Thank you, Mr. Picco. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the Member's first question, the income support program is working quite well. The changes that have been made to the program have generally been well accepted at the community level, and we think it has demonstrated some moves in the right direction to helping people achieve self sufficiency.

In answer to his second question, there has not been an increase in the demand for income support. I am speaking now about the overall, global picture. Some communities have realized an increase, yes. Others have gone down. But if you take a look at the overall picture, income support has stayed just about the same.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Picco, you are down to your last question.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Picco. Mr. Dent, I believe Mr. Picco has addressed one question and that is the first one. That deals with the liabilities of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Picco is correct. The Power Corporation has embarked on a five-year program to examine all of its plants to determine the potential for environmental liability. This summer was the second summer of the program. I am not aware of the reports from this summer's work having been completed. If they have, they have not yet been forwarded to my office. The first round did find a couple of communities where the preliminary indications were that we needed to do some more work to ascertain whether there might be some contamination. In the first year, most of the sites showed not significant contamination. However, three were included for extra work this summer to detail whether or not there was reason for further concern. In any case, the community councils have all been involved and know exactly what was being done, as have the regulatory agencies. I am afraid it will probably be January before I can report to this House on what the results were this past summer.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. I would now like to move on down the list here. I have Mr. Roland and Mr. Rabesca in that order. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question to the Minister would be in the area of policies. One of the first question I believe I asked the Minister when I first came to this Assembly was in the area of automatic passes. Is that a policy of this government, or does it go beyond that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it is not a policy of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. It is something that the divisional education councils have adopted. I believe they have all adopted that policy. I might say that from the research done, it appears to be a justified policy.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have to go back to the first answer I received a couple years ago. It seems slightly different. In the area of testing, right now part of this automatic pass system is that there are no requirements for testing until grade nine. Is that the case?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as far as I am aware, the only standardized test that is used in our system is at grade 12 and that is where 50 percent of the final mark is based on the Alberta departmental exam. I am not aware of us using a standardized test at the grade nine level. The Member may be thinking about the School Achievement Indicators Program, which is run by the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada, which is a Canada-wide testing program which tests for different subjects each year on a three-year cycle. For instance, next April we will be testing for reading and writing and will test approximately grade four and grade nine students all across Canada at that time. But I am not aware of any standardized tests for anything other than grade 12 that relate to grade progression or final marks.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Does the Minister think it is part of his responsibilities in the Department of Education to provide for testing in grades possibly at all levels. Where does the Minister think the responsibility lies? Is it just the grade 12 or throughout the years of education? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I suspect that the underlying question is one of accountability and how do people know how well their children are doing in comparison to what level they might be expected to be at? I believe that we have a responsibility to demonstrate to people how well the system is working. That may include developing a mechanism for testing students. We do not have the resources to test students at every grade level. I do not think that would be necessary, nor do I think it would be productive. However, I do think and have discussed with the Standing Committee on Social Programs our working towards developing a system of accountability so we can demonstrate to the people of the north how well the system is performing. Some aspects of that system will include some testing.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The reason I am going along with this line of questioning is that I think we are finding in communities in the north, especially in the senior high levels, parents are tending to send their children to southern institutions in their senior high years of education because they are feeling, for whatever reason, that the quality in the north is not to the level it used to be or it should be. That has a double impact because as we know, school formulas are based on enrolment numbers from a prior year. The more students who are sent to different institutions away from that community, the lower the school funding is. Hence, the questions towards testing and then for the ability for parents to feel that their children are achieving at a certain level and be able to measure off and either compare it to other regions or to

the rest of Canada. Is there a policy that is territorial-wide that would measure the level of education achieved by students, a policy held by this department in measuring grades other than that of grade 12? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no policy. As I indicated in my previous answer, I have recognized that there needs to be some method of demonstrating to parents and citizens who are helping to fund the system, some accountability. We have to be able to demonstrate just how well the system works. Testing does not always answer that. You can teach to a test. You can teach a student to pass a test very quickly. That does not indicate whether or not that student has gained all the skills they need to make it in today's world, nor does not indicate whether the student has learned all that they should from the curriculum.

We have curriculums set up in the Northwest Territories so a teacher knows just what skills a child should have achieved by the end of the school year. You often get a more accurate reflection of how a child has achieved by taking into account what the teacher says the results are. Not all children do well on tests. You cannot norm a test, make it effective for all areas of our population. We have a wide variety of settings in the Northwest Territories. We have a number of different languages with a number of students for whom English is a second language. Setting the tests up so they would be accurate for all of the people they are given to would not be cost effective.

I was previously questioned about putting more money into special needs. We can spend an awful lot of money setting up tests. It would not really prove just how well our kids were doing, but it would take more money out of the pupil/teacher ratio. It would cost us teachers. We have to recognize there is a cost for what we are doing. When I talk about an accountability system, I am talking about developing a system where tests would be a part of demonstrating to the public how well the system is working, but just a part. There has to be much more built into an accountability system. There should be an understanding among the public of what is expected of students at a certain age. The initiatives the department has undertaken, like working with the western consortium to develop common curriculum for math, social studies and English allows one to look at the curriculum and know that wherever a child goes to school in western Canada by the end of grade nine, this is what they should know in this subject. You cannot always ascertain this through a test. You sometimes have to rely on the teacher to give you a better indication of whether or not the child can achieve that level.

Just last week, a Canada-wide curriculum for science was released. For kindergarten to grade 12, it is a great big book. I can let Members have a look at it as I have a copy in my office. It tells you at every grade level what a child should know to be literate in science. Some of the tools are available, but we have to find a way to better assess just how well our students are doing. Yes, we are working on that, but testing is not the only answer.