Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today many have spoken about creating some real solutions here on making the NWT a more attractive place to stay, and especially for our own future, and that future is our own students. Our NWT students are clearly not returning to the North, as we’ve heard, for a variety of reasons and I think it’s an important thing to bring forward here.
There are many questions as to why and where we should start to look at this issue. So for today we will start and I’d like to start with the Student Financial Assistance Program. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
We have seen small increases and minor changes over the years for our post-secondary students to access the basic grant or what is referred to as a non-repayable benefit of our SFA program.
Can the Minister indicate if his department recognizes our current shortfall of competitiveness and is willing to consider a full review of the SFA program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that there are challenges within our Northwest Territories, along with other jurisdictions, as well, but as the Member indicated in his Member’s statement, we have one of the best SFA programs throughout the country. We improve our programming every now and then, changing our existing policies and enhancing through the review. We just conducted a review of SFA and part of the recommendations brought to our attention was some of the challenges that we’re faced with. So those are the discussions that we need to have as we move forward.
As indicated earlier, I believe it was yesterday, that within our income support at that time, but SFA reviews are always undertaken and if we need to further re-evaluate our situation, we need to do that. I’m working closely with the Department of Health, other departments and re-profiling all the data that’s available on the students so we can have that compiled information and attract those students back to the Northwest Territories. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Minister indicate how his department and the Department of HR work together to try to find new ways of enhancing our student financial program, especially within the recruitment framework of the Department of HR? Thank you.
We recently had a meeting with a newly established committee in the employment development area and that’s my portfolio as well. So I have to work closely with HR where once we identify these students – obviously we can’t mention names because of confidentiality – we can, based on the area of the studies and the year that they’re in, working closely with the Human Resources department, what kind of jobs are available for a fourth year student or if they’re completing their diploma programming, if we can slide those individuals – there was a discussion here about direct appointments, enhancing the direct appointments. Those are the discussions that we are currently having with all of the departments that are here today. Mahsi.
Thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s comments on that. The basic grant or the non-repayable benefit of the SFA has a wide range of thresholds. In some cases this threshold creates a disparity between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students who qualify for SFA funding.
Is this Minister committed in seeing that the disparity of thresholds are minimized for a more fair and transparent process? Thank you.
Part of the process of why it was established as different and diverse programming that we have, the threshold in various regions in communities is to attract those individuals into small, isolated communities. Most students that are graduating are university, post-secondary, college. So we can attract those individuals to the remote communities where they are very challenged because of a lack of job opportunities.
There are a variety of ways of dealing with the remissible loan in other venues that we have, but that’s the very reason why we want to attract those individuals into the small, isolated communities.
Again, there needs to be a review of that through these departments that we’ve been talking about just recently, but that’s the discussions that we’re going to be having. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister offering his comments and thoughts on that. Earlier today the Minister indicated, and just now, that they are working on a review within a framework of a number other departments.
Can the Minister indicate to the House here when Members on this side of the House might be able to see the findings of this review. Thank you.
Like I said, we had one particular meeting with the newly established committee and it’s very preliminary at this point. My department is compiling all of the information on those particular students, over 1,400 students that are out in the post-secondary and their fields of interest and the year they’re in and compiling that with the HR. They have their own data. It is quite a large amount that we need to work with. So, once all that information is compiled between the departments, we will be presenting to the standing committee in due time. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
