Alfred Moses

As I mentioned, the program historically has had low admission as well as low graduation rates. The mandate that we provided as a government is focused on Aurora College's focus and looking at our mandate when they develop their strategic plan.

I've got to remind the Member that we do have a great student financial assistance program, that we continue to support our students who want to go and get an education in other institutions, and we'll continue to provide that support. We've made great enhancements to that support. Any student who is concerned about this program, we will work with them...

Early on in my position in the role of Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, we had given our board of governors a mandated letter on how we roll out programs within the Aurora College system, and we met with the board chair and the president to make sure that it's reflective of our strategic plan moving forward and the mandate that we, as 19 Members, have mandated our priorities in this government, and that that was the direction going forward.

With the strategic plan, we did make reference to our labour market information report as well as our Skills 4 Success document to make sure...

As I mentioned yesterday when the question came up again, junior kindergarten will be implemented in the 2017-2018 school year. All education authorities will be required to offer junior kindergarten in 2017-2018, and education authorities have that option to offer it half day or full day.

Currently we run junior kindergarten in 20 of our 33 communities. We did go out and do that inventory stock. We did the discussions with all the schools to look at what was needed. A lot of our schools have the utilization available; space, classroom space, that's available. Hay River is one that we do have low utilization rates in some of the schools. There are some infrastructure costs that are associated with implementing junior kindergarten. The number that we've looked at allocating is over $3 million, and that's for infrastructure needs as well as looking at resource materials that are...

I want to remind the Member that I did make a statement in the House last year about significant improvements and changes to our early childhood programs for funded daycares and day homes. Maybe I can remind the Member to look at that statement again and speak with his constituents and the people who provide these programs, because they're very significant changes that actually improve the quality of staffing, the quality of funding, and even the curriculums moving forward.

It's not possible for the GNWT to fund both the public education system and private nonprofit early childhood programs...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier in one of the other questions, that JK will be delivered in the school setting. It's both practical as well as fiscally responsible. It also utilizes already maintained, inspected, and publicly funded available school space. Students that enter the junior kindergarten system will also have access to more support from the JK to 12 system that daycares don't have right now, and that was the rationale behind it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Aurora College Annual Report, 2015-2016." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I have said many times in this House, it is going to be implemented in all the schools in the Northwest Territories in the 2017-18 school year, not next fiscal year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After the announcement yesterday, staff at the department is going to be contacting all the superintendents of all the boards. Once we get those initial discussions completed, I myself will have a meeting with all the board chairs to look at how we are going to be allocating this additional funding throughout the schools in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do believe I just answered that question, but the department is currently working with the education authority superintendents to determine how to allocate the additional funding.