This is a question for Education. Will the Minister commit to reviewing how it allocates funding to small communities particularly to see if they are adequately funded and resourced? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There will never be enough money for Education. I think that's fair to say. You know, we can always do more. But I can say that we have made some changes to the funding formula that do benefit small communities. The way communities are funded, they're based on school population and at times there's a bit of a cliff when the school falls below a certain number of students it can experience a drop off in funding. So we have smoothed that slope for a number of different funding streams. And so that is something that happened this year that is benefitting small communities.
As part of the larger Education Act to modernization initiatives, we will be reviewing how schools are funded. Because I've been saying since day one I would prefer to see funding that ensures equitable education across the territory. Thank you.
Will the Minister commit to providing more flexibility on how funds can be spent so communities and staff can be more creative on program delivery?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So where there's a district education council or like the TCSA, the department provides a lump sum of funding, and there are essentially three pots of money. One pot of money has to be used for inclusive schooling, and so that's ensuring that there are supports to support students at different levels in the same classroom. One portion has to be used for Indigenous language and education. And the rest can be used for anything. We don't really have strings attached to it. The delivery of education is the responsibility of the local education body. And so ECE is quite hands off and allows as much creativity as an education body can muster. Thank you.
Thank you. This is one of the example that, you know, I said I had six examples so I'll add one more. We still have time.
Has ECE advanced the piloting of a support network that meets the need of students, educators, and principals, is centered on Indigenous view, and when is the pilot completed?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have that information. Perhaps I can check the dashboard. Everything in the action plan that was a response to the Office of the Auditor General report is online in the progress tracker. And so when an item is in progress, that is noted on the online tracker. So I don't have that information but I can check that out and let the Member know. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. Another example is in 2020 in 2020 and 2021 school that did not align their calendars saw some of their NDL students missing up to 25 percent of NDL class periods for some courses during the academic year.
What has been the progress in working with educators, administrators, and district education authorities in aligning the calendars of schools offering northern business learning programming? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now that is not a simple answer. So what I can say is that northern distance learning has produced some amazing results. You know, I hear great stories about it. I hear about students who, you know, in small communities who are taking these, you know, advanced level courses, academic courses, and making their way to university. And it's not obvious that they would have that opportunity in their community if not for northern distance learning. So it is a very valuable project, and I'm I don't want to say proud, but I'm happy with the investments that this government and the previous government have made into that program. It's been expanded. However, its progress really hasn't been helped by COVID, both because communities, you know, understandably, did not want people coming in to their communities to install the hardware and things like that associated with northern distance learning. As well, there were of course school closures and things like that that that slowed things down.
That being said, we are making some progress, and it's been unfortunate that education bodies have been busy dealing with other things with school closures, with school reopenings. It has really hindered a lot of the progress that we would have liked to see.
I can say, though, that because education bodies themselves determine their school calendar, they submit their school calendars for approval, there have been some progress. So I know in the Beaufort Delta, for example, the school calendars have been synchronized this last year.
Now, I haven't spoken with the chair about this but I presume it is for things like northern distance learning because that was that's where it's from. Northern distance learning originated in the Beaufort Delta. And however, the DEC, the district education council, the overarching body, their decisions are sometimes at odds with what the communities want. So I've heard from local communities that their desire is to have calendars that differ from their region has not been heard.
You know, in different the territory is vast. And even though there could be a single district education council, it covers education bodies over a large area. And you know, one of the main issues is the hunting season. You know, we face that situation here in the Assembly when we look at our calendar and how we want to, you know, when we want to meet. Basically our calendar here is crafted around the different hunting seasons around the Northwest Territories.
Similarly, we hear those concerns from education bodies as well. And so while we have there has been movement in aligning calendars within regions, we are not at the point where we have a territorywide calendar yet. And I'm not sure given local bodies' desires that we'll get there. But we are working on it. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Way to run the clock there.
