Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education in follow-up to my Member’s statement.
Over the last year there have been a number of cuts to our funding for the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority due to the pupil-teacher ratio, which is changed from 8 to 1 to now 16 to 1. Now the DEA is actually basically being forced to implement the junior kindergarten.
I’d like to ask the Minister, why is he setting up junior kindergarten to fail?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We introduced junior kindergarten through the work of the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and a lot of research has been done. This is an area that has been earmarked as a success, focusing on early childhood at age four. Based on the feedback that we received, even just as late as a week ago, out of the 29 communities we have 22 that registered to enter into the establishment of junior kindergarten in the Northwest Territories. In fact, one just came in just the other day from Aklavik. Aklavik wants to join as member 23 out of 29. It’s over 70 percent that are interested and they want to move forward on this. We see a huge success in this particular area from what we’ve seen in other jurisdictions as well. This is junior kindergarten that we have been sharing from the elders and from the community leaders, so we will continue to move forward on that.
The communities are well aware of the program and they see what promise this program has, but with 18 new students both in Aklavik and Fort McPherson, there is a big increase in the demand that that takes on.
Will the Minister make sure that he provides the funding that he gave the pilot projects this year to the schools for next fall?
We will be continuing to contribute to the school boards to establish this type of programming in the communities. As I stated in this House, I did commit that if it’s beyond 16 to 1 ratio on the teacher ratio basis, then obviously there will be a difference of a new funding formula towards those organizations and towards the school boards. These are the commitments that I have made in the House and I will continue to live up to it. It’s 16 to 1, and anything beyond that we will provide additional funding to the school boards.
Maybe the Minister didn’t hear me. The funding that’s being provided with the 16 to 1 ratio is not adequate.
Will the Minister ensure that that ratio be changed to at least 10 to 1?
When we talk about a 10 to 1, it could be upwards of $10 million to $20 million that we could be faced with our fiscal constraints at this point. The fiscal reality is that I don’t have access to $20 million available to me, so we have to be creative and innovative with our existing programming and our existing funding. That’s what we’ve done. We’ve reached out and this is an area that we feel that we can move forward on. We’re still under the PTR 16 to 1 ratio, and if it’s anything beyond that, I committed in the House that there will be funding provided to those individual school board authorities.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s almost like trying to tell the Minister, oh, take over Transportation and you do it within your funding. That’s basically what he’s telling the school boards.
Will the Minister ensure he works with the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority and other authorities throughout the NWT to ensure they have adequate resources?
In fact, we’ve been doing that since we started talking about the JK and other early childhood development areas. There has been some funding issues because of enrollment. It’s not just JK. We need to focus on how we can improve the enrollment issues and challenges that we’re facing within the communities. My department is committed, through the education renewal, that we need to talk about formula funding for the student enrollment in our education as part of a contribution, so this is an area that we will continue to push forward.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The time for question period has expired. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Mr. Hawkins.
