Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to continue on the thread that the Member for Yellowknife North brought into the House this afternoon and talk about the community learning centres which we had a presentation about this morning.
Mr. Speaker, it was noted that there's significant challenges faced by the centres. So, Mr. Speaker, why did the department not work with the college to pursue a more hybridized model that might open the door for the college for cost sharing operation of the buildings and partnering in ways that were mentioned by the Member for Yellowknife North? There's certainly no need -- no shortage of need here, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister elaborate more on why this wasn't done. Thank you.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, in December I was presented by the president and the chairperson with an options paper so that I would know what they were looking at. That options paper had multiple different directions that the board might choose to go on it. Following that meeting, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment sat down with the board to let them know what each of the different options would mean as far as potential costs that would arise or how that would come out of their MOU so that they completely understood that it wasn't, you know, just a one means the other.
Following that, in January I then learned, largely the same day -- well, the day before the rest of the House, what option the board of governors had chosen, and the very next morning that decision was made public. So I was not in a position to be able to work on a hybrid model; that process was not afforded to me. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that context. And so that option being taken away from the Minister, I would note that the college having dropped the centres now provides the Minister with the opportunity to take up that flag herself. So it was noted during the presentation and in the What We Heard report that the college could deliver through the CLCs educational opportunities that respond to chronic staffing shortages in roles in the community - nursing, teaching, social work, or other professions. These are all goals that seek to support our mandate commitment of growing the northern workforce. So considering that opportunity that's been handed to the Minister, what does she plan to do going forward now to help the community learning centre succeed? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely want to acknowledge that ultimately the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has a responsibility to ensure that accessible education is being afforded to communities. Currently, now following the presentation this morning, the committee knows what I know which is that the college intends to switch to online learning and deliver programming like that. They have some data about some great successes in online learning with students across the territory from one end of the territory to the other. And, really, the opportunity here is for me, along with the department of education to sit down and look at all of the details of that programming and be able to determine where some gaps lie. I know some gaps have been raised by the Member for Yellowknife North, and intend to take this time to be able to look at those and see how we can ultimately react. I acknowledge the Member's comments that reacting to these things are not ideal, but that is the situation that I am left with. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to highlight one other thing that was in the What We Heard report that I appreciate the Minister posting and that was noted that in the absence of Aurora College offering local post-secondary programming, communities have started forming partnerships with other institutions from outside the territory such as University of Alberta, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Yukon University. So it seems that the college has already, you know, been pushed away or stepped away from this issue. So I'm curious to hear more detail in the coming months, or even today, on what the Minister intends to do to kind of capture what could be lost and just emphasize that I don't personally want to see that loss from the communities. We have a goal of growing their workforce, Mr. Speaker, so I want to hear what the Minister's doing to achieve that goal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member's absolutely right. There's great things happening in this territory right now, and the more that we can talk about them the more and more people will know about them and can take advantage of them.
One of the other things that's also occurring at the same time is some of our development corporations for Indigenous governments are taking on some fairly robust workforce development plans and executing them through on-the-job training and by pairing their goals with programs that are offered through education, culture and employment. For example, our -- oh my goodness, where did it go; it was right on the tip of my tongue. Sorry, Mr. Speaker.
But our workforce development programs, and there are multiple ones within education. And so I think really working with all of our partners within communities and making sure that these programs are, first of all, known about, that they are accessible, and that ultimately community members know where to go depending on what their career goals are. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
