Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I'm wondering, point blankly, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister increase the total number of eligible semesters for all NWT students given that what we're seeing as far as trends of who's accessing SFA. The students that are accessing beyond a bachelor's degree for graduate students is less than 4 percent of all of the students, and students that are accessing even more than four years is limited to under a total of 9 percent. And so I'm wondering if the Minister is willing to look at expanding who can apply for additional funding for SFA in the territory? Thank you
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we haven't even rolled out the first set of significant changes yet, and the Member's already asking for another set. So I can't commit to doing that. What I will say, as the Member has noted, you know, the SFA program was undersubscribed and so we looked at what new money we can find, what money is available internally, and what we could do with those funds. And so what we did is create a program that we could afford in that envelope. I do recognize what the Member is saying. There are still barriers that exist for some people to, you know, advance their education, especially when you're talking about getting a master's or similar degrees like that. So I am live to that but right now we are sticking with these set of changes that we are currently in the process of implementing. And in the future, we can look at even further enhancements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I wanted to save the Minister some printing and get those changes in before he printed his new rules.
I think there's a lot more focus that's needed on this one because I think that there's something that can be done here in order to include more students in this in the Northwest Territories without it meaning more money from student financial assistance in big dollar amounts given where we're at.
Mr. Speaker, back when I was a student using student financial assistance, I was walking around with my flip phone, I was T9 texting or whatever you used to call it, and so times have changed since then and now we can do a lot more on our phone, we can do a lot more from our computer. But SFA is still using the forms they used back when I was using them and still requiring people to go in with a paper copy to their university and then come back and bring it in to student financial assistance. And so I'm wondering will the Minister work with SFA to move more services online for students so they can spend more time studying and less time doing administration. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So actually you can apply for SFA online. That is an advancement that has happened in the past few years. I think what the Member is referencing is that there is one form, the student enrolment form that needs to be filled out by the school, and so that is still a paper form. However, we have been and in terms of the ability to check your loan balances online, we don't have that; we are working with the Department of Finance to see if there is a way to make this happen. But I'll say that, you know, we don't have the IT infrastructure that you might see in some other jurisdictions. It is expensive and instead of investing in that, I guess we've been investing actually into the programs and that's why we're able to have the most generous student financial assistance program in the country. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, there's also the travel form that students need to fill out online and share there.
So, Mr. Speaker, in addition to the online services, what students are also looking for and it's not just students; it's potential employers, postsecondary institutions across Canada, as well as even the polytechnic here in the Northwest Territories, people are always looking for information because information allows us to make strategic decisions, it allows us to know what's going on in the world, and especially with our own students here. And so I'm wondering if the Minister will commit to doing a little bit more data sharing when it comes to student financial assistance and putting out an annual report that speaks to who is using student financial assistance, where they're going to school, what they're taking at school, completion rates, and also the number of students who are returning to the North to come back here and work. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a long list of things to include. So I can say yes, I will commit to annual reporting and I will commit to seeing how many of those items that we can actually get on the list. But I think it's a great idea, and I'm happy to action the Member's request. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. I very much appreciate that.
Mr. Speaker, the last change that I highlighted in my Member's statement today was the change for remissible loans. It added that for the eligibility requirement of students, I would like to understand why the GNWT wants to remove the eligibility requirement of students being schooled in the Northwest Territories for remissible loans without adding a return to the North clause for nonNWT schooled students. This has been one of the strongest retention tools that the NWT has, and I'm wondering why ECE is choosing to remove that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So by linking the number of years of schooling to the remissible loan program, I'm not sure if that is necessarily a retention tool because you have to go to school first before you get the SFA. The remissible loan actually is remissible if you move back to the territory. So a resident, and I know some people who moved here when they were 17, 18 so they didn't actually do school here, but now they have families here. But, you know, they've made comments that I would have liked to have been able to access some sort of student financial assistance. So this is an opportunity for those individuals as well. But make no mistake, the idea of the remissible loan is that after students complete their education, they come back to the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
