Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. So while the government's strategies around early learning have focused in recent years on the establishment of junior kindergarten and child care programs, what has the department been doing to support literacy and language skills for children zero to five through supports to parents and families? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for their statement on the good work of the NWT Literacy Council.
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment really works closely and relies on the good work of NGOs and community organizations to do a lot of this work. And so approximately $900,000 in funding is provided to the NWT Literacy Council to support adult, youth, and family literacy initiatives, and a lot of these programs include capacity building and developing family centered community-based programs. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, there's also the Community Learning Development Fund which is approximately $770,000, and this funding is directed at community organizations to promote and increase literacy skills as well. So those are two of our key components there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that. Does the government have any programs to help support parents on their own literacy skills so that they can feel more comfortable reading to their kids, supporting their kids' language development, and engaging with teachers in schools? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's the programs that I've mentioned that are funded through the literacy council. There's also work that's done through Aurora College on the adult literacy and basic education skills program, and ECE also funds the college to make sure that they're maintaining that curriculum. There's also indirect funding through other departments. For example, health has funded family cooking activities and such, and those have an indirect literacy involvement as well. People are coming together, they're reading recipes together. And so there are also indirect activities like that. And then many of the schools in the territory also work to host literacy events. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How does the department support early child care workers to ensure that they develop the skills necessary not just to look after kids but to support early brain development and language development? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is certainly a cornerstone of the new federal agreement that is really focusing on ensuring that we're offering, in the Northwest Territories, quality child care that involves best practices and also includes professional development for the people providing those programs so that they have that toolbox behind them. So right now, ECE has developed the fundamentals of early learning and child care workshops. These will be available online starting in 2025, and they include early brain development and language learning as well as the best practices for early childhood development. Thank you.
Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And finally, does the department see further opportunities to involve traditional knowledge experts and Indigenous language experts in developing and delivering these early language programs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, absolutely. So, first of all, I think this is a good place to remind the House that the bulk of the dollars received from the federal government for Indigenous languages flow through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment right to Indigenous governments for language programming. ECE is also actively partnering with four education bodies across the territory to pilot the Indigenous languages instructor employment program. And the aim of this program is to recruit and develop Indigenous language instructors for the JK to 12 age group, and this is both for Indigenous second language but also Indigenous immersion programs. And there's also flexible funding that is afforded to all education bodies to be able to hire elders, traditional knowledge experts, as well as Indigenous language experts from communities, and to support early learning and child care programs. And then there's as well, Mr. Speaker, literacy funding from the literacy council that does support an increase in information sharing within Indigenous language communities as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
