 extra because they slightly exceeded their 16 to one PTR. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I’m really struggling with this. If we take Yellowknife Education District No. 1, for instance, I believe it was $450,000 that they had their budget reduced by last year, and you’re now telling me that they’re going to again get a reduction in the ‘15-16 school year. We’re not increasing the JK Program. The money that was collected from the reductions in the education authorities for the first year of implementation of junior kindergarten, the ‘14-15 school year, that money you already have. It’s in your base now because you’re not giving it out to the education authorities. So why is it that the education authorities have to be reduced again? There’s no additional cost to JK in the ‘15-16 year. Why are we charging the education authority, so to speak, more money when there’s presumably no bigger cost? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Again, when the decision was made October 30, 2014, it was decided that we would continue with rolling out of junior kindergarten in 19 communities, based on the feedback that we received, and 18 the following year, not to proceed with the second and third phases and to continue with re-profiled funds from education councils. That was the decision that we went with.
Last year, 2014-15, it cost us approximately $1.8 million. In 2015-16 it will be approximately $1.3 million. That was the decision that was made by our government to move forward. That is what we’re doing, unless my ADM has a bit of detailed information. By all means, Mr. Lovely can answer that.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Lovely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Each year the education authorities’ budgets are determined by the number of students that they have in their classrooms, so each budget is not guaranteed for the next year. When we implement year two of junior kindergarten, we’re going to have to reallocate from those authorities the $1.3 million. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Lovely. Ms. Bisaro.
Maybe I need it to be written down. I don’t understand. I don’t know how to try again.
I understand that education authorities are funded by pupils. In the 2014-15 year they were funded by pupils and then they were reduced $400,000. Are you telling me that they’re going to funded to the max by pupils in ‘15-16 and again be reduced by $400,000? Except for enrollment, is it going to be an equal amount of funding in ‘14-15 for the education authorities as it will be in ‘15-16? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Lovely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The enrolment figures are the basis for calculating the budgets. Year one of junior kindergarten, we had to provide $1.8 million from all the authorities to provide JK in those communities that were offering the program. That $1.8 million goes towards funding the costs in year one only. The cost in year two are going down because there are fewer communities offering the program, and those costs have to come from the other authorities as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Lovely. Next I have on my list is Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m going to take a break from junior kindergarten. I’ll let the department take a rest.
Mr. Chair, I know the Minister is deeply passionate about Aboriginal language, especially getting Aboriginal language programming in the communities. He spoke very passionately last week, actually this week on CKLB. I myself have been equally passionate about trying to aid an organization that has been saddled with a number of old debts and has been dealing with aging infrastructure, aging transmitters and, quite frankly, very stagnant in Heritage Canada funding and also funding from the GNWT, but to a lesser degree, through our community broadcasting grants.
The Minister indicated that there has been some recent activity in the last week or so with respect to the Native Communications Society and its executive director. I’m asking, at this time, if the Minister can provide some clarity as to where this radio station stands, and will we expect to potentially hear this radio come back on the air in some form or fashion in the very near future. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. When I spoke about it last week, I did indicate that I had met with the chair of the NCS that looks after CKLB. It was made clear that obviously both he and I want CKLB back online because it is the voice of the North.
My department has been contributing, for a number of years now, our portion of $202,000. We’ll continue to do that. That’s our commitment. Obviously, through the federal government there is approximately $464,000 that goes to the CKLB. There have been some challenges, obviously, on the reporting mechanism.
I did meet with Shelly Glover, as I indicated last week. This is very important that we need to resolve this issue, once and for all, how to best deal with the next step. The next step, I’m hoping that the federal Minister will be receptive to us taking the funding over from the federal government so we can work directly with NCS and CKLB. That’s where it’s at right now.
As the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, we will continue to deliver our contribution. I believe the chair has stated that they’re in the process of discussing amongst the board to see if we could offer some sort of CKLB broadcasting to some degree. Probably not full-fledged at this point, but those are discussions that they are currently having.
We’ve been in constant contact with them and we will continue to do so. Mahsi.
I’m encouraged by what I’m hearing from the Minister. I strongly know he is committed and passionate about wanting to get this back on the air, and I’m pleased to hear that the funding model might come under the one-roof model which would be administered through the GNWT.
But there are still some key areas of operational challenges that CKLB is still facing. The first one is the ongoing debt that this organization has been saddled with for so long. This debt is an albatross around its neck which prevents it from getting to the next level as a business entity.
What opportunities are there for this organization to deal with that debt moving forward?
When I met with CKLB and the NCS chair, I offered, from my department, a financial accountant to deal with their bookkeeping challenges, their debt load that we’re aware of. So, the offer is on the table with the board chair and also to deal with the board members. It is at their discretion if they want to take advantage of that, but we offered that. We are offering as much support as we possibly can, as a department, to the organization because we want them to be back up and running. That’s what we’re offering at this point. Mahsi.
I’m encouraged to hear that we’re providing that financial management support, and hopefully CKLB can see that as reaching out by this government and I strongly encourage it to take advantage of it.
That being said, the so-called 600-some thousand dollars of programming dollars isn’t enough to keep the doors open per se. I mean, that’s just a smidgen of the amount that’s required to pay wages, operational costs and everything. One of huge undertakings that CKLB is facing today, and has faced for probably over 10 or 15 years, is its community transmitters are in dire need of replacement. As I referenced once, not that long ago, I refer to them as a Timex watch in a digital age, and I meant that. Because we have to not only look at providing some funding, we have to look at how we can help with upgrades or at least open doors to investment dollars or investors who come forward to help bring those much needed dollars to make those upgrades to electronics and equipment. So, to the question, knowing full well that this is another hurdle in the success of this radio station, what is the government prepared to do, or doing, to look at this dated equipment? Even if you throw money at this, this is a freight train. If you don’t deal with this equipment in due course, this organization is going to be facing the same problem.
So, to the question of aged equipment, what is this government prepared to do or are doing currently? Thank you.
Madam Chair, since we’ve been in discussion with CKLB, capital infrastructure has been brought to our attention on numerous occasions. Obviously the federal government plays a key part in this.
My department, obviously, provided support. So the organization can submit a contribution proposal to CanNor. We’re providing support at that level, even as far as developing a business case proposal to be submitted to CanNor. That’s what my department is offering, as much support to deal with those matters at the federal level. We’re behind CKLB when we’re speaking to the federal government. When I met with Shelly Glover, Minister responsible for Canadian Heritage, in January, that was the same message I reiterated, that the capital is a challenge to CKLB, so she is fully aware of it. The CanNor is her counterpart, Leona Aglukkaq. We’ve been dealing with those Ministers as well. Mahsi, Madam Chair.
