Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment regarding his Directions for Change document that was tabled in the House yesterday. In the opening message in the document, the Minister talks about the coming action plan will breathe life into this framework. I’m just wondering what the time frame is for this government and people of the Northwest Territories, specifically the educators.
What is the timeline for that action plan? When are we going to be able to see that action plan in a document that we can go by and our educators and families know what’s going to actually be in that action plan? Can I get a timeline on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We just produced a document and tabled it in the House yesterday, Directions for Change, the Education Renewal and Innovation Framework.
Part of that will be developing an action plan in the coming months. We’re hoping by next session, February or March, we want to table a document, an action plan that will deal with the nine commitments that have been identified as part of the framework. So the next session is our objective. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, the standing committee had a short timeline to give their feedback and input into this document moving forward. It is a 10-year action plan, so it’s very important that we do it right the first time and that all the recommendations and input are addressed with moving forward with this.
I just want to ask the Minister, was proper consultation with the district education authorities, the Aboriginal student achievement committees, the NWT Teachers’ Association, did they have a bigger time frame, because obviously these guys are the ones that are going to be working on this education action plan moving forward. Did they have sufficient time to give proper and quality feedback into this document and the action plan, and will their input be reflected in the action plan that we are going to see in February/March?
This whole engagement has been happening since just before 2007, before I became the Education Minister, and I’ve been engaging the general public, the DEAs and DECs, the schools boards, the parents, the educators, the elders and the students. They’ve been engaged since day one and we will continue to engage them.
Yesterday’s event with the media presentation, we had two of the partners, TCSA and also NWTTA, that have been actively engaged along with other DECs and DEAs who were in the audience. They are our true partners in the communities, and we will continue to work with them on developing this action plan, and we will be keeping the Members informed as we move forward because we need their input as well.
I understand that the Minister’s department had been engaging residents of the Northwest Territories since 2007. I was asking specifically to the Directions for Change document that committee saw and only had about a month to reply on that. However, I’ll move on to my third question here.
With a lot of the monumental changes that are going to be happening within this education action plan, I would ask the Minister, will there be new dollars going into this action plan and is the action plan going to be implemented within the schools across the Northwest Territories in the 2014-15 school year.
With any new initiatives, we need to be innovative and creative how we can move forward. Developing the action plan, we need to identify through the school boards, through our partners, the cost factor. Some of it will be with internal reallocation potentially, as we’ve done in the past, but obviously, we may have to look out for new funding, as well, new partners such as we’ve done, again, in other jurisdictions.
When it comes to education and teaching, those are some of the areas that we need to improve. We’ve been told over and over from the communities, the engagement we’ve had, even from the Assembly Members, that we need to change our thinking patterns.
We do not have the set cost today, but we will be developing that over time, and in the February/March session we want to produce that document that will highlight the detail of the action plan.
The reallocation of these internal funds also brings to light a concern. Which programs are they going to be taking the dollars from and which programs may be hindered by taking on these new initiatives? However, with the Aboriginal Student Achievement, before I got in this position, I did do some work with some of the committees in Inuvik in the elementary and in the high school in my previous position. I want to ask the Minister what is the role of these Aboriginal student achievement committees moving forward in this Directions for Change. Also, he mentions in his document that there was an Aboriginal Student Achievement Action Plan in 2011. Myself, I didn’t see that action plan and I wonder if that was an action plan that was tabled in the House or that was sent to committee.
The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative that we’ve engaged the general public, this particular piece of work, the Education Renewal and Innovation Framework, is building on that. It’s building on the success of our engagement. Through that there will be engagement with the committee that the Member is referring to, Aboriginal Student Achievement. There are committees being established at the regional level, at the community level. We must engage them, as well, because what it comes down to is we have to involve everyone and not just our department going to the community and saying this is good for you. It’s coming from the people, the general public, the educators, the parents, the grandparents. It’s their voice. We have to keep moving forward on that and developing an action plan. They will be engaged and they will be participating in that too.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Colleagues, before we go to the next oral question, I’d like to welcome Mr. Ernie Bernhardt, a Member of the Legislative Assembly pre-division. Welcome back to the House, Ernie. And I welcome your wife too. Beatrice, welcome to the House.
Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
