Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. What is the Minister's reaction to the findings of the audit, and in these findings, what concerns him the most? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I first took over this portfolio, I soon after became aware that we would be receiving a report of the Office of the Auditor General. Personally, I was happy to have this at the beginning of my term because, as a former Regular Member, I was on the committee that looked at these reports and I know how valuable they are.
I am happy to have the information. I wish I could say that it was a glowing audit. It wasn't scathing, but it obviously shows that we are not doing as well as we would like and that we can do better. There are certain areas that are more concerning than others, mainly because we made progress in some areas that have happened since the report. For example, the languages; we have done much since the Auditor finished the report that wasn't reflected in there.
There are things like the graduation rate, which was mentioned earlier. There is no universally accepted way to calculate graduation rates, but you never want to see something that shows that you are not graduating half your population. There is nothing in there that I can say is shocking to me. I have been a Member. I have talked to people in the community. I hear the concerns about education. We are very concerned. We are developing plans to move forward.
I want to also state that the Member noted that we are treating our students no better than cows to a slaughterhouse. I just wanted to comment that, when a student goes into a classroom, teachers treat them much better than cows to slaughter. We have a dedicated staff. We have about 800 teachers in the territory. I want to let them know that I support them and I support their efforts. Going forward, I am going to make sure that we hear from them and we hear how to make these things better. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Let's just get this straight, too. I support my staff in the communities, in my riding, and across the territory. I sat on the education committee in my home community of Tuktoyaktuk for the last three-and-a-half years, and I support them. I support my youth, my youth who ECE is failing. It is not this Minister's fault. It is prior. At the end of the day, the department has to be committed to adopting a more accurate method in getting graduation rates in the NWT, to get more information broken down by the riding. That is all I am asking for. We have our haves and have-nots in our ridings. In the small communities, we are have-nots.
The thing I love about education is everyone is committed. I know that the Member is passionate about education. I just want to reiterate my support for our teachers, as well.
The department has looked at the methodology they use to calculate graduation rates, and we have made a change that more accurately reflects what you would call a true graduation rate, even though there really is no such thing. Different jurisdictions use different rates.
For the territory, we have a lot of in-and-out migration. We have a small population. There is nothing that suits us perfectly. We tried looking at other graduation rates around the country. When we applied them to our situation, some groups of our population were graduating at over 100 percent. Clearly, it is not a cookie-cutter approach. We have created a method now that more accurately reflects, I think, the number of students we have graduating.
To the Member's point about this data collection, we have also created a framework regarding this data collection. We are going to begin reporting yearly on a lot of these indicators. I know that this is the second report, and the first report made lots of comments about the lack of data. This one makes those notes, as well. I have to say that we have come a long way in 10 years, and we have even come a long way since the work on this report was completed.
We now have a lot of that data that we did not have before. The thing we have to do now is analyze it and figure out exactly what it is telling us. Education is difficult because you can have the best teacher and you can have the best facilities in a class, but there is a lot going on outside that classroom. There is a lot going on in students' lives. It is hard to say, "This program, is it helping students effectively?"
Those are the kind of things that this data is going to help us with. We are going to develop our program so that we know that it is working, so that we can do a better job serving our students.
Education is key to our success in our territory and to our people and to our youth, because our youth are our future. Will the Minister make a commitment to the Assembly to provide a draft copy of the department's implementation plan in advance so the standing committee can have a public hearing?
The process with these reports is that the department develops an action plan, which it then provides to the standing committee prior to the public meetings that are arranged between the standing committee and the Office of the Auditor General. I guarantee that the committee will have a draft prior to that meeting.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for that response in regard to the advance notice on public hearings. Is the Minister prepared to take a closer look at social passing and consider ending this damaging practice where we are setting up our students for failure on social passing in the small communities across the territory? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The term "social passing" is a bit of a misnomer. Students aren't passed into the next grade. They are placed in the next grade. If they don't achieve, if they do not get the credits, if they don't do the work that they need to pass, they do not pass. They are placed in the next grade with their peer group, and they have lesson plans that are adjusted in order to meet that.
I am not going to commit to eliminating social passing because, right now, there is no requirement for a student who doesn't achieve a certain level to be placed in the next grade. That is a decision made by the administrators, by the teachers, and by the school after they have a conversation. Every parent and student has a right to remain in a grade. If a parent and his teacher feels like the child needs to stay in grade 4 or 5 for a second time around, then that is their right. They can have that conversation, and they can do that.
What I do commit to is working to better prepare students so that this doesn't become an issue. If we focus our efforts on early childhood and we ensure that students don't fall behind, we ensure that, when a student comes out of JK, kindergarten, grade 1, grade 2, and they are at those levels, we are not going to have to worry about social passing anymore because they are going to have the skills and ability to pass on their own merits. That is what I commit to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
