Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today we heard the Minister of Education talk about an Education Renewal Framework. He mentions that we need to improve the relationship between communities and schools, as well as that students in small communities need to have access to quality education as much as those in our larger centres.
My question today is regarding how we can do that through innovation. So I’d like to ask the Minister with the great e-learning program that’s happening in Inuvik right now with the communities of Tuktoyaktuk and Fort McPherson, is there any other communities slated on the list or on the budget for maybe this school year or next school year? Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Again, I’m just congratulating the Beaufort-Delta for their e-learning. It’s been very successful to date even though it’s a short timeframe that they’ve initiated the project. Now, we must congratulate them as well. This particular e-learning is new to us even though we’ve used it in other jurisdictions and with best practices from other countries as well.
In the process of the business planning cycle, we work closely with the school boards and they identify their budget for the whole year. As part of that could be the e-learning that the Beaufort-Delta can establish as part of their goals and objectives. So we as a department will be working closely with the Beaufort-Delta because we want to use that model in other jurisdictions and in other communities because it’s been successful. We want our students to stay in the communities. So I believe this is one area we are embarking on and it’s going to be a very exciting time for us. Mahsi.
Thank you. The Beaufort-Delta Inuvik region is very unique in a sense that we have a high cost of living and travelling to any of the communities, the budget that the district education authority has gets spent really fast, because if they go to Sachs Harbour or Paulatuk, they’re using up a lot of their budget. So when we’ve got great programs like e-learning, but the cost of travel going to the communities is very high, we want to ask the Minister if he’d be willing to increase a budget or look at the way they divvy up the dollars for education authorities and look at giving an increase to the education authorities so that they can run a successful program like this, but also do their visits to the communities. Thank you.
Mahsi. Through various school boards, they deliver their own projects outside of their business planning budget that they usually receive. Again, thanking them for being innovative and creative. We are working closely with that. There are different projects on the go. E-learning is just one example. There are other school boards that are doing quite well in other projects, as well, that we are closely monitoring. Again, this will be a part of their business planning cycle. If there’s going to be an increase in funding, then that will be considered through the process itself. So at the end of the day, we will be going through this with our department and all of the school boards with all these different initiatives such as e-learning, a prime example. Mahsi.
Thank you. This program itself is very unique and the Inuvik Education Authority has taken this on themselves, have run with it and they’ve shown success. They’ve given us presentations on high success rates within the school system, an increase in their school averages, academic averages. If the Inuvik Education Authority is spending their money on this successful program when they could be using it other ways that other educational authorities are using their dollars, would the department be looking to fund this as a different project rather than having the Inuvik Education Authority use their dollars on this unique program that’s making waves in the small communities? Would the department look at funding it as a project on its own out of Inuvik? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, these are just some of the projects that we are seriously looking at. We have done pilot projects in the past. We continue to do so. This could be part of the project that has been delivered through the Beaufort-Delta and along with other communities, so we could deliver that in the mains. Again, we need to sit down and work with the Beaufort-Delta and other school boards, if we can deliver a similar model, and as part of the business planning cycle as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very unique project. The staff have said to me, speaking with some of the staff and people who have known the program, they do need more dollars to run this program successfully, even in the two communities they’re working with now.
Would the Minister also, doing this model, look at southern institutions that might be able to offer programs from the South through Inuvik to the communities? It’s very unique. It’s a great opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Member that we are unique. We are very much different than other jurisdictions. I did receive a letter from the chair of the Beaufort-Delta. We are seriously looking at this particular project. If it’s going to be funded from the department with the school board, those are just some of the recommendations brought to my attention, so I need to work with that. It wasn’t too long ago that we received the letter, but I will keep the Member posted as we move forward on these particular projects. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
