Alfred Moses

We have three policy officers and one manager.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously there was mixed messaging going out from various parties, as well as the change in funding. At the beginning of this session, when we started, we had a funding model going through, but that had changed by the time we got started and had the budget addressed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I don't disagree with all the honourable Members who have mentioned the communication issues surrounding junior kindergarten. I definitely think that it could have rolled out a lot better, getting that information not only out to the Members but to the residents. We are working on our communications protocol and making sure that we're making it as sufficient as we can in the future. As I mentioned earlier, we take it as a learning experience and we'll be learning from this and making sure that, as we communicate, there will be more efficiency a lot sooner than later...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To be honest, it goes beyond the 19 of us in this House. We also have a lot of partners with the education authorities and the board chairs, and we don't always come to an agreement. When we're putting one message out there and we have other education authorities, it could be even other Members putting a different message out there, it's not putting out the best face in favour of us as a government. So obviously we've all got to work together and that messaging has to be a shared and common message moving forward, and, as I mentioned, it goes beyond the 19 of us. We have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank all the honourable Members for all their comments and their concerns, and over the past three weeks there's a lot of common theme that every honourable Member has mentioned here today. I don’t really want to get into detail regarding those, but first off I just really do want to emphasize that this Department of Education, Culture and Employment does, in fact, do a lot of good work as well in the territory. We have a lot of good employees who do a lot of good work for residents, whether it's in income assistance, the JK-to-12 system, post-secondary...

Can I confirm: does the Member want our communications protocol? Can the Member confirm? Thank you.

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

I'll go to my deputy minister for that one. Thank you

Based on the enrolment and the size of the school as well community size and population, there are a lot of criteria that comes into play here and also standards within the school. When working with the school boards, obviously it varies from community to community. We have another situation such as Colville Lake where we're looking at building the school to a set standard. The community wants to make some changes, so they have to go and look for third-party funding as well. So it's working with the school boards and we just follow the standards that are set out in legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable Member for recognizing that our teachers are overworked, averaging 52 hours a week. Research has shown that when teachers have the opportunity to have prep time and prepare for their courses, that students get a quality education, they have enough time to provide quality education, and this was something that came out of a legally binding agreement, collective agreement, between the Teachers' Association and the Government of the Northwest Territories.

If the Member would like, the honourable Members would like, we can resend the package that...