Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m probably the umpteenth person who has stood up in this House to talk about Junior Kindergarten, but I have to weigh in on this topic. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Right from the start, who can argue with early childhood development and expanding that within our government? Where the problem lies is how this department tried to take, yet again, a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to early childhood development in the communities without taking into consideration what impacts that would have and what ripple effect that would have. In a community like Hay River where we have play school, Growing Together, Tree House, Aboriginal Head Start where age four children attend all of these programs, sure, parents are going to put their kids into an optional Junior Kindergarten Program, but we have added this. We’ve asked our educational councils to do more with less. So I don’t think you could find a parent who wouldn’t agree with the principle, but if you ask the same parents if they want to have the whole school system diluted by adding another grade, essentially, into our schools without any funding to go with it, I’m sure you would get some mixed responses.
So I would like to ask the Minister – and maybe he’s been asked this before, but let me ask again – did you consider, in the small communities where the need was the most dire where you didn’t already have long established ECE programming, did you approach the federal government and think about things like Aboriginal Head Start? Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular programming, Junior Kindergarten is part of it. Head Start program is another one. We have eight Head Start programs across the territory through federal funding. Obviously, yes, we have approached the federal government on numerous programs such as Head Start and other early childhood delivery into the communities. We’ve been told over and over, it’s your own jurisdictional deliverance. We have to work with that, but every opportunity, yes, we have met with the federal government not only on the education part but other labour market development agreements and other sources of funding that could be potentially available to us, so we have embarked on that and we will continue to do so.
Did the department consider that rolling out Junior Kindergarten in all communities without any consideration for what was already there in the area of early childhood development, did the department consider how that was going to affect those existing programs that had been on the ground for a very long time? When you take all of the four-year-olds out of all the ones I just named, what is the result for those and the daycares? Are we basically gutting all that stuff that we’ve already established in favour of Junior Kindergarten? Thank you.
Yes. The answer would be yes. We have considered all those mitigations and working with the early childhood deliverers in the communities, the child care workers, as well, and the program deliverers. We thought about all the implications, as well, but at the same time, creating more opportunities where if we draw out the four-year-olds, they have more opportunity to focus on zero to three years of age. How can we assist in those areas?
At the same time, the Head Start program, some of those have been in place for a number of years. This is an option for enhancing. Working with the Head Start program, it’s an optional program for them, for the parents. So we’ve reached out to the workers, reached out to program developers and provide them as much support as we possibly can and provide options as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Did the department consider that in the small communities where there was nothing established formally for early childhood development, that perhaps a made-in-the-North, not in association with the school, kind of approach could have been better where we could have involved parents and families and incorporated some other kind of parenting support and training and life skills and different things? I am not trying to be mean to the smaller communities, but obviously there is a higher unemployment rate in those communities and it might have been an opportunity to get parents and children, if not a program, fashioned particularly for those communities in consultation with those communities rather than trying to add a grade into schools. Was that considered? Thank you.
I agree that that is part of the process with early childhood development, the overall framework. When we talk about early childhood development, it is a mega piece of work across the Northwest Territories. Junior Kindergarten is just one piece of it. We have all these different initiatives on the go. Recommendations are brought to our attention as part of the action plan. Now we’re currently working on those on what we can do immediately, the short-term/long-term plans.
So, yes, we’ve considered all those areas. It came from the parents, grandparents and educators. Based on that, we are rolling out those specific programs. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have such a diversity of communities and such a diversity of needs in the Northwest Territories. I just think that something that was not across the board and more responsive to each community in terms of what was already there and what was needed would have been a better approach. Would the Minister agree? Thank you.
I agree we have to have all those programs in our communities that do not have licenced early childhood programming. Based on the stats we have delivered in the House, there are 10 communities without the program. So, yes, I agree with that. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
