Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. As I mentioned in my Member's statement, the cancelled Aurora College program contained specific content that was inclusive of northern communities and our cultures. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister believe that sending students to southern schools for training and social work can replace the crucial cultural content that's important for working in northern communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I don't. Any students who go through our current education system go through an Aboriginal language culture-based education, so they get all the relevant information, the experiences, on-the-land programs, languages in their schools and their communities, and anyone who hasn't received it and comes back to the Northwest Territories GNWT does also have a cultural awareness program through the Human Resources Department. As well, we do have teacher cultural orientation days that our department has made mandatory to anybody who comes and works for the department of ECE. That includes southerners who have never been in the North before, and it's mandatory. You learn about residential school experiences, the education system. So we're preparing our teachers and our workers for the communities that they will be working in.
Currently, we do have 19 Northerners who are attending the social work program out of the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his fulsome reply. Mr. Speaker, while the graduation rates of this program were low, enrolment rates seem to be trending upward, indicating that there's significant interest in the program. What steps has the department been taking to ensure that enrolling students are prepared for the demands of this program?
We're always in consultation with the executive and the staff over at the Aurora College, looking at their programs and how we support one another and some of the tough decisions that do have to be made. Any students who are looking at going into a social work program or any program that is post-secondary, we have career development officers in our regional offices, employment transition officers. We also have career guidance counsellors in the schools, and our CDOs are actually going and working in the schools, and that's an emphasis that we did put on them. So there are many areas that we're working with students to get them in the right direction to get them to post-secondary education, whether it's at Aurora College or another institute across Canada.
Thanks to the Minister for his reply. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, it's clear to all of us in this Assembly that, as a society, our social ills in the NWT seem to be worsening. How is it achieving our mandate goals as a government and, in particular, our obligations under the calls to action on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to cancel this program? What kind of effects is that going to have on us? Cancelling this program, what kind of effects is that going to have in us meeting our mandate priorities and our TRC obligations?
I do believe we're meeting our mandate as well as some of the recommendations that came out of the TRC Report. They are recommendations, but our government was doing a lot of this work already. We did present this to our Council of Ministers of Education across Canada this past summer. A lot of jurisdictions took interest into the work that we're doing here in the Northwest Territories in our curriculum, in our early childhood programming, so that they can look at what we're doing to meet those recommendations, and I feel that we are a leader across Canada meeting some of those recommendations out of the Truth and Reconciliation Report.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
