Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]
Mr. Speaker, the students between grades 1 and 9 in the Northwest Territories, in small, aboriginal communities are missing a lot of school. Right now, about 20 percent, or 900 students across the Territory, aboriginal students, are missing 20 percent of the classes and 500 of those 900 are operating below grade level. Forty percent of those aboriginal students are missing… I’m sorry. Two hundred and eighty students, or 40 percent are missing more than 40 percent of their class and 80 percent of them are functioning below grade level. Over 50 percent of the non-aboriginal students that miss between 20 and 50 percent are functioning below grade level. Some of them are functioning two or three grade levels behind. Some of them are even higher.
If you look at all of the stats across the Territories you’ll see that 66 percent of the non-aboriginal students that miss more than 50 percent are also functioning below the grade level. So the difference, Mr. Speaker, is that there are only six non-aboriginal students in the whole Territories that are missing more than 50 percent of their classes and less than 70 percent of the non-aboriginal students are missing 20 percent or more. So 50 percent of them are also functioning below grade level. So you can see, Mr. Speaker, that grade level is not associated with non-aboriginal or aboriginal students, but directly associated whether or not the student is attending class.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT should be hiring people in the small, aboriginal communities to get students to go to school, I guess a little bit like some of the truant officers that they used to have but something a bit different. Mr. Speaker, these employees should be working directly for the Department of Education. We all know the benefits of at least having a grade 12 diploma. Without this diploma there would be very little or no chance of employment. We need employment to cure the social ills of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
