Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It must be the air conditioning in here, Mr. Speaker, or the sound of the air moving. It's hard to hear some days or sometimes today. Mr. Speaker, I was going to leave on a positive note but I'll make a list the good but not bad. The next question will be back to the Minister of education regarding supports for students. It's not terrible, but I'd like to hear what the Minister says -- the issue's terrible but not the questions per se.
We were recently at a meeting with both school boards. And I know this applies to all school boards. This is not news to me, I know it's not news to the regions, whether you're in the Delta or you're in the Sahtu. Students are entering the education system unassessed, whether it's their physio, their hearing, or their speech. And, of course, this burden then becomes a problem for the schools which is the teachers, etcetera, support staff, and certainly the financing. So I'm going to ask the Minister what is she able to do in her capacity as the Minister, and potentially working with the department of health, to turn around these non-assessments anymore? Because I'm old enough to remember I went through them as a young person. Other kids went through them as they were going through but they're no longer happening and hence these problems are being forced or dumped on to the school systems to address. So I'm asking her how does she see we could help support the school systems? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister of ECE.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was in the same meeting as the Member and heard the concerns from the school board, and what I can commit to is certainly working with my colleague from health and social services. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I actually couldn't hear her answer but I'm assuming maybe we could look at this again, is that what can she do as Minister to financially support the school system if the Department of Health and Social Services is no longer doing this. We have dental services -- we found ways to do things. In other words, like, for example, Inuvik does dental supports when it can. I don't even know if they've done it recently. But I've seen seen the room that they've done that to support families on the health care and the young people. So what can the Minister do to ensure that, for example, speech, physio, and health care -- health assessments for young people coming into the school systems are done, or can they facilitate them in the schools to ensure that students have the best opportunity and the teachers are well resourced to manage these challenges? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I said I can certainly work with the Minister of health and social services. These are very important things that we're talking about. Access to therapeutic services is critical for access to education. But, you know, I'm not going to stand here and take over the mandate of health and social services because it's not fair to our education bodies, it's not fair to our teachers. They're not clinicians, and they are not able to take this on, neither are the education bodies. So I'm very keen to work with health and social services on this one, but I'm not keen to also expect teachers or the education bodies to start administering clinical requirements. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard that response loud and clear and I also had the earpiece. That's said, what has been done to date? Because I was speaking to the school boards and their concerns about how much resources they're dedicating to address these particular needs in these students. So what's being done to date and how long has this been going on? The Minister has been Minister for a year, so she must be aware of how we're trying to address the current problem. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the current situation is absolutely there are a number of vacancies, which we've heard from the Minister of health about, in the realm of therapeutic services. I've certainly let my concerns be known. I have met with multiple officials from the Department of Health and Social Services, along with education, culture and employment, with both Ministers present, to share concerns about this one and figure out kind of what are the next steps here. As far as the education, culture and employment department is concerned, what has been done there is really addressing training desires from classroom assistants and education assistants. So one of the things that was brought forward through education bodies was a desire to have more training for classroom assistants. So this past year, we have had our first graduation -- or graduating class from the -- through a partnership with Douglas College, and we have graduated 24, as a start, classroom assistants. And they were able to do their training virtually online, so there was no disruption to the community and the supports available in small communities to students. And then they were able to also take what they were learning through their courses and apply them right away in the classroom. And so that to me is a good news story of one of the things that education, culture and employment is doing. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre. Final supplementary.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as an example of this burden falling on the school system, which is actually taking money out of the education process that it was intended for, these school boards, particularly in Yellowknife -- and I wish I could speak to the regional communities as well -- but that said they ended up hiring their own speech pathologists, and they were finding they could find them. In other words, they put out advertisements. They were getting people interested in the jobs. They've hired them. And they're funding them within. That really is education dollars for the old ABCs, 123s, but yet they're spending so much energy, time that's inefficient for what they're intended to do. What can the Minister do to support this gap that these school boards are now carrying that is a health problem, as she said earlier in the previous answer to one of my questions? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the same time that I'm meeting with the Minister of health and social services, I'm also doing research on what are other options and what are other jurisdictions doing. That is work that I am doing as a Minister because I recognize that there is a gap here. There absolutely -- I want to say there absolutely is a gap here. I think it's important that we acknowledge that.
Some of this gap is being funded through programs like Jordan's Principle. We currently have a tremendous amount of money coming from Jordan's Principle into the territory into our education system. In addition to that, I'm looking at ways to support education bodies but not by deciding on my own what they need, by actually ensuring that our officials are having conversations about, what about this, what about that, and exploring different ideas about what might work. I don't have unlimited dollars to make something work, but I do acknowledge that this is a gap and one that needs to be addressed. Thank you.
Thank you. I have Member from Range Lake.
