Jackson Lafferty

Madam Speaker, when the Member first came out with the question, there were a couple of areas that he touched on, a wage top-up subsidy was one, new money that is coming in, approximately $511,000, pending approval of this budget through the Legislative Assembly. With junior kindergarten we talked about re-profiling of funding, and again, working very closely with the school boards. This is an area that I am pleased to announce the implementation is starting this fall. It is phased in over a three-year period. The funding that we’ve been talking about is over a three-year period and is a small...

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the first five years of a child’s life are critical to creating a foundation for their healthy physical, emotional, social and cognitive development. Supporting child care programs is one of the priorities of this Legislative Assembly. The departments of Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services worked in partnership and developed the Early Childhood Development Action Plan. It will provide accessible quality early childhood and parental programs and services for all Northwest Territories families.

We will implement about half of the...

E-learning will be a key component of the Education Innovation Action Plan, so as we move forward, evolve into action plans, this will be captured to reach out to the most isolated communities. So, yes, that is part of the plan. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

First of all I would like to commend the Beaufort-Delta Education Council for working diligently on this particular e-learning initiative that they have embarked on. It has been very, very successful to date, even though it has been a short time frame. At the same time, we have been doing our research across our great country of Canada and there is other e-learning that’s happening throughout the other regions, but this particular one captures the most isolated communities.

I agree that this is an area that we need to invest in more and then how we can deliver that as a test pilot project...

Mahsi. I’d like to thank the Member, as well, for meeting with the students, because it is very important to listen to those students, to hear their ideas, concerns and suggestions. Those areas are being brought to our attention here today, so we will be following up with those ideas particularly to Iqaluit and also Yukon College. Some of the examples brought to our attention here today I will be addressing with the college as well. Mahsi.

Those are discussions that we will be having with the college. There are certain initiatives happening in the college, the review of the overall training initiatives, so there will be those discussions. Aurora College with its three main campuses, serving the 32 communities, are going through their growth and objectives long-term plans. So they will be meeting, I believe in June, and they’ll be discussing this particular subject, as well, to my understanding.

Inuvik and the other two campuses, as the Member alluded to, provide child care programs. Inuvik students have access through the...

Part of the process that we are going through is, again, working closely with the school boards across the Northwest Territories and working closely with the provincial jurisdictions. I mentioned the Quebec model and also the Alberta model. We are going to be making changes through the Education Renewal Initiative pertaining to Alberta making changes. It’s coming. We know that substantial changes are coming. So through the mathematical curriculum, we will be making those changes as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

There’s been a lot of recent discussion about Discovery Learning versus traditional learning, particularly relating to mathematics. Alberta has again... We are referring to Alberta because we use their curriculum, as well, both nationally and internationally in mathematics education for well over a decade. So we are learning from Alberta, our neighbouring province. The math curriculum that we use in the NWT has been adopted by other provincial jurisdictions in Canada. As an example in Quebec, they have done very well as they embrace a new approach to student learning. They focus on attention...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for addressing this important subject. We are, as I stated, working very closely with the BDEC – Beaufort-Delta Education Council – exploring various ways on how we can expand on their initiative that has been highlighted as a success.

As the Member indicated, part of the coastal regions are not covered. This is our goal, to capture those isolated communities, reaching out to those isolated communities. We are discussing that at this point. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We do have those stats from the small communities and also the larger centres in comparison and also southern jurisdictions, as well, because they do serve isolated communities sometimes.

We have done a lot of research in this area and we have been working with other provincial jurisdictions. We realize that a lot of our communities, especially the isolated communities, small communities, are not up to par on their educational paths. Through the Education Renewal Initiative it will certainly capture those areas, and even the Early Childhood Development Framework that we have...