Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm excited to ask the next batch of questions to the Minister of education.
Under the Student Financial Assistance Act, section 10(3)(a), so that doesn't mean much to the public, but what it is is it specifically points out to the cap of SFA provided to Northerners attending postsecondary school, Mr. Speaker, which happens to be $60,000 in total. That's your total cap of what you can take.
So, Mr. Speaker, recognizing the costs and ever changing needs of Northerners seeking education and recognizing the fact that we want to support Northerners to get education and even go on to graduate education such as become lawyers, doctors, etcetera, and come back here, Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be willing to address the cap by raising it to what would be considered reasonable and modern amounts reflective of the needs of students attending postsecondary school? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this was this idea was explored in the previous Assembly when the review of Student Financial Assistance was done and, at that time, the decision was made to not expand the cap and to put dollars from ECE, in fact, into other programs. There was changes made to the Student Financial Assistance Program at that time, but this change was not one of them. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I didn't know that the 19th Assembly could fetter the decisions of the 20th Assembly in this regard, Mr. Speaker. I mean, that was the old Minister. We don't have any use for that old Minister. We want the new Minister to take some leadership around that. So, Mr. Speaker, would the new Minister of education be willing to go back and address this cap?
Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this point, you know, there's been conversation about putting extra dollars into early learning and child care. There's been comments about expanding the or removing the cap and putting dollars in there. There's been requests for putting more money into seniors' home heating subsidy. And there's only so much that I can move dollars around within the department in order to accommodate those. So some difficult decisions are going to have to be made on behalf of this whole government as a team. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we're not really talking about a lot of students here. We're literally talking anywhere from 10 to 50 students who need to go beyond that $60,000 cap, Mr. Speaker. What's the Minister's apprehension, really, at the end of the day for expanding the cap? Because we know it's not a lot of students, and she would have the numbers of how many exact students would be attending. So what's her apprehension? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. No, I hear what the Member is saying, absolutely. But whatever I provide right now has to be provided to future students down the road, and I am I've done the research in the previous Assembly on this one. I've spoken to students who are part of that minority of students that are looking for that. I understand that trends in postsecondary education are changing across the country and that people are taking on average five years to do their bachelor degree these days instead of the four, and they are wanting to continue on and potentially do a law degree or a master's in something else. And I you know, do we really want to support these students? Absolutely we do, and we want them to come home. That being said, Mr. Speaker, we do have a budget that we have to maintain, and we have to make sure that any decision that we make for one student can be accessible by every student in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Most of that answer was certainly acceptable. The second half, less good. I'm certainly going to say that.
Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be willing to do an analysis on how many people actually uptake on the full potential $60,000 and weigh that in the sense of information and balance that against those who go beyond the need of the 60,000? So in other words, are all students accessing the full amount, and can we do analysis over the last two years? And I think we shouldn't go too much further than that because spend a lot of time and money doing it. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I love data and evidencebased decisionmaking, and I'm always game to see what numbers are out there. Thank you.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
