Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought you said Frame Lake. Thank you for that. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. My first question today is: did Education, Culture and Employment recently hire an arts curriculum advisor? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, ECE recently hired a new arts education, trades and career, and technology studies coordinator to fill a position that had been previously filled, so it's not a new position.
When I look at the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, I see an entire division dedicated to kids' sport and recreation. I am not saying that we do not need that at all and I, in fact, do not want that to go away, because I feel that children's activity and especially physical activity is very important as a preventative mental health support system. However, when I look at the department of education, I do not see an equally robust arts division, and so can the Minister confirm how many employees are dedicated toward youth arts curriculum development for the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
We have the one position that I just mentioned that is specifically dedicated to that. However, we do have hundreds of teachers in the territory, many of whom teach art courses.
Would the Minister be willing to work with those hundreds of arts teachers he just mentioned across the territory and the person who fills the arts curriculum role within the department of education along with people from different regions in order to develop a made-in-the-North arts curriculum that includes both cultural resurgence and art therapy initiatives, as well?
Right now, our curriculum, many parts of our curriculum are, I wouldn't say outdated, but it's time for them to be renewed, and so that type of work is happening right now. We're looking across at different provinces to see what they're doing, because Alberta has gone through a change, Saskatchewan has changed, BC, and so we're looking at all of this. I think the Member has a great point that, if we can incorporate northern art and those types of things into our curriculum, that would be great. So I will definitely look into this.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Minister's willingness to look into this. My final question today is in regard to the CALM courses that northern students currently complete in grade 10, and CALM traditionally is where students can work on resumes and they get their volunteer hours, but we hear frequently from northern youth that they need more than that in order to get themselves ready for real life. They want budgeting classes, and they want to know how to do their taxes, and they would like to know how to do business development training. A lot of people in the North do go out and start their own businesses. So would the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment also be willing to look at the CALM curriculum so that it includes more real-life experience and education for our northern youth? Thank you.
That is something we're looking at. CALM has been around since I was in high school, and, frankly, there has always been talk that it could be done better, and I've heard that very recently, as well. So, for decades now, there have been desires to make it more relevant and, with our proposed pathways to education that the department is looking at, there are proposals to change what we now know as CALM, which is a three-credit course, to a series of one-credit courses, including financial literacy, 10 and 12; mental health and healthy relationships, 10; adult and child development. In addition, the current one-credit career and program plan completed in grade 9 is being replaced by a suite of career and transition plan courses to be taught in each year of high school, for a total of four credits, and these courses are meant to guide and support students in figuring out their future goals. So there are changes coming down the pipe to make it more relevant and address the very issues that the Member is speaking of. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
