Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, supporting our youth is essential, particularly in high school starting from grades 7 or 8 when we start seeing students dropping out. My question to the Minister, what is the department doing to support students in high school grades 7 to 12 to stay in school? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment provides some broad strategic direction to education bodies. It provides funding to education bodies. But really it's the education bodies themselves, the DEAs and DECs, who really deliver the education to students. And so I can talk about the supports that ECE provides, but really the -- obviously the majority of the supports are at that level. So ECE has the ministerial directive on inclusive schooling and that provides explicit funding for and direction to education bodies on supports for students in the territory so that students can be met where they are in their educational journey. ECE officials meet regularly with education body officials to try and coordinate efforts related to supporting students. Aside from the regular funding, there's been a number of initiatives under the Education Renewal Innovation Framework. So some examples of those are northern distance learning. We have that available in 19 small communities. And that's a way to provide small community students with access to teachers who are generally experts in their field, which is something that a lot of small communities don't have access to, and I think that having that level of support really helps students along in their studies.
ECE has partnered with elders, language, and curriculum experts to develop the Our Languages curriculum which recognizes the responsibility of schools to support culture and language. It helps foster that sense of community.
We have the career and education advisors which is not rolling out as fast as I would like, but nothing really is in the days of COVID, but those positions are intended to actually help this exact range of students that the Member's talking about to determine what courses they need to get where they want and help them determine what they want to do in life.
There's a number of other things, and I could talk for quite a while on this, Mr. Speaker, but I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And mahsi to the Minister for that answer. Can the Minister explain what supports are available for older students who have not completed high school, nor have the grade level to go on to college or university but wish do so. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So students in the territory have access to formal JK to 12 up until the age of 21, and there are schools that offer high school courses to older students as well when space is available, so not during regular hours, and there's a number of these throughout the territory, these programs. Aurora College works with students who want to pursue post-secondary or bring up their training to get into post-secondary. There's the adult literacy and basic education program. It includes six levels of study ranging from basic literacy to course work at the grade 12 level. So courses in this program enable participants to learn or relearn the skills that they need to attain their educational or professional goals. College also offers the occupations and college access program and university and college access program, better known as OCAP and UCAP. These programs provide accommodation of prerequisite and prep courses to enable students to enter Aurora College post-secondary programs.
So those are a few of the things that we're doing. And of course, the college has the community learning centres in most communities, and I hope to see those in all communities some day soon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And mahsi to the Minister for that. Some of my questions might be repetitive.
Mr. Speaker, there are many former students, many have dropped out or have not attained the required grade 12 grade-level staying in our communities with no hope for a future in the work force. How would the Minister explain the various ECE initiatives to our high school students to show how they help improve their school success. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I would not say that they have no future. I think there is a future for everyone. There's Members in this Assembly who dropped out of high school and went back and, you know, accomplished quite a bit with their lives. So I would never say that the student has no future.
Right now, this Assembly has prioritized education to the greatest degree, I think we've seen, in quite a while. So there's a lot of efforts to going into assisting students right from before they enter school in their early childhood through the JK to 12 system and then once they're out. Even if they don't graduate that system, you know, through the improvement and expansion of Aurora College programs, through renewing our skills for success initiative. But it really is the entire community that needs to get behind improving educational outcomes. And so in addition to the individual programs that we do, I always try to speak with community members and let them know that, you know, we need their help as well. We can't do this alone. If kids aren't in school, then they're not going to learn. It doesn't matter what we do. So we really need to ensure that the territory values education the same way that we here in the House do, and so we do that work as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain how the department's significant initiatives are linked to each other in order to improve student grade levels and outcomes? I'm thinking of the department's renewal strategy, the proposed changes to the Education Act, the new Skills for Success Strategic Framework that the department is preparing, and even the Aurora College transformation. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Member has asked about the biggest things that I'm undertaking -- the department's undertaking this term so I will keep my answer short even though I could definitely talk about this for quite a while. But I want to point out that this Assembly has prioritized improving student outcome to the same level as the rest of Canada. And I just want to note that that's not -- that's no small task. The Canadian education system is among the best in the world, is universally respected. So what we are tasked with doing here is ensuring that our students have the best educational outcomes in the world essentially. And so it's not something that we take lightly, and it's not something that can be done alone.
I will start with one of the biggest initiatives that we're undertaking, and that is the move towards a system of universal child care. And there's no silver bullet for improving educational outcomes, but investments in early learning and child care are as close as we can get to a silver bullet. And so over the coming years, along with federal government, we're going to making significant investments in that area. And not just opening up child care spaces but ensuring there is a high quality enriched environment for youth to participate in so that they are ready when they get into school to participate to the greatest degree, and they're not falling behind right off the bat.
In the junior kindergarten to grade 12 system, we are renewing the curriculum because we need to make sure that students are prepared for the real world once they get out. And we need to make sure that we have a curriculum that students enjoy and they see as being beneficial to them. We need to get kids into school, and I think curriculum's one of the biggest ways that we can do that.
The modernization of the Education Act is another major initiative. There are a number of things in there that we need to do probably sooner than later, and overall the entire modernization will probably take a little longer but that will allow us to ensure that we have that community buy-in so that people do see the system as reflective of themselves and they want to participate in that.
The Skills 4 Success Strategy, this is a strategy that's half over -- we're about halfway through in ten-year strategy and so we've looked at what we've done over the past number of years, and what we need to going forward. Some of the things we can continue to do but others we know that there's been some gaps, and we need to fill those gaps. For example, in small communities there are people who would like to become apprentices but they don't have that opportunity because there's no one to apprentice under. And so we need to help provide them with those opportunities.
So we are revamping the system to encourage students to go to school, to make them want to go to school, and to try and fill those gaps that they're falling through right now and provide them with opportunities that they don't currently have. It's no small task, Mr. Speaker, but I appreciate the Member's support of improving the education system as well as that of the entire Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
