Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and I’d like to ask some questions about the student financial assistance client satisfaction survey that was held last year. The survey indicated that in general the student financial assistance staff are doing pretty well, but I was really struck by the answer to one question where 11 percent of the respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the way staff explained their answers. I’d like to ask the Minister what action the department is taking to lower that percentage to improve the customer service for this particular measure.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. That information that we received we are following through with the various comments that were initiated. The customer satisfaction is, of course, our first priority. We need to rectify if there’s an issue or concern or challenge that’s before us. My department has been instructed to look at it seriously on the comments that came to our attention. We will follow through with that.
I thank the Minister for that response. I appreciate that the department is taking action. I would hope for a little bit more specific response.
I would like to talk a bit about the results of another question. This was a question asked about the usefulness of the student handbook. The answers there were very disturbing to me: 71 percent of the replies were negative; 32 percent of them said they never use it; 39 percent of the students said that it was somewhat useful. It seems to me that it’s obvious that a revision is needed. I’d ask the Minister what plans the department has to revise the handbook.
This particular issue has been addressed, as well, by some students; the usefulness of the student handbook. We are looking at a revision. It may not be useful to some students because a lot of information is on-line right now. This is an area we are making some changes to. As you know, there will be review of the SFA overall as well. This could be part of that. It’s been brought to our attention, so the revision, seriously we are looking at that as well.
I’m pleased to hear that the revision is going to be part of the overall evaluation of student financial assistance.
One other result struck me as probably not the best. Table 5 in the report shows the results of student financial assistance service objectives. I was really surprised by the measurements used there. They asked whether or not appointments were met within 15 minutes of the appointment time, whether e-mail replies were received within two days of them being received, whether phone messages or voice messages were replied to within two days. I thought those were pretty lax measurements. As the Minister mentioned, this is a customer service-oriented program. We should be seeing people at the appointed time and responding in the same day.
Can the Minister explain to me why these particular measurements are so easy, I guess? So lax, to put it another way.
Again this could fall under SFA review. As you know, we service over 1,400 students for the Northwest Territories. There are some issues that may come before us. There might be some delays in responding, depending on the certain days. Customer service has been addressed here in the survey. We will do what we can as a department to rectify the issue, because expedience is, of course, our priority. We want to respond back to the students as soon as possible, but there are occasions that there may be some delays. Our priority is to respond back to the students, each and every student, as best as possible.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that they try to respond to people but I guess, you know, as soon as possible, in my mind, if I have an appointment, I want to see my person at the appointed hour.
The Minister says that things are in the works. I’d like to know -- with a school year starting again, they want applications in by July of this summer coming up -- when can the Minister tell us that we will be able to see some of these revisions? When will there be some concrete action for us to look at?
The school this fall is just around the corner. A few months. I can’t guarantee that all the revisions are going to be in accordance with what’s been said, but we’ll do what we can as a department to follow through with the issues that are brought to our attention as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and lay that out. It will be shared with the Members as we make progress on these matters.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
