Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during the last session of this Assembly, I announced

four new community-based teacher education programs which will help my department reach its goal of having aboriginal people make up half of the teaching force by the year 2000. These teacher education programs have proven to be much more popular than we anticipated.

Community-based teacher education programs are currently being offered in 11 communities in the Baffin, Beaufort-Delta, Dogrib and Kitikmeot regions. A total of 130 aboriginal teacher trainees are registered in these two year training programs, which is the greatest number of aboriginal candidates enrolled at any time in the 25 year history of teacher training in the Northwest Territories.

These programs are offered through partnerships involving the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Arctic College's teacher education programs and the divisional boards of education in each region.

In the eastern Arctic, the Baffin teacher education program has 37 full-time trainees in Arctic Bay, Igloolik and Pangnirtung, while the Kitikmeot community teacher education program has 13 full-time trainees in Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak.

In the western Arctic, the Beaufort-Delta community teacher education program has 59 full-time trainees and is offering courses in Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. The Dogrib community teacher education program has 12 full-time and nine part-time trainees in Lac La Martre and Rae-Edzo.

The community-based program offers basic teacher training and leads to the Arctic College Diploma in Education and the NWT Standard Teaching Certificate.

After completing the program, graduates can either take guaranteed teaching positions with their divisional board of education, or can continue working towards a Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, or McGill University in Montreal, through Arctic College's teacher education programs.

In addition to the people in the community-based programs, another 52 full-time trainees are registered in Arctic College's campus-based teacher training programs. A further 12 trainees are taking courses towards their B.Ed degrees at Thebacha campus in Fort Smith and Nunatta campus in Iqaluit.

Mr. Speaker, the improved access offered by these programs is providing new career opportunities for teacher trainees across the Northwest Territories. There are already 31 newly qualified teachers who graduated from the Keewatin teacher education program this past June, as well as ten Dogrib teachers who graduated in 1992 from the first community-based program in Rae. This initiative will soon result in a well-trained and qualified force of professional aboriginal teachers. In turn, this will help make our schools more relevant and will lead to higher levels of achievement on the part of aboriginal youth. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause