Alfred Moses

Yes, when we have time, I will be getting out and having discussions with the superintendents as well as the boards to make sure we do have that smooth transition and roll-out of junior kindergarten.

I would be pleased to sit down with committee and discuss some of these reductions within the college at the convenience of committee, whenever there is time. I would be more than happy to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned, we have staff at the department, after this announcement was made, reaching out to the superintendents as well as the school boards to start having those discussions about safety, about busing. Those discussions, as I mentioned, are happening right now, so we are going to have to wait to see what comes out of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to provide clarification on the implementation of junior kindergarten in the Northwest Territories. I think we can all agree that we want to give NWT children the support they need to thrive and be successful, Mr. Speaker.

Junior kindergarten is one of the ways this government is going to give the NWT's kids the best start that we can. Junior kindergarten will provide four-year-old children with the necessary foundation for learning in the early years of their life. It provides a safe and caring environment and promotes the cognitive, social, emotional, spiritual, and...

As a government, we fund all our education authorities to the tune of about $152 million. What they do with that money is decisions based on the board. That is something that the board is going to have to make, that decision, moving forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those discussions, we are having right now with the departments and all the boards. If it is needed this fall, we will make sure that that funding is available, as I mentioned in the statement. We could be coming back for a sup to make sure that funding is available. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned, we fund education authorities on enrolments. We've seen low enrolments. The funding that we usually give on the previous year's budget, they've been lower, so that funding that we usually get, we're using that, and reprofiling it in junior kindergarten. It's because of low enrolment rates.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in answering these questions previously, the $5.1 million that's going to be needed to implement junior kindergarten is a commitment for this government, and we are meeting with the superintendents and the education authorities to see how we're going to be rolling out this funding, and the numbers are correct. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, junior kindergarten is going to be optional to families, and secondly I also mentioned that we enhanced our early childhood programming to daycares and day homes. We see that there's a lot of waiting lists across the Northwest Territories for daycares and day homes that offer programming for zero to five, and the infants we've increased the funding. So I think that those messages need to be put out there for daycares and day homes and that it is optional for families.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The difference is junior kindergarten will be a free play-based program that's offered to all communities across the Northwest Territories. Currently, there are 11 communities that don’t have any licensed daycare programming, and we want to fix that. Daycares and day homes, they do their own programming; we also work with them to provide some programs, but junior kindergarten will be one that's offered throughout the whole Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.