Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, in 1990 the Department of Education, Culture and Employment started the consultation necessary to guide the redrafting of the Education Act. Various partners in education and the general public were consulted, and the department produced a document called, Help Improve the Education Act, which helped focus discussion.
On reviewing the results of this round of consultation, as well as direction provided by the Special Committee on Education in 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and current educational research, the department has developed a final public consultation document called Voices: Direction for Improving the Education Act.
It summarizes the recommendations received from the first round of consultations, and makes proposals to change and reorganize the Education Act. A questionnaire has also been developed to confirm or amend the changes being proposed.
Many of the specific changes and additions reflect the directions in Towards a Strategy to 2010: A Discussion Paper.
A revised schedule of the new act has now been approved by Cabinet. With the recommendations received through consultation, my department will work with the Department of Justice to prepare a new act which will be tabled for further discussion in the Legislative Assembly next fall, and introduced for debate in the spring of 1995.
Madam Speaker, at the appropriate time I will be tabling the document entitled Voices: Direction for Improving the Education Act. Thank you, Madam Speaker.