Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. It is in regards to the Minister’s statement that he mentioned yesterday and working to increase the number of Aboriginal language speakers, provide employment opportunities for elders and improve educational opportunities for our Aboriginal students.
Mr. Speaker, with this whole work plan in place, I wanted to ask the Minister, will he give priority to those languages that are being detrimentally declining over the last few years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories recognizes 11 official languages. Nine of them are Aboriginal languages. Yes, indeed, some of the languages, we are losing our language, more specifically, the Gwich’in area and the very reason why we have gone to Fairbanks, Alaska, to find out the best practices. We have initiated that and we brought the information back. We are pursuing rolling out the program.
Yes, all the languages in the Northwest Territories need to be protected, revitalized, and more specifically, those are on the verge of losing their language. We must put more emphasis on program delivery in those areas. That is our goal for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I know we have to put the programs and services into place for all languages. However, we do have a couple of languages that are close to extinction here, specifically the Gwich’in language. We have some in the South Slave. Will the Minister see those results and put the emphasis and priorities to address those languages and cultures first, before moving on to the ones that are already doing well in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Those are discussions that we definitely need to have with language experts from the region and communities because I need to hear them out. It won’t be coming from the top down to say this is what is good for you. I will be working with the Member and also the language experts at the community level. We did form a committee to deal with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative that is part of that and also Aboriginal Languages Strategy.
There are certain languages that are almost on the verge of extinction. At the same time, we need to protect all languages. If we need to identify Gwich’in as the first priority and second priority and so forth, we need to have those discussions. Mahsi.
I appreciate all of the efforts that Education, Culture and Employment is doing to revitalize our languages and taking our Members down to Alaska to look at best practices that we can incorporate here in the Northwest Territories.
With that said, moving forward in the strategic plan, can the Minister look at possibly creating a curriculum in the Aurora College to address these languages? That is one avenue to do it to get our adults back into the Aurora College system to start learning the language. Will the Minister please respond and let me know if that is one avenue that he is looking at, is having the credited course through the Aurora College system on Aboriginal languages? I believe in Inuvik we have had some Spanish classes. I am looking at Gwich’in. I am looking at Inuvialuktun. Will the Minister please answer that question? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, yes, indeed, we are looking at all opportunities that may be available to us. Will there be the college program delivery in our own language? We have seen that at the University of Fairbanks, and even at the post-secondary level they were teaching in their own language with no English, period. It is our dream to be there. At the same time, we need to work with the college board of governors and the staff if they could deliver those types of programming. At the same time, we are lacking resource people, as well, those qualified Aboriginal-speaking teachers.
I am challenging the leadership around this table and across the Northwest Territories to promote more of those individuals that can pursue the Teacher Education Program that speak the language to come out of the programming with qualified qualifications so they can start teaching our own people in their own language. That is part of the wish and we will pursue that even further. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to the revitalization of Aboriginal languages and he has also talked previously about Aboriginal student achievement. Can he combine the two and make languages in elementary schools part of a strong curriculum in the schools and enhance that and put more funding towards that? Will the Minister commit to those funding dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that is part of the plan to have full-fledged emergent programs in schools. We may not be able to cover all schools at the beginning, but that is part of the long-term plan, part of the ASA and also Aboriginal Languages Strategy. We are going through a business planning cycle. We need to identify those funds. Those two documents that I have highlighted, it is a big document. It is a long-term strategy. We will be rolling out those programs. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
