Mr. Chairman, I wanted to focus now on the area of special needs. A few years ago, the government and the department decided to adopt the philosophy of mainstreaming and caused certain things to happen. I think everybody agrees with the principles of mainstreaming, bringing kids with learning disabilities together with kids who don't have any. They learn a lot about interacting and a lot about compassion and helping each other. I think in a lot of cases, it's valid.
But, as the Minister knows, there are a number of problems that have been created by the philosophy of mainstreaming. Some examples are the numbers of kids who are victims of fetal alcohol syndrome who are coming into the school system now and the number of kids who are victims of family violence and sexual abuse. The subsequent psychological problems they have are coming into schools. What is happening now is the teacher who is attempting to teach a normal workload to a class is finding that more and more of their attention has to be focused on special needs kids.
The original idea was that there would be enough resources to provide assistance to teachers in the way of special needs teachers who would be in the classroom. Two things have happened. One is the number of special needs students is increasing. At least it is here in the schools I'm familiar with. I don't have any statistics, but I would be interested in statistics across the territories. And, the resources allocated in the formula for special needs have not kept pace with the demands.
What happens then is that my original premise of having a system based on excellence and doing the best you can for students starts to fall down. The teacher spends more time with special needs kids which means less time for the rest of the kids in the class. Then, if there aren't people adequately trained for special needs kids, those kids aren't getting the specialized treatment they need. So, rather than it being a positive experience for everyone, it becomes a negative experience for everyone. I know there is a study being undertaken by the department now. The Minister said he would give the Standing Committee on Finance results of that study. Part of the solution is money. But like everything else, we are not going to have enough money to solve all of the problems. The other part of it is more flexible policies by the department. The areas of special needs, like most areas in education, there are no definitive rights and wrongs. There are shades of theories about the best way to deal with certain issues. The reality is different kids with special needs differ from one community to another. Some teachers are better able to cope than others. Some administrations are better able to deal with this than others. It is really impossible to come up with one rigid policy that fits all cases. We obviously need some more resources. The Finance Minister will be doing his job because there are so many other areas in the government that need resources. Yet, it comes down to a matter of priorities.
Another area is we have to allow a lot more flexibility in how we deal with special needs. For instance, I think there is a place in schools for some pull-out programs. I am not saying you want to take special needs kids away from the other kids all the time. But in some cases in some schools, that should be an option. It is an option that can work.
In larger centres, there is a need for specialized schools. The learning centre in Yellowknife is an example.
For other kids, their emotional difficulties are so great they probably should be pulled out of the system and given the professional assistance that they need. It is really unfair to expect a teacher to try to deal with severe emotional behaviour. There are cases in Yellowknife of kids who have severe emotional behaviour. Over the years, I have had kids in four schools, in both the Catholic and public system, and there has been a noticeable increase in the number of special needs kids. There has been a noticeable impact on the level of education.
I think this is key. Everything else in the education strategy will start to fall apart if you don't deal with this one. This one will weaken the overall system. I, for one, think there has to be a compassionate way of doing this. I am not saying you put all special needs kids into a ghetto. I really think there have to be a lot more innovative and flexible approaches to dealing with special needs kids everywhere in the territories. I would just ask for the Minister's comments and observations on this particular area.