Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions today are also addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to follow up on some of the concerns raised in my Member’s statement.
On October 7th the Minister made a statement in this House and in that statement he announced a wage or subsidy program for early childhood practitioners. I recognize that our child care staff tend to be poorly paid. They are certainly on the low end of the wage scale, in my estimation.
I would like to ask the Minister, first of all, how this particular approach, how a wage subsidy approach was decided on. Were daycares or preschool operators consulted? If so, when were they consulted and how many operators did he consult with? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Madam Speaker. I don’t have the breakdown of how many times we met or how many agencies, but I can provide the breakdown to the Member.
With the proposed funding that’s within the budget, we are allocating upwards of $511,000 towards this wage subsidy. There were suggestions and ideas that came forward and, again, we have to backtrack to the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, Early Childhood Development Framework, the engagement we have had with the general public, the agencies, the child care workers. They’ve told us their wage is so low, minimum $17,000 to $22,000 a year, so we felt that we needed to follow up on that so that we can have those highly skilled individuals at a going rate today.
So we are following through on what we’ve been told by parents, by our communities and we’re moving forward on that. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister, and I don’t disagree that we need to do something for our early childhood practitioners. They definitely are not paid what they’re worth, but I’m struggling to understand. The Minister didn’t really answer my question as to where this approach came from. I find it unlikely that the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative would have laid out this kind of an approach to increasing wages for early childhood practitioners.
My next question to the Minister has to do with how this program is going to work. I am struggling to understand just how this is going to roll out, so I’d like to ask the Minister for some details.
Will the funds go to individual teachers? Will they go to the daycare or the preschool operators? What’s the plan? Thank you.
The money that’s identified, once it’s passed through this House in the budget we will then be working with licensed early childhood centre operators to ensure the funding is applied directly to increasing of staff wages. So those are the targeted individuals, individuals with low wages so we can at least subsidize them. In 2014, in April, that’s when the $2 addition will be added on. The following year in April will be another $1 addition and the subsequent years will be based on certification, diplomas or degrees they’ve obtained will be waged at the top of this. Those are just the discussions that we’ve had.
When I mentioned the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, we spoke generally about the education of all of the Northwest Territories that covered early childhood as well. So that’s why we refer back to the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, Early Childhood Development Framework and now we’re going through education renewal. Those are some of the discussions we’ve been engaged in with the general public. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister for that detail. He’s taking me to my next question, which has to do with certification.
The Minister, in his statement, said we’re also putting in place a credentialing system, scholarships and incentives for early childhood development professionals. So I’d like to know from the Minister, I agree completely that we need to have our early childhood professionals certified and they need to be certified to a national standard, but I’d like to know from the Minister if, in 2016, certification is going to increase the wages of our professionals. So I’d like to know, again, how this system is going to work. I think it’s a grand idea, I think it’s needed, but I don’t understand how it’s going to work. What kind of credentialing system are we going to put in place? Thank you.
Mahsi. That’s the information and the direction that we need to work with the child care centres and especially the daycare operators. They would have a handle on how many are in the system, how many are getting their certification or diploma and the degree programs. So 2016-2017 onward we want to identify those individuals.
We have, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, approximately 30 individuals that are in the professional fields in post-secondary. Obviously, we want to attract them to the Northwest Territories to work in our centres across the Northwest Territories. So this will be an incentive for them to come back to our region, our communities to work for us. That’s the overall plan to develop some attractiveness and also some incentive for those individuals to come back to our North. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m struggling to understand the system. I guess if I’m given two years in which to get my certification but I’m also working full-time, I’m really struggling to understand how I’m supposed to accomplish that.
I have heard that there will be an on-line system or an on-line program, I guess, but for me to take stuff on-line, I think it’s going to take quite a long time. So, I’d like to know from the Minister if he has looked at the amount of time that’s going to be required for any professional to get the certification that’s required for them to get the greater wage that they deserve. Thank you.
Yes, it will take time in various areas, but we, as a department, will be working closely with the daycare operators because we want those individuals to achieve their goals and dreams of either certification, diploma or a degree program. We will be establishing up to 10 $5,000 scholarships for these individuals to access. So we’re doing what we can to send those individuals out while they’re still working. So, obviously we want to create some incentives. That’s what we’re doing and this is a process where we are currently working with the operators at this point in time. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
