Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have heard a number of different areas of concern when it comes to education. We need to say, or at least, I think, we need to say to start with, that we have come a long way in the area of education. For example, when my parents were going to school before Inuvik was built, the higher education at that time was grade 3 and 4. That was average throughout the Delta communities. We have come a long way and there is still much to go.
I know there are opportunities to reach a higher education, as well, when you go through life and it is a matter of being committed to your cause. I think a challenge brings out the best in people, so hopefully that will bring out the best in us and we can come up with a solution that would try to deal with these problems.
As we heard earlier from Mr. Miltenberger about the education tax, I think that is an area we need to look at. The tax-based communities pay their portion of their tax for education. I am not sure of the comparisons. I know that because I live in a tax-based community, much of my tax money goes into education. This is something we need to look at throughout the whole of the territories. If we want to put more money into it, we should go back to the people and ask if they are willing to pay a little more so we can have more special need's assistance in the classroom. I think that is something we need to address.
In the area of education, it was mentioned earlier, but I will go a little further, is the quality of education. One of the concerns I have raised in the past is in the area of automatic passes. I have a concern with that. At some time we end up paying for that because that student who has gone along with his peers for a number of years, when it comes time to write the test that he has to write because it is mandatory, realizes he does not have the knowledge to succeed. How far do we expect that student to go from that point on? I think that needs to be looked at.
From my experience, when I went to school, it was divided into groups of people. Maybe there was some concern, maybe it was not the best way, but I found it to be productive. Maybe it is something we need to look at. Governments have been known to go back to the ways they delivered programs in the past. Maybe we can look at classroom settings. For example, when I went to school it was divided into five different groups: A, B, C, D and E; A being the one who achieved high.
If we are going to do something about this, as we heard earlier, then we should be prepared to make the necessary decisions to try and come up with solutions. I put out to the rest of the Members here, one of the solutions possible is to put a survey out to the residents of the territories and ask if they would be willing to put more into it. We might get an answer back which is not what we would like to hear.
For example, in Inuvik, the Inuvik District Education Authority has gone a long way to try and achieve the best balance with the money it receives in trying to provide proper programming and support for teachers. It is difficult with the population growing as fast as it is and with the problems related to the younger generation, there are concerns. Before we say, where to do we transfer money from one department to another, we need to try to find new money. As I have heard said in the past, you can educate people, but if you do not have jobs to put them into then what does that education count for at the end of the journey? It is something that we need to look at.
As well, I think that, as a government, we need to ask ourselves, what is the end result? Is it a number? Is it quality? What is the key point? We have shown the increase in students by going with the extended classes in the smaller communities, but we have also heard that by doing they need more teachers or more assistants because they are having to deal with a larger range of students in a class.
These are a number of areas that we need to look at, but I hope that, at the end of the day, we will be able to offer up somewhat of a solution. It is fine to say it is important. Education is a priority, which in the social programs we have stated many times that it is. We have asked for funding to be put into education, but if there are no new dollars there, where do we take it from? I am not in favour of moving funding around. We need to find new dollars. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.