Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A lot of comments came from my constituency with regard to the concept of inclusive schooling for children. Many support the concept, however, and have come to recognize fairly quickly the lack of resources and feel that inclusion without resources, without support, without teacher preparation time, without commitment, without vision statements, without proper staff development and without flexible curriculum just doesn't seem to work.
As we know, inclusive schooling is an obligation from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to accommodate children in the regular classrooms. There seems to be a fair amount of designation of children to these classrooms, and there seems to be, at times, a lot of pretence about what's happening with inclusion.
But there are, many times, wide differences in children's needs and the kinds of environments that can address these types of differences. I think inclusive schooling is good for some children, and some parents will probably greatly support it; however, at the same time, I think the opposite is also true.
I think that we must give the option to the parents and to the children because we have noticed that there has been a significant reduction of resources, we have noticed a significant reduction in even funding towards the school boards and it's making it very difficult for the school boards, and the Community education councils to address inclusive schooling. I think that if the Minister's department is sincere with respect to inclusive schooling, they have to make a concerted effort in giving the schools the resources they need to address inclusive schooling. I mean, you can all say everything really nice about inclusive schooling but if you don't give them the funding they need, inclusive schooling is just paying lip service to the residents of the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Chairman, I think, if inclusive schooling is going to work, particularly when you are looking at designating children with significant disabilities into regular classrooms in the name of inclusion, I don't believe it will work unless we put resources into these classrooms to support this type of child.
We have to ask ourselves, if we are going to allow inclusive schooling to work, whether or not the class sizes will decrease. We've noticed, over the years, that the class sizes have tremendously increased because of the fact that the funding has been so tight that resources are limited. Therefore, another way for the CECs and the school boards to address that is to increase class sizes even though the policy indicates different.
We have to ask ourselves, will our teachers be trained and prepared for inclusion with regard to addressing disabled children? Will parents be prepared to give the support that's needed? Will there be full-time trained special education assistants to assist students throughout the day, and will there be basic specialist support for classroom teachers? Would all the children be kept up with regard to their educational goals? Will they all be able to determine goals and will teachers be able to support them in attaining those goals?
Some of the questions that came to me with regard to this whole issue of inclusive schooling are, is the department attempting to address inclusive schooling in order to save funding and to provide regular classrooms with the support needed if this is to succeed? I think that's really critical. I think inclusive schooling can only be effective and successful if the schools are going to get the proper support services, and this has to come from the department. It's easy to say to the divisional boards address inclusive schooling, but if you don't give the proper resources, there would be very little meaning and substance to that particular portion of the act.
So I want to indicate to the Minister that there is a grave concern regarding inclusive schooling due to the fact that there is a lack of a resources, a lack of funding to address inclusive schooling. I recognize that the Minister looks at special needs and other areas, but it still fails to address the concerns expressed, particularly from the community of Fort Smith where many people are concerned that they ensure their children have a good education and are given proper resources.
So there are many questions that have to be asked, and I think there are many questions that have to be answered by the department to indicate the measurement of security or sincerity with respect to inclusive schooling in this particular area. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.