Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do think that is an area of administration. This is not to be critical of administration, but I think we really need to look very seriously at every area of expenditure to see not only from other sources but even if there are ways of creating more efficiencies within the department of Education, Culture and Employment, and certainly that does not preclude the fact that we need to also find new resources to bring to bear from outside of the department as the budget exists now. Another area that has been discussed and is putting a tremendous amount of stress on the education system is the pupil/teacher ratios. Mr. Chairman, in 1996, the Deficit Elimination Act led to budget limitations that now require districts to limit the number of teachers while the number of students continue to increase. The PTR for the NWT increased by 2.5 from the school year 1994-95 to the year 1997-98. The average actual class sizes are larger than presented in these numbers. As also included in the calculations are positions that do not require classroom teaching, for example counsellors, teacher librarians, and administrative staff. I think that these numbers that are given to use in terms of pupil/teacher ratios are a bit misleading, and I do not believe that they are reality as the classrooms operate.

Compounded with increasing sizes are classrooms with students with diverse level of abilities. Other challenges such as poor attendance, behavioural problems, learning difficulties, physical challenges, fetal alcohol effects, fetal alcohol syndrome. Mr. Chairman, according to the Minister's answer to my question regarding pupil/teacher ratios on April 28th of this year, individuals that are not teaching a full classload are included in the PTR calculations. For example, principals, vice-principals, teacher librarians, and counsellors. Actually, it appears that only individuals that are excluded in the ratio are those who have less than two years of post-secondary training, classroom assistance, language specialists and janitors. It would seem that they are the only one excluded from the pupil/teacher ratio. When the department quotes a ratio of one teacher per 18 students, I believe that this information is somewhat misleading because this means that the teacher part of the PTR also includes people who do not carry full teaching loads and in some instances, do not even teach a class at all. These PTR figures are misleading, as I have said. Has the department ever calculated what the PTR would be if only the equivalence of full-time teachers in a regular classroom were used? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.