Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to make a few comments on a couple of items related to the Department of Education. One of the concerns that we are experiencing in Inuvik, and this has happened in various communities over the years, is the procedure of determining the numbers of teachers needed from one year to the next.

For instance, this year in Inuvik we, all of a sudden, have an increase in students and not enough teachers. If someone from the department had asked me last spring, I would have told them this would have happened, but nobody asked me. Based on the research I have done it raised the question in my mind that if I knew, why would the Department not know. With all of the computers and knowledge and statistics we have on people in the system, our population base is not that big. There are 57,000 people, and I do not know how many are in our school systems that we can track to know who is coming up through the system and who is going to go into high school.

The procedure that is used, and correct me if I am wrong, is that enrolments rates are determined in the fall for the following year, and then the numbers of teachers required are based on that rate, almost a year ahead of time. There does not seem to be any flexibility in the system to adjust, and when September comes and all of a sudden the classrooms are bulging with more students than you have budgeted for, you have to go into a process of getting supplementary budgets or the department has to revise their budget. I would just like the officials to address that.