Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a follow-up to my Member's statement; I have a few questions for the Minister of Education. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my statement there's a lot of concerns how junior kindergarten will affect Aboriginal Head Start in the communities of Fort McPherson and Aklavik within my riding. In Tsiigehtchic there's not as much concern there because we do not have the program there. But I would like to ask the Minister: how can the department assure my constituents that junior kindergarten will not affect Aboriginal Head Start? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
We have had some concerns from the Aboriginal Head Start program, specifically in Fort McPherson. We received letters addressing some of the concerns that were raised at a meeting with the Aboriginal Head Start staff. Our Director of Early Childhood Programs and the program coordinator went in, we met with the school. The junior kindergarten being offered in McPherson was an option and the school decided to opt in this year. We didn't ask them to, but it was an option for them, they decided to do that. We've informed Aboriginal Head Start staff throughout the whole Northwest Territories that -- we had a meeting with them on August 24th and with the Public Health Agency of Canada as well and they informed all the staff that program dollars wouldn't be affected with the implementation of junior kindergarten program.
With our early childhood program operating subsidy increases that we announced earlier this year, say, if, let's say Aboriginal Head Start students or programs take in infants then they'll get more money as well that will offset the four-year-olds in that program, so there shouldn't be an impact on the programs operating together. Our junior kindergarten program in Fort McPherson is run a half-day as well as the Aboriginal Head Start Program in Fort McPherson I believe is also running half-days, so it offers the families full programming for a full-day. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, since junior kindergarten has been discussed, you know, one of the major concerns I've always had is we are taking on an extra grade, yet without any additional funding. How does the department expect to manage this as we move forward? As you know, the cost of doing business always rises in the territory, and with added teachers and assistants, how will the department manage this as we move forward?
We have had some training courses for people in the junior kindergarten program; we're also doing web seminars to update our staff in that area. In the Member's riding we currently hold junior kindergarten in all three communities and we also have 28 families in Aklavik, McPherson, and Tsiigehtchic that currently have their children enrolled in a program in one of the three communities.
So in terms of the training, we're continually doing the training for the staff to address those issues. As I mentioned, on October 4th we had some of our staff, regional staff, go in and speak with the principal, the teachers, about some of the issues around training, as well as the support for the program itself in the community.
Mr. Speaker, I realize a lot of training has been done, but are there any actually added funds to DEAs to follow through with the junior kindergarten?
Later on we're going to be hearing a motion here in the House, but as we mentioned, one of the recommendations that came out of the report earlier this year is we're doing surveys, we're seeing what's needed in the communities, what resources are needed, and as we continue to hear those updates and talk to all the schools through that survey we will be coming with a plan, implementation plan and any other needed funds. We're going through our capital business plan and in there we did have some funds that were allocated to the communities for capital expenses, and we'll continue to look at those as we move forward.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the department has said that the goal of our entire school system is to strive to be as culturally-appropriate as possible. How will junior kindergarten achieve this and how can the department be confident it'll do a better job than the Aboriginal Head Start? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
One of our mandates is to do early childhood programming throughout the NWT in partnership with existing childhood programs. We do support Aboriginal Head Start, we do fund them, I believe the Community of Fort McPherson is going to get around somewhere over $25,000 this year.
Part of the department is we do promote Aboriginal culture, traditions and values into our programming, right from JK to grade 12; you can see that directly in our Northern Studies programming, and moving forward in Northern Studies 20 and 30 as well. So it's very important for us and we continue to support Aboriginal Head Start through funding and continue to support the work that they do. Junior kindergarten will also incorporate some of the cultural values in learning as we move forward throughout the Northwest Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
