Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Beaulieu, anything further?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't think I made myself clear. I'm asking if, once a junior kindergarten student has registered, does their attendance become compulsory like everybody else in the school? I'm going to make the assumption, whether you want to call it compulsory or mandatory, kids who enter kindergarten, grade one, two, three, to 12 or up to 10 or whatever, that attendance is mandatory. My question is: I recognize that junior kindergarten is not compulsory, but once they become students, is their attendance compulsory at that point?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right at the current time, junior kindergarten and kindergarten are not compulsory. We need to be flexible with them, and I'm not sure if we want to actually broach on making them compulsory because we need the flexibility to be able to work with communities such as communities that have Aboriginal Head Start. I'm an advocate of Aboriginal Head Start. I think it's a great program. They've asked us to be flexible in the programming, so some programs like Fort Providence are not even doing their JK. Actually, they're doing just the Aboriginal Head Start. Other places are having Aboriginal Head Start in the schools. Other places are doing half-time junior kindergarten and half-time Aboriginal Head Start. Some people are just doing JK. We need that flexibility because no community is the same. Each community has unique situations, and we need to work with the communities where they are to address their needs to provide services for children. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, could you clarify? If a child enrols in junior kindergarten, is that child's attendance then compulsory? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No child who is enroled in junior kindergarten or kindergarten is it compulsory that they attend. It's an optional programming, both of them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a real issue with that. I recognize that people have the option to put their children in junior kindergarten or kindergarten. Once they make the decision to go to junior kindergarten, or send their children to junior kindergarten or kindergarten, once they make that decision in September and the kid enrols in school, then the Minister is saying that kid can come and go as they please throughout the whole year; that, if they want to attend two or three days a month, that's still okay. I think we have to nail down that first before we start talking about even the early development instrument. I think the early development instrument, I believe, is actually something that occurs in February of kindergarten year. How do we keep track of these if the kids who sign up to go to school, then, once they're enroled in school, are free to come and go as they please? I'm wondering what the policy is around that? That doesn't sound correct to me. I'd like to just look for clarification on that at this point. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, anyone who is in junior kindergarten, it is an optional program. They don't have to be there. They can have the flexibility. Like I said, some are in half days, some are full days, some don't even choose. Not every child who is four years old is in junior kindergarten in the Northwest Territories.
I'd be a little bit leery to say that, once you enrol, that's it, you're locked in, and you have to be there every day, because I'm not sure if that's the intent. We've had kindergarten in the Northwest Territories. I'm 58 years old, and we had kindergarten. I remember when I think it came in, like 50 years ago. Kindergarten has never been compulsory, so I'm not sure why we would be expecting that we would turn it into a compulsory JK and kindergarten. Children who are four years old are pretty sensitive. Do we want to say that, or do we want to be able to have the flexibility that, if that four-year-old child is feeling like staying at home with mom or dad or grandma, that they have that option to do that without being penalized? We have to look at the developmental assets of that age cohort, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought this was a real simple question because I wanted to lead onto something else, but I've spent my entire time trying to determine whether or not, once a student is four years old or five years old and they're put in school, once they are enroled, do they have to attend? I recognize that they don't have to enrol them. That's very clear to me. My question is, once they're enroled, do they have to attend? That's a simple question. Either yes, they have to attend, or no, they don't have to attend. They can come every second Friday if they want. Whatever the response is, I just need a response so I can move onto my actual question. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister.
I thought I was clear. For clarification, Mr. Chair, any child who is in junior kindergarten or kindergarten is not compelled to be in school. It is not a mandatory requirement, although we try to work with the parents, and encourage them to attend. Any child from Grade 1 to 12 is mandatory to be in that. There are some repercussions for it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.
I don't understand what is so difficult about my question. I know that junior kindergarten and kindergarten is not compulsory. I know that the students can stay at home if they want to. I know that the parents don't have to enrol them in school if they don't have to. My question is, once they make the decision to enrol the four-year-olds and five-year-olds into school, into junior kindergarten and kindergarten, is it compulsory that they attend like everybody else from 1 to 12?
The Minister just stated that it is not compulsory for kindergarten and junior kindergarten the way it is for grades 1 to 12. That's what the Minister just stated.
Mr. Chairman, I've used up all my time, but once a junior kindergarten student has enroled, we'll just stick with one of the groups, okay, the junior kindergartens. Once they're enroled, then after they've enroled in September, then after that, they can come and go as they please? It's no longer compulsory? I recognize that it's not compulsory for them to enrol, but once they enrol, do they have to attend school? That's my question.
The answer is no, they don't have to attend once they've enroled. That's what the Minister has stated. That's correct, yes. Given that information, I will let you have a follow-up question, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No wonder it doesn't work. I mean, no wonder it doesn't work. I mean, they enrol in school, and then they don't have to attend. That's very strange. My question was to be, when we're dealing with five-year-olds and four-year-olds who are in school, does the funding that's targeted in inclusive schooling also apply to four-year-olds and five-year-olds? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the inclusive schooling money is applied to the junior kindergarten and the kindergarten, the four- and five-year-olds. I do want to clarify, Mr. Chair, that I feel that it's unfair to say that junior kindergarten is not working. We just started. This is the second time that we have actually done the results. The first one was six years ago. We just had the baseline data. We don't even know how correct that was. We just implemented junior kindergarten across the Northwest Territories in the last couple of years. It's really premature to say that the program is not working. Lots of research says that early childhood development programming does work, whether children are there every day or not. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. We have 10 more minutes, and we have two speakers left, so I will allow Mr. Thompson to go. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to be quick. Can the Minister tell us what percentage of the enrolments are for fours and fives in our system? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry, I can't give you a percentage of the total children in JK or kindergarten compared to all the other students. I don't have that on hand at the moment. I can get it, if it is a request. I can say that the enrolment currently for junior kindergarten is 552 children. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My next question is: when we have junior kindergarten and kindergarten, are they part of the funding formally that we have presently? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct. They are fully funded under the funding formula that we have now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Attendance is very important come September until October. They are part of the funding formula. How is this fair if they don't have a requirement to be in school? To me, we shouldn't have them as part of the funding formula. I think they should be left out because they have the option to come and go as they please and as the parents please, which I understand. They are part of the funding formula, so if you register 35 kids in junior kindergarten on September 1st and the attendance is sporadic and you want the school boards to be honest about it, we are going to see a decline in attendance. That is my question: how do we identify this? How can we fix this so that it is not part of the funding formula? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any student who is not attending from JK right to grade 12, the teacher is expected to actually try to reach out and to try to find out what is going on with that child. That is just good practice. It is not a policy or an act, but it is good practice. I believe teachers act well. The funding formula works that way for all. That is why I said we need to revise that. We need to look at it, so we are researching it now. We need to relook at that funding formula because it is not only JK.
Any student who enrols in September, whether they leave and they enrol in Sissons and they go the Catholic school or they go to Behchoko or they go to any other community, they go down south, that child is included in the funding formula because of September. Anyone at the end of September, so that is not just JK. It is not only the issue that we need to just take out JK and kindergarten. We need to look at the whole funding program. Anyone who enrols in September and they all go down south, is it fair that they get funded for that? It is a bigger issue than just JK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I totally agree with the Minister on that. I greatly appreciate that answer. This is just more of a commentary, and I am going to try to be real quick. I know, in the Deh Cho proper, they are doing some pretty amazing things. They have a new system. They are looking at it because of the challenges that we are facing. Our EDI scores are not as great as they should be. We had junior kindergarten in our region prior. We used that as a pilot project.
I have to give credit to the education system, the divisional board. They are trying to find new ways of doing it, trying to be more creative. They are trying to focus on literacy. They are trying to focus on trades. I know it is beyond the other scope of it. I have to give credit where credit is due. I would like to say that the divisional board is trying to address these issues and they are trying to think outside the box. I have to give them credit for that. I thank you for your time. I will turn the floor over to the next speaker. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Reflecting on some other commentary that has been made, I think junior kindergarten is a good idea, but the devil is always in the details. One of the unintended consequences of the program has been making the private daycare industry basically untenable from a revenue standpoint and pricing private spaces out of the market. We have dealt with that in this Assembly very recently, and it was not a straightforward solution.
Given that, given that there is going to be an ever-increasing need for daycare when the Minister has said earlier that parents in Yellowknife understand they have to pay $800 to $1,000. I remember paying that, and it did not make my life easy. It was very difficult. For many parents who are either in a single-income household or even modest income, that is living paycheque to paycheque because of daycare fees. You need to work in this town. There is no option around it. We do need to head for these spaces. Things like initiatives, the policy environment that supports junior kindergarten has also shut down viable private industry.
I guess the idea is: we have seen well-costed proposals for universal daycare in the Northwest Territories with, I think, a $20-million price tag that this Assembly considered early on and then dropped because it wasn't fiscally feasible in our current lifespan. If we don't do something, if we just kind of keep trying to tweak things here and there or hope that incremental change will solve this problem, we are never going to address these kind of fundamental challenges of creating daycare spaces for families in the Northwest Territories. There are communities where the GNWT is sitting on many assets that aren't currently in use that could be repurposed to that.
The Minister spoke about her long-term vision, but when are we actually going to start developing that long-term vision? Because, if we continue on this path, we are always going to leave some families unrepresented with their childcare needs. If you can't deliver that as a government that has set out to do this as a way to address the cost of live, a way to ensure kids have healthy starts, et cetera, et cetera, we are going to be failing the people we have set out to help if we don't address these unintended consequences.
Minister Cochrane.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are doing a lot, and we need to keep going. Like I said, we have increased the supplement to daycare providers directly. We have increased the supplement to daycare workers who are licensed, all those are licensed. If they are not licensed, they don't get the supplements. We are doing the training for people. We have expanded our post-secondary education for people. We did JK. It's huge; 552 kids in the Northwest Territories are getting free daycare for four-year-olds. We are looking at parenting in our programs for in school in a couple year.
I want to challenge a little bit because the assumption that I am hearing is that daycare is the answer. Daycare is not the answer. Daycare is part of the answer. We have some communities that have zero daycare, and their children are struggling. The smaller communities are struggling. Is daycare the answer? You know what? As a mother, a woman who bore children, and I have said this many times, I wish I had the choice that I could stay home with my children until my children were six years old. I did not want my children to be taken out of my arms and be put in a daycare, somebody else to raise my children for that many times, especially people who are Indigenous and experienced residential school who have lost our children, lost our families.
We can't look at universal daycare as the only answer. We need to look at daycare for people who want that service. We need to look at parenting support for people who want that service. We need to look at social interaction for people who want that service. We need to have a continuum of care to address the needs of early childhood development. One answer is not the answer. I would not want my child at one year old to be wrenched out of my arms and be put into a daycare where I did not know. If it is an option, that is fine, but it needs to be a continuum. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Testart.
Thank you. Look, I appreciate the Minister's passion on this, but we are not talking about forcibly apprehending children and forcing them into daycare with no parental consent. We are saying that parents, the people in the communities, the people in Yellowknife, hard-working Northerners who, because of how our economy works, which is very expensive, we all know the cost of living is very high, that you need to work. If single mothers are going to work, if families are going to work, then they need those options available to them.
Junior kindergarten and other policies have priced the private sector out of the market so the spaces aren't available. That is what we have heard on this side of the House. That is what we have heard, and we brought it forward to the Minister. We brought it forward to the government. There has been some progress on one issue we brought forward, but there are many more out there.
The question is: what are we going to do to provide the same opportunities that wealthy people in Yellowknife can currently afford throughout the Northwest Territories? Because the government has, again, created a policy environment where there can be no competitive private sector options.
Mr. Testart, I'm afraid the answer will have to wait, because, noting the clock, I will have to rise and report progress. I want to thank the Minister for appearing. A warning to any Minister who wants to make a far-flung Minister's statement: you'll be opened up to all types of questions. Thank you to the witnesses for appearing. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber. I will now rise and report progress.
Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Minister's Statement 158-18(3), Developments in Early Childhood Programs and Services, and would like to report progress, and, Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with.
Thank you. Do I have a seconder? Member for Kam Lake. The motion is in order. All those in favour. All those opposed. Motion carried.
---Carried
The Member has requested a recorded vote. The motion is in order. To the motion.
