Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my statement, I was very honoured and proud to attend the special graduation on the Hay River Reserve. This was celebrating a moment with mature students who decided to go back to school and upgrade their education and at least meet requirements to graduate from high school.
It is common that, throughout the NWT, our young people are facing challenges. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: why are high school graduation rates low in some small communities, and what is the Minister's plan of action to address them? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To actually pinpoint why graduation rates are low is difficult. There can be a lot of extenuating situations that make people leave school. It can be a lack of support. It can be family dynamics. It can be poverty. It could be "I met a new boyfriend, and I just want to hit the road." There are a whole host of reasons why students leave school, but what we are noticing is that we do need to do something about it. It is not okay. We are looking at things that we can control within education and things that we can actually do to support students to make positive choices.
Currently, we have a Pathways program that actually works with students. We are going to strengthen that. We need to actually look at getting more career counsellors into the schools, to actually working with them from younger grades, from grade 9, and talking about, "What do you want to do? Do you want to be a truck driver? Do you want to be a doctor? Do you want to work at Wal-Mart?" and not limiting their options. Working with the students to define what their options are, what they would need once they choose an option, and what school services and supports and curriculum that they would need to actually be successful in obtaining their goals in life.
Like I say, Mr. Speaker, we can do what we can from an education aspect, but a lot of reasons that children decide to drop out of school are not as simple as the education system itself. There are a lot of reasons. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In small communities, we are challenged, of course. Most jobs and a lot of the benefits of industrial-type projects go to where the action is and usually to larger centres. Small communities struggle, but we are seeing some trends in terms of out-migration of small communities, with people moving to larger centres.
At the same time, there was a recent study that pointed to an alarming trend that there are gaps between the education levels of larger centres like the City of Yellowknife and smaller communities. If a student from a small community graduated grade 12, compared to a student who graduated grade 12 in Yellowknife, both go down south, they are challenged, and they have to upgrade.
What are some strategies that the Minister is possibly considering to lead her department to address those very challenges?
I would like to remind Members that, with questions and answers, the preambles should be shortened, and answering questions also should be shortened, because we only have 15 minutes and we still have four individual MLAs in line to ask questions. I would just like to remind Members. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the effect of urbanization is affecting not only the Northwest Territories; it's small communities throughout Canada; internationally, actually. It is happening that people are moving from smaller communities into the regional or larger community centres because there are more opportunities there. So we have to work on it.
Pathways, like I talked about, making people look at their options earlier is one way. One new thing that we're actually doing as well, and I have to thank the MLA who brought it up in the community of Ulukhaktok, having three graduates who did the distance education program with supports, not on their own, it's not like home studies, shows that it's working. That was a pilot. We need to expand on that.
We have the small communities one that we're working with, and actually, we're working closely with MLAs in our small community committee to look at how we can actually put more economy, more opportunities, within the communities to support them. So we will do what we can to make sure we provide as much supports not only to children, but adults within small communities.
We also have a freedom of mobility within a constitutional right that, even though we'll do whatever we can, people have the right to be mobile and to move. It might not be ideal. So we will provide what we can to support and to sustain small communities, but we will not limit people from being able to migrate as they want.
Community learning centres exist in small communities, and so my question is to the Minister: what role can they continue playing in terms of trying to work with mature students who decide to go back to school to upgrade and qualify for high school equivalencies?
Our community learning centres are critical, especially to the smaller communities that the MLA has spoken about, because they actually are working on the ground with people. They're actually looking at people who perhaps have dropped out and need to have adult education programs. They can provide the access program to give people the prerequisites and support so that they can get into college or university, if that's where they need to go. They can do specialized programs in different areas. The problem is, though, that we need to make sure that community learning centres, that education from junior kindergarten to post-secondary, are providing quality services. So one of the things that I really want to work on is making sure that all of our education supports are accountable, have measurable outcomes, and that we are regularly evaluated.
Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the life of the 18th Assembly is coming down. Our term is coming up, and similarly, the Minister has a new portfolio. So besides addressing the rates of low graduation levels in small communities, and the NWT for that matter, what are the Minister's priorities in the remaining term of the 18th Assembly? Mahsi.
People who know me know I'm a hard worker. Staff who have worked with me in other departments know that I'm a hard Minister. I don't plan on letting either of those go. My priority within this, the remainder of the time, is to actually make sure, as I stated just before, that all of our education supports are based on best practices, that they are accountable, that we have measurable outcomes, that we evaluate them regularly. That is often called accreditation. I'm not asking people to get to the point of accreditation, but I think we need to work towards that. So it's about quality programming is my focus for the remainder of the time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
