Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment tabled a document in the House, entitled Education Renewal and Innovation Framework: Directions for Change for our education system here in the North. I appreciate and recognize the hard work and efforts that went into this document by the Minister’s office, also by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I also acknowledge the hard work that the Standing Committee on Social Programs put into this document by providing their input and recommendations, as well as any other Members that came to those meetings.
However, there are still some concerns and questions that I have as a Member who has a special and a strong interest in the education of people of the Northwest Territories, specifically our youth in our small communities. When we are going through the process of developing this document, what input did the district education authorities, the NWT Teachers’ Association, the Aboriginal student achievement committees, what kind of input did they have into this document and whether or not the time to give input was sufficient to get quality feedback on this important document? It is a document that is going to be affecting our residents for the next 10 years.
I know with the Standing Committee on Social Programs, in the short time that it was provided to us, we actually sat down, went line by line of the document in the short amount of time to get all the recommendations and feedback into it. It was a lot of work and I commend the committee for doing the hard work they did in such a short period of time.
Other concerns I have is with the ERI initiatives. There are 53 recommendations coming out of this. Actually, they are potential initiatives. Why, in this document, is it not hard commitment from the Education department on these initiatives to get them done? As I said, it’s going to be a document that is going to serve our people of the Northwest Territories for the next 10 years. We want to make sure that there are not potential initiatives, but hard commitments from his department and this government. With these 53 potential initiatives, there are going to be costs and I want to know what some of those costs are.
Like I said, I do appreciate the hard work that went into this document, but as Members on this side have said before, you have to have something that’s going to work for the people and that we do it right. If this is a document that we’re going to move forward, you have to make sure it’s the right document.
I have questions for the Minister later on today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
