Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the NWT and, in particular, the Nahendeh, many residents require academic upgrading, even after finishing school. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: how is the department working with Aurora College to meet the needs of adult learners in the region? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are two ways to meet the needs of adult learners that can be done. If people are looking to do upgrading, they can do that, actually, by addressing their home community school. Often they will take students who are over 21. That is common within the smaller communities. As well, within community learning centres, we try to upgrade their credentials. Through Aurora College specifically, we offer two upgradings. One is through the Occupations and College Access Program, and the other one is the University and College Access Program. Those are two that pertain specifically to the college administrating them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am looking more specifically at the small communities in the Nahendeh, so again, could the Minister tell us: could existing schools be used to deliver upgrading where there is no community learning centre available?
Yes, definitely. Schools can actually offer upgrading if they have the capacity to do so. Some of the schools don't have the higher learning grades. That has been addressed over the years with the Northern Distance Learning. There is funding, actually, to provide through schools if they want to address the higher grades, 10, 11, and 12. There is funding through Education to provide for that. We do try to support students as much as possible, and using the existing schools, as well as community learning centres, is something that we need to do as much as possible.
It's great to talk about learning centres, but if we don't have them in the small communities, it doesn't really help. Could the Minister advise: in the future, will learning centres be expanded into these small communities and all communities in the Northwest Territories?
The community learning centres is an area that I can't, right at this point, say is going to be expanded into all communities. Right now, they are offered in 21 of the communities. We need to do a whole review of the community learning centres, and not only on where they are. That is something that I could commit to looking at, where they are located, but also the services that they are providing within that. That is part of the polytechnic review, the process that we are working on, so we are a little bit ahead of the game today to say that we will expand it when we are trying to figure out what exactly we are doing and how we can strengthen those community learning centres today.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and again, I would like to thank the Minister for the information provided here today. At the end of the day, though, we want to help our students who are graduating. This is my understanding: students attending access programs at Aurora College are able to access student financial assistance. This is counted against the maximum allowable semesters limit under SFA. Can the Minister explain why this is, and has ECE considered not counting these access programs against the student's maximum allowable limit of SFA? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Currently, the Education Act actually does define what can be provided through student financial assistance. It is legislated, so it is difficult. We need to look at it and actually change the legislation, which is a lot more difficult than changing policies. Will we look at it? Absolutely. It is part of the process that we need to look at within the college. The difference, though, is that normal upgrading courses can be addressed within their communities, through schools and the community learning centres, which we only have 21 of, I recognize.
The access programs, really, are not a general upgrading where you get grade 12. The access programs are really looking at the programs that you need to get into college or university, so it is a different type of upgrading. I do have concerns with it, as well, and so I have stated that we will be looking at it as we move forward with the whole polytechnic university and how we are providing services to the public. I think it is an area that needs to be looked at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Colleagues, for visitors in the gallery, as well, I forgot to mention Gerry Burla, who is with us here today. He is also part of the Legislative Librarians here at the Legislative Assembly. Welcome to our Assembly. Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
