Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The college was provided a budget reduction target, and those discussions happened back in September. In cooperation and consultation with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, the college identified a number of proposed reductions to look at meeting this target, and that was known to me in November 2016 and was confirmed in December, and then they became part of the main estimates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As we have all heard here, this government is committed to fully funding junior kindergarten. The reductions that the Member is asking is a decision on the school boards themselves, and that is something that they are going to have to go back and look at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned, staff at the department have been meeting with the superintendents to make sure that it is a smooth transition as we roll out junior kindergarten moving forward. All those are being discussed right now, as I mentioned earlier.

The Social Work Diploma program, like many other Aurora College programs, is recognized by southern institutions and post-secondary institutions as well through transfer agreements and through individual course equivalency processes. With the strategic plan that we're going to be looking at having developed this year, hopefully we will see other programming fit, reflective of the Skills 4 Success action plan that we have and strategy that we have, as well as the Labour Market Information Report that we tabled in the House last year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, we do have a good partnership with College nordique as well as Dechinta. We have made some improvements. We have increased funding for Dechinta. We also went to multi-year contribution agreements, where before it was a year-to-year basis. They know and are given the knowledge that they are going to have funding for the next three years, and then we will continue to have those discussions with them, with any kind of improvements, programs, curriculum that we have, and we will continue to have those partnerships with College nordique as well as Dechinta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, we do have those contribution agreements with other institutions, such as College nordique and Dechinta, and we do look at increased funding with those organizations as well moving forward.

I don't have the exact dates, but I could get it to the Member if he wishes. Probably in the fall time was when we made that announcement, and they went out and started doing their consulting.

Based on enrolments and how many students are going to be in the school system, we are going to be fully funding junior kindergarten this fall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned, we do have one of the best Student Financial Assistance programs in the country, and we do support our students. We've made improvements to that program. The students who are impacted with the reductions that were brought forth through the Aurora College system, those things are still going to get the support that they need moving forward. Any transitions that are going down south to another institution, they'll continue to work with University of Saskatchewan to make sure that the students get that education and can be teaching here in the North.

As I mentioned, it is a really good news story that this government has stepped up to fully fund junior kindergarten. The next step, after we made the announcement from the budget address, was that our department is meeting with superintendents and working with the school boards to look at how we're going to be rolling out junior kindergarten this fall, and also looking at how we're going to be able to utilize that money that was announced in the budget.