Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister for that response. I appreciate, and gather from his response, we don’t currently have anything that recognizes sort of magnet community schools and the needs that they have. I’m really pleased to hear that that is something that the department is considering.

Similar to that, some schools obviously end up with more special needs students than others. Some end up with students with much higher needs than others. That ends up putting an extra financial burden on either a board or a school.

I’d like to know from the Minister if, at this point in time, our funding formula...

Mr. Chair, to where these contributions would show up in the budget? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’ll sneak the last question in. So we really don’t have much of a profile in terms of heritage. The NWT Arts Council, I presume it’s called an arts council. So I presume that they don’t and their description doesn’t say much about grants for heritage. So there are donations for heritage centres, but that tends to be the operations of the centres themselves. So in terms of programming, it sounds to me as though the only funding in this budget for programming is cultural projects, which is $36,000. Am I correct in that? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That accounts for, sort of, the actual money that they’re spending, but they’re spending the money to achieve certain results and standards, I would hope.

I would like to know from the Minister, he’s heard a lot from Members about the inequality of graduating students, the level of education that students graduate with. I want to just ask this question because I often wonder about it. Who is responsible for the quality of the results in our K to 12 education? Is it the education authorities or is it the department?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to ask some questions about the inclusive schooling funding formula. The Minister has heard Members talk about the problems with the inclusive schooling formula and the way that inclusive schooling is provided. Boards are underfunded, many of them, and the formula basically is not working. I think the current percentage applied across the board to our education authorities is inappropriate.

I would like to ask the Minister initially, what does the department do to evaluate how...

Mr. Chair, thanks to the Minister. I wanted to ask, within this section there are two funds which I don’t know whether or not it’s included here. One of them is the Mine Training Society and the other one is Skills Canada. I can’t find, within this section, where either of those organizations’ contributions are listed. Can I get some clarification? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, thanks to the director. That’s helpful.

In terms of culture and heritage, I know I suggested to the Minister, in my statement last week, that we could give a higher profile to heritage than we do. We have a Minister’s Cultural Circle, but I’d like to ask the Minister specifically whether or not he would entertain a name change to those awards, if he would call it the Minister’s Cultural and Heritage Circle, just adding the word “heritage” in there. Thank you.

Thanks for the information. So if our enrolments have gone down, I note that the total funding to schools has actually gone up by about $1 million. If enrolments are down, we have fewer staff from one year to the next, why is the budget going up?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The current GNWT directive on inclusive schooling states the following: “Inclusive schooling is intended to ensure equal access for all students to educational programs offered in regular classroom settings.” This very statement is symbolic of what is wrong with how inclusive schooling in the NWT is currently being funded and addressed at the department level.

It is time to revisit and redefine the directive and the funding formula for inclusive schooling. We must consider this, also from the ECE directive, “What inclusion is not:

It does not mean having all students...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about ALBE as well. I noted from the Minister’s opening remarks that he said the department will action recommendations from the Adult Literacy and Basic Education review. I wondered if the Minister could elaborate on what recommendations will be acted on and what programs will be changed. Thank you.