Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask my last question to Mr. Lafferty, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. We know that from the Sahtu needs assessment studies and indications from other reports that if you have Grade 12 or a post-secondary university or college degree, your chances of getting a job are a lot better than a dropout. We also know that people, like some of my friends, who have Grade 7 who have a successful business, so there’s a balance. There are Henry Fords and there are Thomas Edisons and Alexander Graham Bells in our small communities.
I want to ask the Minister, has his department challenged the communities to get the best thinkers and the formula for success for our young people in our communities so that the communities can be involved in getting the kids to school, do the hard work? Is there any type of innovative thinking that can happen in the communities to get our kids off to a good start? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. All of the above, yes. Those are key discussions we are currently having with the regional groups, the stakeholders and those people that are actively engaged with educating our kids; as well, the school boards, the leadership.
We’ve had regional forums, as well, when we spoke about Aboriginal Student Achievement and leading towards Early Childhood Development Framework, the 10-year framework, and also Education Renewal and Innovation. So there’s a lot of work ahead of us, and that will certainly capture what the Member’s raising the concerns over the years and we are dealing with that as we speak. Mahsi.
I want to again ask the Minister to challenge the schools. You know, there are people in what the Budget Dialogue talked about, putting hammers and screwdrivers and wrenches into the young hands. You know, there are kids that are very, very intelligent, very smart. You know, just the hard work. So how do we get them into the schools maybe where it’s exciting where they want to be in school? Is there a challenge in the schools that the Minister can challenge the school and say, any schools in the Northwest Territories who have a certain percentage of attendees, you’ll somehow be rewarded with some type of school prize? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, over the years in my tenure as Minister of Education since 2007, I’ve visited so many schools in the Northwest Territories, and each school has their own incentive program to deal with absenteeism and also have regular attendance. I must commend those individual school boards for making that effort. We always support them as well.
Through the Education Renewal there are opportunities such as dual credit courses that we are starting to offer in the high school, whether it be early childhood focused or trades access programming that we are seriously looking at delivering to our high school system.
The Member has brought it to my attention that this is an area that we should be focusing on and we are working towards that as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Time for oral questions has expired. Item 8, written questions. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5 on the Order Paper, recognition of visitors in the gallery.
---Unanimous consent granted
