Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement on a very serious subject here and that’s how we’re taking care of our kids, our smallest kids, with questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
The ECE pilot Junior Kindergarten Program in Fort Providence takes kids in the morning and sends them to the already existing Aboriginal Head Start for the normal 1:00 to 4:00 program in the afternoon, a program that has carried on for years. Aboriginal Head Start, or AHS, reports that kids are wiped out by early afternoon and their parents must be called to pick them up early.
What does this say about ECE plans for full-day JK for these four-year-olds across the NWT? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’ve stated numerous times in this House that this whole Junior Kindergarten Program three-year phase rollout has been the voice of the North. We’ve been through various engagements. Through Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative a few years back, and then the Early Childhood Development Framework the action plan was brought to our attention, and also the education renewal innovation. There have been a lot of discussions that have happened. There has also been research throughout Canada and internationally. We brought those researchers here to Yellowknife so Members could have questions of the researchers as well. Based on that, we feel that junior kindergarten is the way to go throughout the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.
I have to say we did have questions for those people that the Minister brought forward. I just wonder about the responses that we received. I wonder if the Minister has been listening.
My question here is: What evaluation has been done on the pilot program in Fort Providence and how long has this been used to help design programs planned for this coming fall? Mahsi.
Mahsi. We have to work with our federal counterparts, because what the Member is referring to is the Aboriginal Head Start program. That is funded through the federal government. We don’t evaluate that, the federal government does. They report to the federal government. We work with them. We work with the communities, we work with all 33 communities and junior kindergarten is optional programming for the communities.
The Aboriginal Head Start program is in the communities. We support them as well. We provide funding to various child care programming in the communities. Some of the communities, as I stated before, do not have licenced early childhood programming, so this way it has the programming into the communities. Mahsi.
Thank you. The question was: What evaluation has been done on ECE’s pilot program of junior kindergarten in Fort Providence? Thank you.
Thank you. As I stated before, there have been various areas of evaluation and assessment of current delivery in the communities, whether it be preschools, early junior kindergarten and some of the development programming in the communities. So we’ve looked at all of that and we’re working, also, with the licenced child care programming, the centres.
This is an area that is not a brand new discussion we’re having today. Over the years of engagement, we’ve been hearing from the parents and the educators that we need to move forward on focusing on the preschool. We currently deliver preschool in our school system throughout the Northwest Territories, but they want us to capture all 33 communities. So, that’s our goal and objective. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t really know where to start. I’m number three in the one, two, three punch and hopefully the Minister is listening here and developing a tender spot. He’s on the wrong track here. The plans to duplicate Aboriginal Head Start programs for four-year-olds and other programs for four-year-olds, wiping them off the map while putting in place their own inexperienced program when the research shows focus is needed on zero to three. What can I say? The Minister calls this collaboration? How is this collaboration?
Aboriginal Head Start has hard-earned experience, expertise, resources for providing ECE programs for four-year-olds in eight communities. Why will ECE not recognize this, work with Aboriginal Head Start to expand their existing service collaboratively and focus department efforts on providing zero to three early childhood development programs that the research said is desperately needed to avoid this achievement gap that lasts a lifetime? That’s where the opportunity is. Mahsi.
Mahsi. Let me be clear. We’re not wiping out the other programs. We’re enhancing the other programs that are in the communities and this is optional junior kindergarten programming for those individuals that cannot afford junior kindergarten in the communities. Ten communities without licenced child care programming, but we are going to be rolling out the program in 29 communities, the small, isolated communities that are without these licenced programming.
We are enhancing, yes there is preschool, there’s also Head Start programming. As I’ve stated in this House, we have an early childhood consultant that is working very closely with the communities, the community operators such as the Head Start program, such as preschool educators. So we’ll continue to push that forward. I want the support of those organizations as well and we’re going to continue to do that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
