Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to comment on what the witness was saying in her statement. I appreciate where the witness is coming from on this point. I do think that a healthy tension between elected bodies, whether they be school boards or Members or municipal governments, perhaps having a different opinion on how policies are implemented or rolling out, I think that is not confusing the issues. I think what was confusing the issue was who is paying for what? The role of the consultants' report, the role of the standing committee, how much information was being shared, whether the department was open to hearing the concerns? Those are all the kinds of questions.
I don't want to belabour this too much, because I know some of this ultimately rests on the Minister as the one who is accountable for this. I just think that we have a lot of work to do on, whatever the department or the government as a whole is proposing, that that proposition be put clearly to the public in a way that is easy to understand and easy to absorb. If people disagree with that, that is fine. Just make sure they are disagreeing with the merits or with the policy in itself and all that information is available.
My question is: how many communications staff positions are within the department? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We currently have three communications staff positions.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Testart.
Thank you. How many policy analysts, policy positions, are within that line item, policy, legislation and communications, on page 31? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister Moses.
We have three policy officers and one manager.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Testart.
Thank you. Does the department feel that this is a sufficient complement of staff to succeed in its legislative agenda as it is currently envisioned and adequately consult and communicate that legislative agenda with Members of the public and the standing committees as appropriate? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Deputy Minister Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we do. I just want to say that, in terms of the approach that we generally take, it is not the policy shop and the communications folks working alone. There are supports there from the program, people in both the labour standards areas, for example, and the education branch. Obviously, there are also supports from the corporate communications unit within the Department of the Executive, so there are other supports there to assist with those pieces of work. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Mr. Testart.
Thank you. Just on the matter of the Education Act, in particular visavis communications, there was a change in instructional hours that was negotiated between the Teachers' Association and the government. Now, that change needs to be reflected in legislation. However, that is coming late in the day to legislators, so are those kinds of realities being properly understood by the department, and are we going to catch those in the future? I think it is very important we remember the very important role that standing committees and elected officials play in reviewing legislation and ensuring that this legislation is the best possible legislation it can be, so is that properly envisioned by the work that policy, legislation, and communications is doing within the department? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. During the whole negotiation process for the instructional hours, we did have staff at those negotiations, so they knew what needed to be coming out of those meetings that was going to impact the Education Act. They knew the legislation that was going to be coming forward. I will go to my deputy minister for more details.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Deputy Minister Haener. Although the time is up, but it is the answer, so go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the instructional hours, just to clarify the process, we obviously have a number of goals that we want to achieve under education renewal, including improving outcomes for teachers and for students, and identified those prior to going to the bargaining table with the Teachers' Association and, therefore, identified this jointly at the bargaining table as a potential solution and way forward and then worked very closely with the Teachers' Association around communications and with the Superintendents' Association on how to communicate the outcomes from that process.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Members? Go ahead, Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in response to the deputy minister's last answer, there are some significant loose ends around instructional hours at this point, specifically whether there are enough hours for the high school courses to count toward the diploma and be equivalent to Alberta.
Given the fact that the department had months of lead time I think the first MOU was signed in September where is the problem here in trying to give the information to the primary stakeholder here, which is the parent? I mean, the students often are too young to be considered the primary stakeholders, although that is not the case in high school, but it is parents who fill up my inbox and my phone message system saying that they do not understand what is going on. They do not feel like they are getting the information they need. I guess I am looking for more than just an intention to change. There needs to be change, actually. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As this is a piloted project for the next three years, each school will develop their own plan in terms of instructional hours. They are working on those right now. They should be done, each school should have their instructional hours plan developed, by the end of March, so my suggestion to you, as any parent approaches you, ask them to go and speak to the principal or the superintendent on how this is going to roll out in the specific school's plan.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Minister, but that completely misses the point. This is an agreement between the GNWT and the Teachers' Association. The onus is on the GNWT to communicate with parents about the MOU that they reached with the Teachers' Association and to be proactive in telling them what this project is about, how it is going to be evaluated, and what impact it will have on their kids. I mean, up to this point there are no clear answers on this from the government, and I believe that it is the government's role. It is not good enough to say, well, each school needs to respond to this. This is direction being given by the government. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have tried to use numerous outlets, such as the media; we have information on our websites; there was a technical briefing. For further details, I will go to my deputy minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Deputy Minister Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have been trying to get as much information as possible out to the public on the reduced instructional time, obviously doing that in partnership with the superintendents and the Teachers' Association. For example, there was a meeting this morning that folks participated in, in a venue for the Tlicho to provide information there. We continue to do that where needed. In terms of specific details, I completely understand that parents want to know exactly what is happening in specific classrooms and in specific schools. That work is ongoing. Each school has to determine what the pilot will actually look like for them. Specifically, we don't have that level of detail yet in terms of what that will look like. They are working on it, and the education authorities will have more particulars available for parents in the near future. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am sorry to belabour this point, but what I am talking about here is communicating the policy direction. The policy direction we are going to go despite lamenting low attendance and low achievement rates is to cut instructional hours, and here is why. That is the kind of detail that parents want. I think they appreciate that there is another level of decision-making at the school that will decide how to implement this policy direction, but they want to hear the policy direction from the department. They don't want to hear it from me, and they don't want to hear it from the media. They feel like their best source of information is directly from the agency or the department that is responsible for implementation.
I feel like there is a real re-think that needs to be done here about who the audiences are for the department's messages, and to think about getting as close to the people most directly affected as possible. That is not to put this onto the school boards, but to talk directly to parents and students. I would like to think that, while the efforts are ongoing, they may also take a new and productive direction. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have good partnerships with the education authorities. They also play a role in these pilots and the work that is being done. They are the front line to the parents. They are the ones that see the parents most of the time with the boards, as well as the superintendent and the principals. That would be the best way to get that information out, is to have our school boards and educational authorities getting that information out to the parents. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Ms. Green.
Yes, I am going to try one more time. The government has made a policy decision here on instructional hours, to pilot the reduction in instructional hours. It is the government's responsibility to communicate with parents, not through any intermediary who is tasked with implementing this, but to tell parents and students what the rationale is for this policy, what the benefits are, what consideration was made to alternatives, and so on and so forth. It is not up to the school boards to do that. They are following instructions. Eighty per cent of the Yellowknife school board budgets come from the government, so it is not like they are free actors here. They have to follow the direction given to them by the department.
What I am asking for is a re-think where the department communicates with their primary stakeholders, who are parents and students, rather than asking that work be done by the educational authorities and school boards. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are an education system. There are a lot of partners at the table. It is specifically around instructional hours. We have the NWT Teachers' Association, educational authorities, ourselves, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. If the Member is wanting us to do another information blitz, getting out there and letting the public know, again, we would have to do that in cooperation with our partners that came to an agreement on the instructional hour times. We want to get that information out there, but we also want to make sure that we protect and give the best opportunities for teachers to take care of their health and their wellness so that they can provide the right amount of education to our students. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am not aware that there was ever a blitz, let alone a follow-up blitz. I think that the government could do a better job of communicating the information about instructional hours with parents, and I encourage them to take the earliest opportunity to do that. Thank you. Those are all my questions.
Thank you, Ms. Green. To the comment, Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, we did use media. We got the information on our website. The department did a technical media briefing. We also sent technical packages out to all MLAs regarding the information on the agreement that was made. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I want to follow up with the sorts of questions that my colleague from Yellowknife Centre had, because this is a communications problem again. It's not just a communications problem with the public. It's a communications problem with MLAs.
The MOU was signed off as part of the negotiation process. I get that. Some people have said that the reason it was done that way was to avoid having to pay teachers more, and to set an example for other negotiations that are going on. That's the kind of a deal. I don't -- whether that is true or not, you folks can laugh -- it was on the radio earlier this week. Maybe you don't listen to the radio anymore. In any event, people are talking about that in this way.
The MOU is signed. Then, there is a technical briefing for the media. The MLAs still haven't been told about this. Now, we've got a bill before us to actually change the instructional hours without a lot of evidenced-based decision-making that I can see that is going on here.
Yes, our instructional hours are higher than some other jurisdictions, but are we still going to have Alberta recognition? The Minister said in the House when he was asked, "I'll have to get back to you, and I'll have to check to see that." Two days later, the same Minister gets up and says that he had a meeting with the Minister of Education of Alberta, and that things seem to be okay. I didn't quite get it. The communications around this with the Regular MLAs have been confusing at best, and we've got a bill now before us without any evidence of whether this is going to be a good move or not.
Look, teachers, they work very hard, and hats off to these guys. They deserve everything they can get, but when they're at the negotiation table trying to get a deal that they can sell to their membership, that's the only kind of concession that they can get from this government, that is what they are going to go for. Hats off for them in getting that.
The way that this has been communicated to Regular MLAs, let alone the public, has been a disaster. What is the Minister going to do about this? We haven't even had a technical briefing around this yet. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I'm getting worked up because the other side doesn't seem to think that there is a problem, as usual. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. I must remind Members of being respectful for one another, and there is still time allowed, Mr. O'Reilly. If you want to ask a question pertaining to communication, you still have time.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did have a question at the end. I asked the Minister: when are we going to get a technical briefing on the instructional hours, and some actual evidence that this is a good move? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable Member for recognizing that our teachers are overworked, averaging 52 hours a week. Research has shown that when teachers have the opportunity to have prep time and prepare for their courses, that students get a quality education, they have enough time to provide quality education, and this was something that came out of a legally binding agreement, collective agreement, between the Teachers' Association and the Government of the Northwest Territories.
If the Member would like, the honourable Members would like, we can resend the package that we did send them. Our office is looking to set up a meeting with the Standing Committee on Social Development to look at giving that briefing to Members, but this was a collective agreement, and I just want to let the Members know that, and it's something that's going to enhance the quality of education and quality teaching that teachers provide. Plus, it also gives them the opportunity for professional development.
So there was research done behind it, and we're not just throwing things out there just because we think it's the right thing to do. We work with our teachers and the NWT Teachers' Association. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to be clear, this wasn't about money at all; this was something that was collectively agreed upon between the NWT Teachers' Association and the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. So just in case anybody misunderstands, I fully support collective bargaining; it's the right thing to do, and as long as both sides can reach an agreement, that's fantastic. It would be helpful, though, if the Regular MLAs were once in a while actually informed about what's going on with collective bargaining, but that's perhaps a bigger issue.
So the Minister is going to offer a technical briefing; great. Can he tell us, though, the instructional hours for high school students, has this been discussed in detail with Alberta and will our high school students, under the reduced instructional hours, still be fully recognized as having an equivalent degree as students in Alberta? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Moses.
Thank you. We have had officials speaking with Alberta officials, but I also mentioned that Alberta has taken a different model as well and being flexible in the way they teach their hours, as I had answered questions in the House I think to the Member for Nahendeh when he was asking the questions earlier this week. As I mentioned, these plans aren't going to be divulged until the end of March for each school, and we can ensure that we give the supports to the principals and the teachers as they're developing these plans. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
