Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me on my left is the deputy minister, Mr. Mark Cleveland and on my right is the director of finance, Mr. Paul Devitt.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we get to the appropriate sections, I will be asking questions in regard to the monitoring of statistics we collect in terms of graduation both at the high school and college level, not just the numbers of people who are graduating, but the success rate and are they going on and where they are going. I have some questions with the issue of standardized testing that we heard discussed at different times in the House. As well, I would like an update on official languages and how things are with the interpreters. I would like just to find out what is happening with the Heritage Act and, of course, division preparation. The Minister said they were well on, for instance, will the carvings be moving and how will that be decided? There has been discussion in this House of late, and I have some questions on income support, which the Minister touched on briefly. As well, I would like to ask some questions on transfer of Human Resources Canada. I have questions on inclusive schooling, and the issue of special needs. How is that looking? Are we able to cope? Which ties in somewhat to the student/teacher ratio? Finally, I would like to, hopefully, get some concrete information from the Minister on these long outstanding board appointments, that have been now months and months in the mill. Hopefully, in terms of apprenticeship and the NWT Arts Council, I believe, is also the Minister's. I would like to get some clarification on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comment is in regard to the Department of Education and the whole area of human resource development, starting to work with the students, especially when they go into high school or the upper grades preparing them so they know what type of career they want to get into. One thing that has to be done in regard to the Human Resource Strategy or studies is you have to look at a community and see what the community has to offer to our students who are presently in the school system. We find a lot of our students who graduate from the smaller communities say there are no job opportunities. I will use the smaller communities where you have certain sectors that students can get into, such as nursing, policing and administration in regard to working in the different band offices and the administration offices of the hamlet councils. You identify all the human resource opportunities in all our small communities so that the students, when they start taking their different courses, develop them for a scenario knowing where they are going to be, once they conclude high school or university. When that process is concluded, they know there will be an opportunity for them once they go back to their communities, either in nursing field, policing, administration, finance or the different structures or hamlet offices.

We have to start developing or training in the education of our students with the emphasis there will be a job for them, once they take these different programs and extra university courses, when they do conclude, there will be room for them in the communities. They can come back home without having to go home with these different degrees with no opportunities there. This is something I would like to mention in regard to those different developments.

Also, working along with different aboriginal organizations, we now have different claims being settled, where there is a claims institution being developed. You have different regimes in regard to land and water boards. You have land use planning boards where there is going to be a need for biologists, people with different degrees on the engineering side, when you talk about the land management. We have to start working along with the communities, the aboriginal organizations and the different institutions that are in our regions to identify what those opportunities are, so when students do conclude their education and higher learning, those opportunities are there.

In regard to the different economic sectors, we have to start

developing other sectors and economies. There have been a lot of effort and work done in the Department of Education, especially around the mining sector, but we have to expand that to include the forestry sector and oil and gas sector, where there are still opportunities there. Looking at the tourism sector is one, the key areas that have possibly the most opportunities to offer a lot of the smaller communities, especially with the potential that tourism has for the north. We are seeing the increase of the Japanese tourists in Yellowknife looking at the northern lights and looking at the beauty and prestige of the land that we have in the Northwest Territories. We should start developing different opportunities in those communities for eco tours to the areas of big game hunting to looking at fishing lodges in the different regions. There is a sector there that has to have continued development to start looking at those sectors to ensure we do not loose sight of different sectors by concentrating on one particular area. We develop the scenario that we have taken into light, all the different sectors to combine the other opportunities.

There has to be more real emphasis in the cultural component of the Northwest Territories. A lot of the aboriginal people have a real cultural history and background, in the time before the Europeans came, so people could explain the uniqueness of the different cultural groups from the Inuvialuit to the Gwich'in exactly how they governed themselves before contact with the Europeans to identify the different lifestyles they live and the different cultural practices that they do from harvesting to gathering, basically, how they are able to survive in the Northwest Territories over time. We have to build this cultural component into our education documents we develop and some sort of a learning program or curriculum so that there is a cultural component to the delivery of education.

The other area is one that factors around income support and that field, where it is an important program, especially to a lot of the smaller communities. In the Minister's statement, he talked about the health food basket in the Northwest Territories. We have to realize a lot of these people going to income support are a lot of times, harvesters, who want a little bit of revenue to be able to go out on the land to acquire food products such as fish, caribou or moose or anything they can bring home to offset extra costs, especially with the high cost of food in a lot of our smaller communities where a lot of this stuff is flown in. You come to Yellowknife where a lot of people are baffled by the price of food compared to a lot of our smaller communities because it is so high in the smaller communities. The program has to be more developed in the context that our people in the communities have a skill, but it has to be recognized as all other skills, when it comes to harvesting skills, they are able to use that skill to sustain themselves by going out in the bush or on the land trapping and harvesting wildlife to bring it home to their families to offset the extra cost of having to purchase food from the Northern Store, Co-op or wherever.

The other area I wanted to touch on is there does not seem to be much discussion on disabilities, not only in our education systems, but in a lot of those smaller communities where you may have someone who is disabled, especially a young child and trying to get them to fit into society. A lot of things we take for granted as healthy human beings. The disabled find it awfully hard, especially accessibility to public buildings and libraries and transportation, for the individual to take them from school and home or treat him on the same basis as other students. He may have a disability and he has the same right to learn in all our schools in the Northwest Territories.

Those were some of the things I had concerns about. I will probably be asking more questions when we come to a different departmental section of the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I will have the Members address their comments and questions within the comments, then we will have the Minister respond. I recognize Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Recently, I had an opportunity to sit down with Pat Thomas, the president of the NWTTA and review some of the areas of concern that seem to be there from their perspective. I have several items that I will briefly run over and then, when we come to the appropriate area within the budget, education and development, I believe it is, I will ask some questions in that regard.

One of the concerns expressed was in the area of resources for programs. The funding needs are viewed as a need for adequate funding for both existing and new programs. For example, $350,000 was allocated apparently for the implementation of the new math program but the text books costs, that is $26.14 per student, the text books alone cost $22.00, so there was not much left over for inservice costs and other materials.

Housing was another area of concern. The high cost of renting and lack of choice are making it difficult for teachers in the smaller communities. In the opinion of the NWTTA, this can have a negative impact upon education in those communities. There is an expectation that more is being asked to be done with less. Teachers feel they are becoming frustrated and adversely affected.

Low morale is another concern. Government restraint and in their case, the loss of wages and benefits have had a negative feeling amongst the teachers. Division is a concern. There is concern about and worries when division happens, will the same level of service continue to be delivered?

Also, the NWTTA has requested that both territorial governments consider paying the wages of the new presidents for a period of time so that stable labour relations can continue. Large, diverse classes, class sizes have been increasing over the last two years. The needs of students are varied and diverse. It is becoming difficult for teachers to meet the needs of all students.

Finally, there was a concern about the school year that is now reported in hours instead of days. Previously, the school year was set in days and not hours. This was changed in the new Education Act. Both the association and the directors and superintendents, reportedly, would like to see this revert back to the school year being set in days, rather than hours. Apparently it is reported this is a contentious issue amongst the teachers. I will probably get into some questions in that area once we get into the appropriate allocation of the budget. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. General comments from the Members. If there are no further general comments, I would be prepared to go into the details of the estimates. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus, for a timely ending. Mr. Picco, for general comments.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. General comments. I will now ask the Minister if he would like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe Mr. Miltenberger indicated he wanted to ask more detailed questions as we got into the activities, so I will leave his items until that time. Mr. Krutko had some general comments on career counselling and the need to identify job opportunities to prepare young people for the future. The department in the last couple of years has been trying to improve its results in this area. It is now required for all students in grade 9, with their parents, to meet with a counsellor and to discuss their career options and where they think they are headed. We have also tried to strengthen awareness of what some of the opportunities might be in the north by developing a number of brochures and booklets that are aimed at students, talking about opportunities they might find in various areas in the north.

I know that right now the department is considering a proposal by the western divisional education councils that would make career planning a credit course, to be taken during the CALM or Career and Life Management part of their schooling. There would be a requirement that students would earn four credits before graduating in this area, which would tend to strengthen their awareness of what they need to do, to achieve their career goals.

The Member had some good comments on the need to expand training. What we try and do right now, given our limited resources, is identify areas where we have the best potential for getting northerners into new jobs and concentrate our efforts in those areas. There is no doubt though that we have to broaden those efforts. Mr. Ootes also indicated some areas that he wanted to get into in more detail when we get to the activity levels, perhaps it would be better to leave those until then.

Mr. Erasmus talked about the pupil/teacher ratio and how that does not necessarily translate into real numbers in the classroom. That is absolutely correct. The system we use is the one that is used consistently across North America for evaluating pupil/teacher ratios. So if we were to change the mechanism, it would make it much more difficult for people to compare. While our numbers do not include the janitors in the school, it does include all of the program support staff, the specialized teachers who work in special programs in the schools. There is no question that an official pupil/teacher ratio of 18.2 to 1 can translate into sometimes as many as 30 students in a classroom. That is also in part determined by the divisional education councils and how they structure things. We do not say they have to maintain a certain level. They may choose to put more money into supporting the children with special needs and increase the numbers in some of their classrooms. It would be difficult for us to come up with a system that would be consistent across the territories because each divisional education council has to be able to respond to the situation they face in their schools.

The Member talked about inclusive schooling and social promotion. We need to remember that these are two separate issues. Inclusive schooling is required under the Education Act. What that means is everybody has the right to receive a good education in school. Social promotion is a policy that is not set by the Department of Education. It is a policy that most of the divisional education councils, if not all of them in the north, have adopted. What this refers to is age grouping so you keep students at the same age, in pretty much the same classes. The expectation, as I understand it, is the school will then work on an individual education program for students as required in those classes, so each student is working to a program that suits their special needs and challenges. The Member is absolutely correct though, that neither one of those two programs can work if the classroom supports are not adequate. That is, without question, one of the biggest challenges that is faced by education councils and teachers in the north, right now.

The Member also mentioned university transfer courses. I am unaware of there being a problem with transfer courses. I would hope the Member will give me the specifics so that I can follow up on those concerns because I would share his concerns if that has, in fact, been a problem.

Regarding the funding for the UCEP Program, I have written to Minister Jane Stewart, asking that funding be improved for this program. I know the Member indicated he thought, as a government, we could do more. Our problem is, of course, one of funding. As all Members of this House are aware, in the course of the cutbacks two years ago, adult education programs within the department were cut by 25 percent. This has really limited our ability to increase the programming in the adult education area. Finally, the Member asked is Yellowknife a campus? Yes, it is an official campus of the college. It is one of three in the Western Territory. We have three in the east as well. I am not sure when that was signed, but I believe it has been at least two years that the college has been a campus. I believe I signed the order a full two years ago.

I would like to officially thank Mr. Picco for his generally positive comments. The pupil/teacher ratio and funding for divisional education councils are not just based on school population, but it does make up the major part of the formula. While funding is based initially on that October 31st figure from the previous year, there are adjustments made for the schools that experience a significant increase over what had been expected. For instance, this year when Joamie Ilinniarvik School saw an increase of 25 percent, it did qualify for a significant amount of extra funding in recognition of that fact.

The Member also expressed interest in knowing, in the standardized tests whether or not we would be able to separate out regions. He will be interested to know that we have negotiated with the Council of Ministers of Education to ensure that future tests will do a breakout on a Nunavut and Western Territory basis, so that these figures will be more useful for the future two governments.

Mr. Chairman, I did not hit on all of the issues that all of the Members raised, but I hit on many of the general ones and that the Members will then follow up as we get into the detail.

Thank you, Minister Dent. For the record, I am on Bill 8, Appropriation Act, 1998-99, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, page 9-6, activities summary, directorate and administration. I believe we are just coming off of general comments. If there are no more general comments, are the Members prepared to go detail by detail?

Thank you. We will then move on to page 9-6, activities summary, directorate and administration, operations and maintenance, total operations and maintenance, $5.284 million. Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. I understand that you may ask questions on capital planning as long as it is under the particular activity summary and it is listed as capital planning. If you are going to get specific on capital planning, then perhaps we should wait until we reach the proper activity, Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. I understand you are allowed the question.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. Could I have Members refrain from tapping their pens when the microphones on? Mr. Dent.