Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I voiced the concern of Yellowknife residents who have expressed their views to their MLAs about the implementation of Junior Kindergarten. Today I want to delve deeper into the dollars and cents aspects of their concerns.
The Education Renewal and Innovation Project is an ambitious one. It’s looking at a renewal or restructuring of our whole NWT education system. To date, the Minister and the department have announced, or is it decreed, that Junior Kindergarten will start in September 2014 in 29, or 22 now of our 33 communities, but with no new money. A very strongly expressed view in the e-mails and letters received is that new programs should not be put in place without accompanying new money to fund the new program. I cannot disagree with that view.
The current funding levels provided by ECE to school boards and councils allow for a certain excellent quality of education. Introducing a new cohort, a whole new grade level into the school system without any new dollars effectively forces the boards to provide more schooling for less money. It’s the old do more with less mantra.
I asked the Minister yesterday, how can that let the boards continue to provide quality education that they do now. Although the Minister didn’t answer the question, I can. It can’t do that. The only choice left for the boards if they want to preserve the excellent system that they now have is to use their contingency funds – the Minister would say their surplus – to make up the shortfall. If there is no surplus, well, it means staff reductions and a corresponding increase in the number of students in each class. The end result: a reduction in the quality of education.
Yellowknife school districts have had their budgets reduced so Junior Kindergarten can be instituted, but they’ve also had their requests for adequate funding for teachers’ pensions denied by the department. The Minister contends it’s not a matter for the GNWT, leaving the YK boards twisting in the wind. If the pension expense for any other board, one with GNWT employees, was to increase, what would the Minister’s response to a request for additional funding be? The same? I doubt it.
It is a matter of fairness, and the Minister and the department are not treating all NWT school boards fairly. If Education, Culture and Employment funds YK boards at approximately 80 percent of their budget, why will ECE not fund 80 percent of the increased pension costs?
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Why are we seeing the outright denial of any assistance to cover the extra pension costs? Don’t all NWT teachers deserve the same standard of pension benefits? Apparently not, according to the Minister.
Yellowknife school boards are being unfairly targeted by Education, Culture and Employment through funding cuts and denials of applications for extraordinary funding. Just because they have taxation capability is no reason not to treat them equitably with all other NWT school authorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
