Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment currently has five career and education advisors serving all 33 communities. This role is to help high school students come up with a path that they want to take after high school and to be able to lay that path out with them and get kids really excited about what they want to do. I've had the opportunity to speak with both people who serve in that role and kids who have taken advantage of that role, and it's a very positive relationship. What I am wondering is: what is ECE's plan to grow the career and education advisor role within the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd be happy to grow that program. I can't count how many times, just talking to members of the public, they've said that, "My child didn't know what they wanted to do. They didn't have the courses they needed to graduate. I wish there was someone to help them." I've been able to answer time and time again that we now have that. We have a program that was only accessible to students in about six schools in the territory. Most students did not have that access to career counsellors. This program, we had six counsellors, and we added three more in this current fiscal year. Six of those counsellors have spread out to the regions, so we now have two in the Beaufort Delta, one in the Sahtu, one in the Deh Cho, one in the South Slave, and four who serve the North Slave region, so including the Tlicho region.
Looking forward, I would be happy to add more of those positions if it's possible at some point and to expand the age range that they deal with. Right now, they work with students grades 9 to 12 as well as anyone aged 18 to 24, whether or not they are in the labour market or they are in university or they want to get into the labour market. I would be happy to expand it so that we can get students access to the career and education advisors even earlier. However, we know there are a lot of competing priorities, and there is only so much money to go around. While it's definitely something I would like to do, we will have to see where it lands in the grand scheme of things. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Given that we know that our home and community care needs will be increasing by 80 percent over the next 15 years and that, due to COVID, Aurora College is currently offering its personal support worker program online, will ECE consider offering the personal support worker program to high school students? This would allow students in grades 11 and 12 to work towards their college diploma while also completing their high school diploma, preparing the student for a place within their local economy without having to leave their home community.
I like how the Member thinks. I think we need to be offering more programs than we are, increasing the number of programs that lead to careers and lead to employment soon after high school. However, this is a program that is offered by Aurora College, and I can't tell the college what to do. I will bring this information back to them. I know that they have been working with Health and Social Services and the territorial health authority to expand delivery of the program outside of Yellowknife, and so it is being offered online, as well. It is being expanded, but it's not being offered in the high schools at this time.
I appreciate the Minister's comment about not being able to decide on programming from Aurora College, so I hope Aurora College is listening. Will Aurora College consider integrating the personal support worker diploma courses for partial credit towards the first year of the nursing program so that the personal support workers can receive credit for what they have completed should they decide to return to college and so that existing nursing students will be eligible for personal support worker positions as summer employment while they complete their nursing degree? As an aside, Mr. Speaker, this is currently a practice at Ryerson. Thank you.
Another good idea from the Member, but again, I don't do the programming at the college. Nonetheless, I do appreciate what the Member is saying. The college is moving towards a laddered approach, where you can get your certificate and then move into a diploma, degree, and so on. That is not currently possible with this personal support worker program. There is nothing beyond that. The credits do not transfer, and it would take some rejigging of the program in order to make that happen, especially considering that nursing is nationally accredited and that there are stringent requirements. However, that said, I am happy to take this back to the college.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Along the same lines as making sure that high school students have all the opportunity in the world to build their experience, whether it be economy of care or whether it's trades, I am hearing from some employers that there is a concern that, in order to qualify for the trades wage subsidy, their apprentice needs to accomplish a minimum of 30 hours of work during the week. Some of the apprentices are high school students through the SNAP program and obviously cannot accommodate 30-hour-a-week minimums. I am wondering if the program is willing to work with employers to reduce that minimum requirement or if that minimum requirement is different when it comes to high school students. Thank you.
The SNAP program, people participating in the SNAP program are already able to benefit from the wage subsidy program, so no change is needed. It's already happening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
