Debates of October 20, 2020 (day 40)

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My Member's statement alluded to the Auditor General's finding on education delivery by the department of education. Of interest, I noted the department piloted the junior kindergarten program across the territory during the 2017-2018 school year. The Auditor General's report stated the department's analysis of a small number of junior kindergarten students during the pilot program scored better on a number of indicators related to developmental readiness for learning. The report also goes on to state data from the JK program needed additional data to be collected over several more years to know whether the results were conclusive. Can the Minister provide information as to whether any data was collected in the years following the rollout of the junior kindergarten program? Mahsi.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are significant benefits to early childhood education, and I think everyone would agree to that. The fact that we have junior kindergarten, anecdotally, means that there have been some benefits to children across the territory. To the specific question about the data that we've collected, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has been collecting the early development instrument, the EDI tool, have been using data from that since 2013, and that includes the years since junior kindergarten has been in place from 2017. There needs to be a certain number of years of data collected so that you have a good baseline, and then, you can actually start drawing conclusions from that. We are at that point now where we can begin to look at how things change from year to year and draw conclusions on that so that we can measure the success of some of our programming. In terms of the data collection, yes, we're on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We look forward to the findings of that rollout, considering we do have language immersion programs included in the JK programs up to grade four. The Auditor General notes the department made commitments to ensure equitable access to quality education for all the small communities but did not explicitly identify actions required to achieve this commitment. Can the Minister provide information as to why the commitments were not actioned to ensure quality outcomes or equitable access to education?

Since the first report in 2010, the department has taken a number of steps to make good on the Education Act's requirement to provide equitable access. I just want to comment on something the Member said earlier, that the department is "passing the buck" to the education authorities in terms of the failure of small communities in terms of education. I've been here five years, and I've never heard any Minister pass the buck. The previous Minister before me, I heard her state that we are failing students in small communities. The day I became Minister, that became my failure, so I'm not passing the buck. The education authorities are our partners, and I'm not putting blame on them. We're all in this together.

To the Member's question, a number of the actions include things like junior kindergarten. That expanded early childhood education across the territory in a way that has never been done before. There is a realization that, in small communities, the teachers and the principals need special training, so we provided special training specific to small-community principals and small-community teachers. Northern Distance Learning is one of the greatest ways that we've been providing more equitable access, and currently that program offers academic courses in grades 10 to 12 to students in small communities who go to schools where the teachers aren't there to teach those programs or the numbers of students aren't there to teach those programs. It really gives students who want to go on to university but are living in a small community the opportunity to do that.

We have recently changed our school capital standards. These are the requirements for what we put in schools when we build them, and we changed those with a recognition that small-community schools need certain things that they weren't getting before, things like gyms, things like spaces for Northern Distance Learning. One of the most significant things that has happened in the past number of years is access to mental health and counselling through the child and youth care counsellor initiative that we are partnering on with Health.

I take the Member's point. We are failing students in small communities. There are no two ways about it. The numbers show it, but I'm owning it. We're doing everything we can to rectify that.

I thank the Minister for those explanations, especially the "passing the buck" one that he kind of hooked on. The Auditor General's Report states that the department invested heavily in the Northern Distance Learning program, something he alluded to. Did the department evaluate the Northern Distance Learning program as it relates to meeting high-quality education outcomes?

We have done an evaluation on the program. It shows positive benefits, and those are reflected in the numbers. The students who are participating in these academic courses would otherwise have to take them through distance learning, traditional distance learning where you get, well, back in my day, you got a pack of CDs and some workbooks in the mail, and you had to fill those out. The success rates on those types of programs is very, very low; everywhere, not just in the territory. The credit acquisition rate in the territory for Northern Distance Learning has been significantly higher throughout the year. Going back over the years, it has been as high as almost 80 percent; it has been as low as 55 percent, in some years, but nonetheless, the students are getting these courses. They are making their way through the material, and they are passing these diploma exams that you have to pass if you're in Ulukhaktok or if you're in Edmonton. It is working, and we hope to expand it across the territory.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.