Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and they're in regards to the action plan to improve student outcomes.
Yesterday I did a Member's statement in regards to support services. And looking at the action items or the action plan to improve student outcomes, I've noticed that a lot of the action items relating to literacy and support services have been delayed or put on hold and so I have a couple of questions for the Minister.
And the first one is the action item, develop a junior kindergarten to grade 4 literacy and numeracy strategy in collaboration with education bodies is currently on hold, and I'm wondering why. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Generally when we release strategies/action plans, they're quite high level, relatively big, but I said, no, we're going to get down into the weeds with this one and so we have timelines; we have dollar amounts; we have very discrete actions. And what comes with that is the fact that things don't always work out the way you would like. Sometimes you don't have the money. Sometimes other things get in the way. And sometimes positive things happen that can even set you back. So in this instance, with this particular item, the development of a literacy and numeracy strategy is is intimately tied to the curriculum, and we are now changing our curriculum from the Alberta curriculum to BC's curriculum. And once that's implemented, we begin implementing that in the 20232024 school year, then we can start developing and rolling out that strategy. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for that response from the Minister.
My second question is in regards to the action item develop greater integration of services for children and youth in the education system through expanding regional capacity. This action item has also been delayed, and I'm noting that it also includes explore regional approaches to expand the current capacity of the territorialbased support team and identify a pilot or a demonstration site for the model to be deployed and evaluated. So when is this work expected to be completed? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we've done a jurisdictional scan, a literature scan, and the model for a regionalbased support team was developed. Of course, like many things our efforts had gone elsewhere over the past couple of years in the education system. There was a drastic shift in how we do business. We're finally getting back to normal, and next week things are going to look a lot more normal in schools. But that really held us up, and so when you we I guess in the past couple years as well, there's been a greater push towards integrated service delivery approach, and we are looking at how that is going to impact this development as well. So we are delayed because of events that have happened, but I think that we are in a good position to move forward in a coordinated fashion. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the territorialbased support team is vital to children, especially outside of Yellowknife accessing support services. And I'm wondering if the territorialbased support teams are currently all fully staffed, and if not, what positions is the department still trying to fill? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have five positions. Three are staffed. I have a text telling me which positions are not staffed but I can't scroll to it at this moment. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I can get the Member that information. Thank you.
Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my final question is in regards to the OAG report. And the OAG report that came out near the beginning of our term stipulated that ECE must change the way that it's collecting data. And the example of that was the reporting of graduation rates.
Improved data collection analysis and reporting and better use of data can increase equity, improve student achievement and outcomes, and improves decisionmaking as well so that it's evidencedbased decisionmaking.
So I'm wondering, do the changes to data collection and data analysis extend to identify and close equity gaps for learning interventions and access to supports across the Northwest Territories? This this is an important requirement, as noted, to prevent potentials for systemic discrimination or inequity among our support services. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And we know there's issues with the education system along with some student outcomes. But that's just saying we know there's issues isn't enough. We need to target those issues. And in order to target those issues and develop solutions, we need data. And so there has been a shift in the last few years to collect more data and use that in different ways.
As part of our education is very decentralized and so it has made it difficult at times, but there is a lot of work happening. The graduation rate, it's fa more complicated number than I think a lot of people that I than I expected, even, and we have finally I think settled on a way that really reflects the realities of the territory because not every grad rate calculation is created equal. So we are using our own rate as well.
We are also publishing the JK to 12 Education Assistance Performance Measures Technical Report, and we intend to do that yearly. And that has a lot of information about all sorts of different outcomes across the territory.
So, yes, we are doing that work. As with everything else, things have been delayed a bit. We were pushed off track quite a bit over the past couple of years, but it is still our focus. Thank you.
