Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I am proud to present to the Members of this Assembly, and to the people of the Northwest Territories, the details of our new Education, Culture and Employment strategy called "People: Our Focus for the Future, A Strategy to 2010."
Communities in the north have been, and continue to be, challenged to find ways to maintain their traditions, while continuing to adopt to social, technological and political change. As well, in the territories, we are also contending with the same fiscal realities as many other jurisdictions. Choices will have to be made about how we organize, fund and deliver education, culture and employment programs and services now and in the future.
Madam Speaker, 12 years ago a strategy for education was approved by this Assembly. That strategy, "Learning: Tradition and Change," focused on three major initiatives: the implementation of aboriginal language programs, the establishment of divisional boards of education across the Northwest Territories and the establishment and development of a regional campus system for Arctic College. Madam Speaker, these goals have been accomplished and it is now time to move forward with a strategy to meet the realities of the Northwest Territories that they are now facing and will be facing into the next century.
The Strategy to 2010 represents the ideas and comments of citizens and organizations across the Northwest Territories. During the past 18 months, the department received comments from many different sources:
- elders participated in focus group session and proposed ways to enhance culture and tradition;
- educators and students provided valuable comments on the way education programs should be delivered;
- community and aboriginal organizations provided insight for great local decision-making; and,
- business and industry groups identified methods for establishing stronger links between work and education and training.
Madam Speaker, last November, I tabled Towards a Strategy to 2010: A Discussion Paper which was considered by Members in committee of the whole. The completed Strategy to 2010, which I will be tabling today, represents the outcome of a comprehensive consultation process. It incorporates the themes, issues and solutions which people in the Northwest Territories identified.
Our consultations have led us to further develop a community-based model for education, culture and employment programs which focuses on three major strategy concepts:
-First, we plan to link all phases of the learning cycle, from early childhood to adult education, into a continuum of lifelong learning activities;
-Second, we plan to enable greater community control and ownership of education, culture and employment programs through changes to the Education Act; and,
-Third, we propose to develop the concept of a community learning network which would link all community-based programs and services together through a single organization.
People have told us about the importance of being able to address their community's learning priorities through education, culture and employment programs coordinated and delivered at the community level.
The community-based model proposed in the strategy will meet many of the objectives we heard in our consultation, including:
-establishing an early childhood learning system;
-improving student achievement;
-developing a comprehensive system of post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories;
-improving support to communities for culture programs; and,
-developing a territorial system of information networks.
Madam Speaker, the completion of the Strategy to 2010 marks the beginning of a new period of planning and activity for Education, Culture and Employment in the Northwest Territories. The focus of that planning and activity over the next 15 years will be on the people and communities in the Northwest Territories. I will be making announcements over the next few months about the programs initiatives we are taking as a result of our strategic plan. I look forward to Members' comments and suggestions, and the comments of all our constituents. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
---Applause