Thank you, Mr Chairman. I would like to recommend that we continue dealing with Bill 17, Appropriation Act, 1999-2000, and committee report 1-13(7) and specifically with the department of Education, Culture and Employment.

Does the committee agree?

At this time we will take a short break.

--Break

Thank you. I would like to call the committee back to order. We are dealing with the Main Estimates, Department of Education, Culture and Employment. At this time, I would like to ask if the Minister responsible, Mr. Miltenberger, would like to call witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to call witnesses.

Does the committee agree?

Can the Sergeant-at-Arms escort the witnesses in. Thank you, Mr. Minister. Can you introduce your witnesses?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Ms. Pauline Gordon, the acting Deputy Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. To my right is Mr. Paul Devitt, the director of management services and finance for Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. At this time, we have concluded the Minister's statement, committee statement, and now we are under general comments regarding the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. General comments? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think by now everyone knows that there are problems with our education system in the Northwest Territories. The recent Minister's Forum on Education consulted with residents on their views on ideas for our education system. The forum made recommendations to better the education system.

Unfortunately, the major problem with implementing all of the forum's recommendations is inadequate funds. The Northwest Territories is using an education system that does not have the money to implement properly. As a result, we have watched the system deteriorate and become a major concern for the people of the Northwest Territories. In recent years we have seen stress placed upon the system with things like new curriculum, increased class sizes, higher education requirements for employment, and higher costs of supply and services.

Mr. Chairman, if we do not address the situation, the quality of education in the NWT will continue to deteriorate. We have choices to make as a government and I believe that we can increase the funding to education and this is the avenue that we must focus our efforts upon.

Mr. Chairman, most of us as MLAs have received documents and information, I really want to say how pleased I am with the members of the public who have given considerably of their own time and effort into communicating to us what the existing situations are in the classrooms, schools and education system. I find that people are not just sitting back and complaining, but they are taking a very proactive approach to this problem. When the people begin to get involved like that, I think it is very commendable and it should send a very loud message to this government that the people are not satisfied with the education system and the funding that is allocated for it at this time.

I have received excellent feedback from my constituents and I had received a copy of a letter that was actually penned by Mr. Kern Von Hagen, the principal of St. Patrick High School. In that letter, there is a list articulated of some of the challenges that are facing our education system and I just want to briefly read it. I think it is a very succinct and articulate list. It said, we have among the highest pupil/teacher ratio in Canada. We have the highest level of special needs students in Canada. We have the highest level of illiteracy in Canada. We have the highest dropout rate in Canada. We have the highest youth suicide rate in Canada and we have one of the lowest levels of funding. Only 28 percent of students in the NWT graduate from high school. Mr. Chairman, I think that everyone will concur that these statistics are very alarming and that if we allow this condition in our education system to persist, it will be a recipe for disaster in the future. We will see extra burden placed on all of our social programs and services in the Northwest Territories. I am not sure of the statistics on it, but a dollar not spent on worthwhile education now becomes a very much greater cost in the future when we have to look after people who are incarcerated and who are very dependent on us as a government in the area that they have needs in their lives for.

We have heard from people who are on the front lines, in the classroom every day. It is not easy for us as legislators to really fully appreciate some of the challenges that are in the system. I have heard it said in this House that there have been no cuts in education. I think that everyone knows that we have in fact experienced an exodus of people from the North recently which has reduced the formula funding that we received from Ottawa. What we do have remaining in the Northwest Territories is a very young population. That population needs to be educated. This puts a growth factor on our system and it puts a stress on our system that we cannot be complacent about, but absolutely must address. If it would be appropriate now, Mr. Chairman, I do have a few questions for the Minister that I will incorporate under general comments.

It is in the area of administration costs. There have been comments made in this Legislature with respect to the fact that Ordinary Members sit on committees and that we do consider the Main Estimates in committee behind closed doors before they come into this House. In our education system, there are many levels of administration. They include departmental, regional operations, district boards, at which there are seven at this time, community administration, school administration, college, headquarters and campus administration, and even program administration. Administration at each of these levels, although very necessary, cost a lot of money. The Department of Education supplied the following information to us. They indicated that ECE was around $2.2 million, the board administration is at $4.1 million, community administration at just under $1 million. That comes to $7.33 million being spent on administration for schools alone. This is slightly over 9 percent of the total budget. Then there is, as I mentioned, the college administration as well. Further, the directorate has an operating budget of $5.4 million. I was wondering, can the department and the Minister identify how much of its money is being spent on administration at the departmental, regional, board community and program level? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issues that the Member raised in her opening comments are concerns shared by, I would suggest, all people in the Northwest Territories. I think we all want the same thing, the question is how do we achieve that given the financial realities that are facing us. I would just like to clarify a number of facts here before we proceed into answering the issue of administration.

The numbers that I have since division, for example, the suicide rate in the west is significantly closer, if not at the national average. It is still too high, but it is not as high as people are saying. We are also spending, on a cost per student, second only to the Yukon. The teaching staff, depending on how you look at the pay grid, is either the highest paid or the second highest paid, once again, compared to the Yukon. Very clearly, we have issues with literacy, we have issues with the dropout rate, we have issues with increasing graduation. As I indicated in a Minister's statement when we were last in session, that when I look back 30 years, I think we have made significant improvements to the educational system. We do have a long way to go, a lot of issues to address. Should the revenues ever make themselves available, we could very easily put to productive use whatever revenues that this Legislative Assembly sees fit to put into Education, Culture and Employment.

The other figure is the growth rate. Since we have divided, the projected growth is slightly over 1 percent and a lot less than we experienced as a joint territory to the extent that we anticipate that we are not going to be needing a lot of new schools, that we can make do with what we have.

The issue of administration costs that the Member referred to, I could not quite follow all of her numbers, but I know that about 6 percent of the school's budget, about some $90 million including capital is devoted to divisional and local board administration. At the departmental level, it is in the neighbourhood of, I believe, 4 percent roughly that is spent in the headquarters level. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The point I was trying to make is that it would appear that anywhere between 9 and 10 and a half percent of the budgets between schools and colleges is spent on administration. I guess we have been challenged many times lately by our Cabinet colleagues to suggest areas where there may be potential savings. I realize that administration is an important part of delivering any services and programs, but in light of what has happened recently in Nunavut, I would like to ask the Minister, has the department investigated the possibility or even looked at the possibility of reducing the number of education boards in order to reduce administration costs to deliver more of this into the classroom to where the students are? Thank you.

The Minister responsible, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of looking at the boards and the role of divisional boards of education and councils has not been looked at by this department in terms of can we do without them, can we save millions of dollars. It is an issue that was raised in this House earlier about the need to look at the number of boards, committees and agencies that we do have as a government. We have to look very carefully if there is a political willingness to proceed down that path in terms of the cost offsetting that over the concern that we all have brought to the table in regards to community involvement, community empowerment, community control over education, and what would we replace DEAs and DECs with, would we be reverting back to the ministerial model where the civil servants run education. Those are all the questions you have to ask. If the Member would like, the director of finance can speak in great detail about administration and the complex nature of what you describe as administration. The numbers were have, of course, are less than 9 and 10 percent and closer to the 6 and 4 percent range. Thank you.

Director of finance, Mr. Devitt.

Thank you. General comments. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess my ten minutes were up, and I would defer to another Member, but I have other issues I would like to address to the Minister. I will continue on then. Another idea with going back again to the cost of administration. I hear the numbers that you are using, but the information and our research would indicate from the numbers you have provided to us that it is more in the neighbourhood of 10 percent. A model that has been referred to earlier today in the House is that the Dogrib Community Service Board integrates decision making for education, justice, health, social services, and income support for the region with one decision-making body. This model must increase efficiency in the regions and reduce the cost of administration. Has the department or the social envelope promoted the use of this type of delivery in other regions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Mrs. Groenewegen.

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.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not that I am aware of.

Mr. Minister, are you going to respond to the question?

Mr. Chairman, I did not check whether my light was on. What I had replied, is not that I am aware of to the Member's question in terms of have we looked at just looking at straight teachers and students and not calculating in principals and support teachers and such who may not be full-time teachers, that the PTR is a funding ratio for the most part. We have not, that I am aware of, looked at strictly classes, although we are aware that the class size varies, as I indicated in the House, from the larger regions to the smaller regions, from the larger communities to the smaller communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question then to the Minister, is would the department be willing to determine what the PTR would be if only full-time equivalent of teaching staff were used in the PTR. I think this would give us a much better indication of the kinds of challenges that are facing our educators. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the department would be able and willing to pull those figures together just to look at the actual operational classes and come up with the sizes across the territories. Thank you.

Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Another factor which probably, and you have alluded to it already, distorts somewhat the PTR ratio is the PTRs that were supplied by the Minister to the Assembly cover the full regions and all grades. Some communities may have smaller class sizes and also as the grade levels go higher, there is usually a drop in the class size. This means that when averaged out, there are going to be classes with high numbers that compensate for classrooms with low numbers. Are there a maximum number of students presently allowed within one classroom? This is another area, Mr. Chairman, where the numbers can be distorted. We understand how the average works, that there will be higher and there will be lower. But, in some cases in probably some of the higher grades in the smaller communities, they are is very small so you may have very much higher than the PTR that is indicated. Does the department set a limit on the number of students that can be in one classroom? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated, the pupil/teacher ratio is used for the funding formula and to determine the budgets for the various divisional boards. Once that figure is calculated, the money is then transferred to the various DECs and it is up to the DECs to determine the class sizes in their community schools, but there is no educational policy or regulation that limits the size of the classrooms.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Chairman, educators recognize how important the first years are for the future success of students. It is important that there be the early diagnosis and intervention with children with learning problems. This would be difficult in classrooms were there are large class sizes. It would be difficult to pay that kind of close attention to each student to be able to identify these problems. Has the department any policies that recommend schools to have a lower pupil/teacher ratio in the lower classes so that these problems could be identified, diagnosed and picked up early on in a child's education as opposed to later on? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The class size from K to nine, I believe is roughly 22 and from nine to 12 it is 17. Once again, there are no limits as to us dictating to schools, to teachers, to DECs as to the size of their classes. Once again, once the budget is calculated, there is no requirement either way. The Member also touches on an issue that has significant implications, and that is the whole area of special needs and finding what is a special need, is it FAS, FAE, ADD, is it that level or how broad do you want to make it, I guess, is the issue which would affect the amount of money required. There is a recognition on the importance, as the Member indicated, of trying to get involved early with children and families which is why money was put and supported by the committee, put into the Health Children's Initiative, why there was money that was freed up, put back in to make sure we could keep the funding at that level. We recognize, as do the Members, that special needs is an area of significant concern.

It is also our assumption, based on the numbers we do have, that special needs requirements in the Northwest Territories are probably higher than southern jurisdictions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. At this time I would like to welcome and recognize the many people who have turned out for this important issue in the public gallery. Also I would like to recognize the students, the teachers, and the parents who are here with us today. Welcome.

--Applause

We are presently under general comments. We are dealing with the department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to acknowledge the presence of the many people in the gallery today. It is nice to see this kind of turnout for such an important issue. I am probably going to be going over some areas that may have already been covered, Mr. Chairman, in previous comments. But I think it is worthy to make note of that in the record that we produce. Of concern, of course, and what we are really referencing all our material to is the ministerial forum report that was done. It made many recommendations for improvement of the education system, but the reality has become that we do not have the money to put into a number of areas that do need to be addressed. That is a concern, of course, to us as legislators, the Cabinet no doubt, but also everybody in the territory who is involved in the education field or who have children that people want educated. It is an extremely difficult problem, but I would like to touch on four areas of the report and make some general comments in those areas. They pertain to teacher shortage, the pupil/teacher ratio, the resources we have and new programs that the government introduces. Each to me is very relevant and does require dollars in order to have some resolution to the problem.

Let me first deal with the teacher shortage. I do not think that it is any surprise to anybody that we have a teacher shortage because of the conditions that we are facing here in the Northwest Territories but also elsewhere. We are in a situation where teacher competition is very prevalent in the provinces. As a matter of fact, the Ontario Teachers Federation, I believe, was predicting large teacher shortages. They employ quite a number of teachers. Also, the Canadian Teachers Federation was saying one of the big factors facing the education system today was the potential shortage. I understand that recruitment offices have been set up in Ontario and various provinces to recruit teachers, and this is from other countries. The United States, as I understand, is looking to recruit teachers and of course there are some attractions there, so the whole question comes back for us is what can we do here in the Northwest Territories to retain our teachers? I pose it as a rhetorical question, not looking for an answer at this particular moment.

For example, how successful are we at our Teacher Education Program and where are we going with the Teacher Education Program? Is that successful and are we retaining those teachers that we are training or are they also going to the south? In other words, are we paying for a system and not succeeding at retaining those teachers? The teacher shortage area, while I recognize that it is not totally of our making, there are some areas that we have created some problems, I feel for our teachers and it is partially the working conditions that they have been placed under. It is the living conditions in the communities that some of them face. These are all areas that we do have control over and we can do something about. When Mr. Miltenberger said that only 32 of the 44 recommendations are non-monetary or let me reverse that, 32 of the 44 are non-monetary, there may be some truth to that but the 12 that were left as monetary are sort of the key areas. They are the ones that are really affecting our education system out there. So the dollar aspect comes into play and the big question, of course, is what is the government doing about finding those dollars?

I know we talked about this last week and there were some discussion on what recommendations do we have. Well I can keep throwing out recommendations, but I am not sitting in that chair, and I am not sitting over there, I am not the one who is governing. I am here as a MLA and I can throw out the suggestion. We can sit here all day as we did last week and give you people suggestions. But you have to go to work on this. You have to come up with the answers. We have thrown out the suggestions.

Let me deal for a second with the pupil/teacher ratio issue. Mrs. Groenewegen referenced that a little earlier and the pupil/teacher ratio, while the statistics were given to us of 18/1, believe it was, that was only a funding formula to the best of my knowledge. That does not indicate exactly how many students are in a class. It is only a funding formula to the boards. The boards will put forward and say, okay we have this number of students and this number of employees and therefore the government says right, you get this many dollars. In many classes the 18/1 one, well that is thrown out as an average usage, 15/1, 16/1, 17.5/1, 18/1, that is not really true. What is really true is that may be far exceeded beyond those figures in many cases. I know in British Columbia they have already passed legislation, I believe, to limit class sizes. In Alberta a resolution has been adopted to limit class sizes to 22 students and that is for certain grades.

Let me carry on with another area, and that is resources in the classroom and other programs. We seem to take the approach, and I am going to delve into the other area that I was going to speak on, new programs that we come up with, ideas to introduce new programs, but what we do not do is provide the funding for those programs adequately. We seem to say, okay we have this kind of money, so divy it up across the territory and people will have to make do with that. The Grade Extension Program is one example of that, where we said, yes, there was a political push back in 1991, I have some of the debates here on that, and yes, we have grade extensions, but there was never adequate money put into this. Plus there was never an analysis done of the effect of that. I mean, what is the effect of grade extensions to all of the communities? We do need to ask that at some point. How many teachers does it take to operate in all of those communities? How many graduates do we have from those communities? I am not against those communities having grade extensions if they so wish. What I am saying is, how effective are they and if they are not effective, why? Are we not providing the funding for it?

When we talk about resources and I said that last week, that if you are going to introduce a new program, be like a business person, you do not say, well, we are going to expand our business into this area and then not put the dollars into it. I think that is bad management and I think we do that sometimes as this government. We have to take a look at all of our programs. One of the things we need to do is to say, put a halt on new programs and analyze the programs that we have. Make sure that there is top efficiency in all areas. I will limit my comments for the moment to that, Mr. Chairman, to let others have some general comments and then I likely will have some questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make a note, as the Member was talking that yes across Canada and probably North America, there is a teacher shortage, and that retention and training, keeping the teachers that we do have and training our own northern people to be teachers is an issue. The one piece of good news that I have in terms of this year is the teacher turnover is down from 18 percent last year to 12 percent this year which is, for us, a bonus. The issue of TEP, the enrolments are down. The idea, I think, is still a good one. We are looking at trying to go to our fourth year, but once again we have to look at recruiting Northerners to, in fact, apply and take up teaching. What we are finding is that a lot of the TEP graduates have moved on to other kinds of employment. There has been a total of 395 graduates out of TEP between 1969 and 1998. As of last year, 239 graduates were employed in education related professions, classroom teachers, principals, DEC administrators, education consultants, college instructors, etcetera. In addition, 17 of the graduates were employed as preschool teachers and paraprofessionals. Thirty were attending full-time bachelor of education or master of education studies. Fifty-one are employed in areas outside of education. Fifty-eight were retired, deceased or unknown.

The issue of funding that the Member raised is also an important one, but I would like to differ somewhat with the Member that while it is an issue, it is not the only critical issue facing education. To my mind, the issue of the role of the family and the parents working with the child, the relationship of the family and the children with the schools, with the DEAs and the DECs are very critical. Ensuring that you have strong families where you learn your basic values, where you learn who you are, where you are from, where you have your mother and your family reading night time stories to you, where you appreciate the value of education are things that money is not going to solve. I have talked to the people from Hay River, the lady who was very involved, who submitted that survey about that particular issue, and she agreed. I do not think we can lose sight of that fact that, as a government, we have spent billions over the years on a lot of issues. In fact, we have a history of throwing money at things to solve them, that before we had deficit reduction problems, before we had financial problems, we had the luxury of being able to throw money at all sorts of things to solve problems and we created a government that was humungous in size but it did not necessarily solve the problem.

Yes, money is an issue. Yes, the issue of revenues has to pursued vigorously, but there are things we can do as people of the Northwest Territories, as communities, as DEAs and DECs. I would be prepared to discuss that issue with anybody on the value of the family, be it with language, culture, education, what builds a strong society is a strong family. I share the concern for revenues and the need to look at special needs, but I also know that everybody here, anybody that has had the benefit of a strong family upbringing has been able to, for the most part, go on and that is the fundamental building block of our society. To lose sight of that fact would be to do so at our peril. Because money is not going to solve the issue of a strong family.

The PTR is not an attempt to mislead. It is a relatively standard funding approach used across Canada to determine budgets and budget allocations to schools and school boards. The issue of insufficient funds for new programs is a concern, but clearly the issue of grade extensions, in fact, save the government money. They were spending over $8 million dollars a year on the various residences that they had running, Akaitcho Hall, Ookavik in Iqaluit, Grollier Hall, Kivalivik Hall in Rankin Inlet. There have been demonstrable benefits to grade extensions. Our numbers indicate that access has increased prior to grade extensions from below 65 percent to over 90. Grade 10 to 12 participation has increased from 30 percent to above 60 percent. Graduation rates have been climbing in the last few years, about five years behind the increase in participation rates, which is quite reasonable with the lag time for students to work their way through the system. I do not think we can just dismiss out of hand that grade extensions have not worked. Has it been a perfectly flawless exercise? I do not think so. Can it be improved? It probably can.

The issues we have talked about in this House in the past few weeks about the quality of education and the small communities not having the same selection of courses and program choice as large communities, those kinds of issues have been debated. I do not think, as I have indicated, dismiss out of hand grade extensions. Very clearly, in my mind, as I have indicated in this House, there is no going back to the days of large residential schools where the average cost was about $40,000 per student. That is the number I have been given. Yet, yes, there is a place for family oriented smaller programs, but very clearly, the days of the residential school that history has given us are over in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to make a side comment, if I could, that as my colleagues have recognized the interest of the people of Yellowknife, if that opportunity was open to the people in my constituency or I am sure other constituencies, I am sure there would be almost an equal number in there showing their concern about education. In regards to the comments from my colleague, I will address some of them and wait for the more specific question. The issue of student financial assistance, I do intend to come forward with an option to deal with the funding issue. I did a briefing with the Social Programs Committee a couple of weeks ago on this particular issue, and I do intend to move forward and try to conclude that long outstanding issue. In regards to the teacher turnover, if the Member will bear with me, I will go through the list. The Beaufort-Delta turnover for 1998/1999, according to the numbers we have as of last week is 14 percent, down from 25 percent last year. For the Deh Cho, it is 11 percent, down from 15 percent last year. For the Dogrib Divisional Board, it is 16 percent this year, up two percent from 14 percent last year. The Sahtu is 21 percent this year, down from 49 percent last year. The South Slave is 18 percent this year, up two percent from 16 percent last year. Yellowknife YK 1 is 8 percent this year, down from 11 percent last year. YK 2 is 4 percent, down from 11 percent last year for an average of 18 percent last year and 12 percent this year.

The issue that the Member touched on in regards to teachers mainly in the smaller communities, and that is the issue of housing is an issue not only for teachers but as we are aware, it is an issue for nurses as well. It is one of the items on the social envelope agenda to try to come to grips with that particular issue that affects, as I have indicated, mainly the small communities. The inclusive schooling budget, as the Member clearly pointed out, would be better served if it was considerably larger. Though it has increased, it was initially $1 million in the early 80's and is now $6.5 million today. That is about 15 years ago, so very clearly it is not sufficient. It would be better if there was more, but it is what we have. One of the issues with special needs as well, as the Member indicated, is the need to come up with a definition of what we mean by special needs and possibly a ranking of special needs students so that, in fact, there is a differentiation in terms of needs. I do not believe that is there right now, so that is an issue that we are going to try to address as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General comments. Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Henry. I would suggest that there are still a number of Ordinary Members who would like to speak under the category of general comments so I will let the Minister decide if he wants to respond to each speaker, or if he would just like to run the general comments back to back and make comments at some point. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. If it is agreeable with the Chair given the immediacy of the feedback that I would like to give, if it is agreeable I would like to continue to respond Member by Member.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, I would just to speak briefly to the comment about the process that my colleague, Mr. Henry, raised. It is unfortunate that this debate is taking place at this late date in the budgeting process where as Mr. Henry indicated we have two choices either to pass or to cut. It is unfortunate that when this process started nine months ago that we did not lock ourselves away to have the discussion where we wanted to take money from, how we wanted to put money into education, and I would like to reference the fact as I did a couple of weeks ago in the House that the combined committee reports from every committee very clearly addressed the issues of their committee, a wrap-up government operations report touches on common issues but no where in there, and I sat on the committee up until recently of the social programs, no where in there is it indicated anywhere in my reading of this document right here of the need to move money, to take money from other sources, other departments so, yes it is an issue.

In fact I recollect last week, for instance, a motion being passed to accelerate Highway 3. I believe it is a $9.0 million project. At the same time we are being asked to look for money for smoking cessation and those kind of programs. All laudable and important priorities but, once again it is a question of balance, and it is taking this debate in regards to finding more money in the short term is unfortunately somewhat late.

In regards to not demanding higher graduation rates, that recognizing that there are a lot of special needs students that may need earlier exit points to other kinds of employment or education, I would say that at this point our graduation rates are still too low. We have to continue to focus on graduation rates. We guesstimate that it could be as high as 30 percent of our children in schools have special needs but that leaves 70 percent that we should be encouraging to graduate and we have not hit that number yet. I would say once again it is an issue of balance, trying to meet the needs and I think we have an obligation to try to meet the needs that are out there, that we do not have the luxury of only wanting to focus on one or two that this is not a case of a type of triage but it is more a case of trying to balance and meet all the priorities and competing needs with the limited dollars that we have.

Do grade extensions create unrealistic expectations of students that they can stay in their communities? It is possible. I agree that the issue of mobility is an issue that we have to reinforce that you will in all probability have to go out to further your education and there is a chance that you may not find employment in your community but we have to make sure that we, in fact, have sufficient numbers of educated Northerners to take the skilled positions that are currently going begging down south. So, yes, it is an issue within communities but it is tied into larger issues. The final comment I would like to make is that I heard a couple of days ago, just to reinforce the issue of the importance of education, a documentary in which they were talking to a number of people from Greenland and they were getting a retrospective after twenty years of home rule and the final comment by one of the Greenland people was after 20 years of home rule and still having to import just about all their skilled labour was education, education is what you have to put your money to if you want an educated northern society that can in fact not only govern itself politically, but can also have the skilled people to fill the positions, the even more critical positions to do the work, to do the jobs. So, once again, I think we all have the same concerns, it is a question of how do we get there? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. On the list I have for general comments on Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I think that one thing I seem to be missing here is the whole priority of where we are as a government and where we see ourselves going in the future. When we talk about 70 percent of our finances going into the social and health envelope implementing programs and services for this government and yet any bureaucracy, it does not matter if you are Japanese, American, German, whatever, is based on the economics of the country which is based on the strength of the people that are in that country.

When we talk about generating revenues, when we talk about generating jobs, when we talk about finding new entrepreneurs out there to get involved in businesses and trying to be independent from government, from society, from becoming a social burden on society, we talk about education like it is something that is costing us money, but I think we have to turn the focus on exactly what are we doing here and where is the priority of this government. I think you have to consider that statistics have proven that if people are uneducated and do not have the basic skills to manage life on their own or to be independent from government and also be able to be hired because of having an educational background to take on jobs, responsibilities, that we will continue to see statistics where the Minister made some comment if it is costing this government $40,000 a year to house a student in a hostile setting. But you do not look at the other side where it is costing this government $80,000 a year to incarcerate somebody into our jail system. I think we have to look at where is this government spending its money and where the majority of these dollars are being spent. For myself, I feel that we have to put a priority on education and spend the money now because in the future statistics have proven that you either pay for it now or pay for it tenfold, ten years down the road. So we might be spending $1.6 million now and if we continue on the way we are, then in 10 years we will be spending over a billion dollars on education.

If you look at the statistical envelope of this government we are spending large portions of dollars to incarcerate people. People who are now a ward of the state in which by institutionalizing people, getting them into the social system without allowing them to continue on with their education and being able to succeed in life knowing that education is one of the most important aspects of life that we will have to go through and ensuring that those people who go through the education system at the end of the day will be successful and will not be a burden on society. So I think we have to take a look at exactly what has this government done to consider statistics of exactly what it is going to cost this government to continue running the system as it is by shortchanging the education system now and what will the cost to this government be in ten years?

So has the Minister's department considered the implication of the cost to this government for continuing on with the education system as it is going today which, from all responses we get from the government and this department, there is no money. So without the money we are having with regard to the dropout rates, the incarceration rates, the costs involved in health care and the cost for public housing of this government, has this department considered looking at the social and economic statistics in regard to this government, say five or ten years down the road, if we continue on the route we are going?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, this government and this assembly has spent the last three and a half years looking at the issue of budgets, deficit reduction, trying to keep our financial house in order and at the same time meet the many needs that are out there with regard to education and social housing, social services, economic development and very clearly we know, having listened to the Finance Minister's Budget Address a week ago, that there are some clear realities out there. If we want to go back, if we continue unchecked even the way we are and just keep spending the money we do have right now without adding more, by next year we are looking at a $60 million shortfall and the year after that we are back to a $150 million deficit. With all the bad news that brings in terms of compound interest and how fast it grows, when we first got here we were told that if we did not deal with the budget issue we would be leaving the people of the Northwest Territories with a financial burden of close to $400 million. We did not do that. We took the steps we had to try and remain financially solvent and I think we have an obligation as stewards to address the education needs but we also have the obligation to look at leaving a strong or as strong as possible financial base, that it is a balance once again.

Education is good, it is essential, but it also has a corollary that you have to look at - education and jobs. We need jobs. We need a strong economy to generate revenue. Once again, we have to balance the needs with the resources available. Very clearly we have very significant social problems as the Member indicated in regard to incarceration, the cost we spend to keep people in jail, the fact that if there was a reliable FAS/FAE test, once again, I would guesstimate that a significant portion of the people currently residing in correctional institutions would probably be, as well, affected by that particular disability. So yes, as a government and as a Legislature we have looked at the projections, the cost, if we do not spend money know we will spend it later but we have to balance that with trying to be able to, in fact, remain financially solvent enough to continue doing business as we now do it and hopefully look for the new revenues that everyone has been talking about in the near future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Krutko.

I believe the Minister touched on the question of the quality of education, not just education in the sense of the word, but the quality of education that we are providing for our students in the Northwest Territories. I think it is awfully disheartening when you see a student going through K - 12 and when they get to grade 12 they do not have the marks to get themselves into post-secondary education or off to college because they just do not have the marks in regards to the maths or science or the social envelope. We talk about the cost, but what is heartbreaking for me is that I come from a small riding and you see two or three students graduating a year and in the meantime we may have started off with a class size in grade 2 or 3 where you have 29 students and it kind of makes you wonder, where did the other 28 or 25 students go?

What is wrong with the system that we are not producing quality graduates at the end of the day and why is there such a high dropout rate in the Northwest Territories? When I come back to the original question I asked, the social and economic cost to this government, if we do nothing now to put the resources and the dollars into education and improving it, it is not just a question of educating people but it is a question of having the quality of education in our classrooms so that when someone is in the high schools in Fort McPherson, or Aklavik, or Tsiigehtchic, or wherever you want to have them, making sure that they have adequate resources to conduct their classes in regard to having the materials available in those classrooms. Right now there are students who are educating themselves by pulling curriculum together, by going out of their way to find the information in regard to the text or the subject matter they want to deal with, and having to go out of the classroom to try to get the information to get educated in our classrooms. Is that quality of education?

I think the Minister has to realize that you talk about numbers and you talk about the whole question about well we spend all this money here, but at the end of the day have we actually looked at having the resources available in all our classrooms so that we are teaching a curriculum, subject matter right across the board in the Northwest Territories, does not matter what school you are in. That is what I talk about as quality of education, not that one school has a subject they can teach and another school does not. I would look to ask the Minister, has the department considered ensuring that there will be a fundamental principle that it does not matter where you live or where you are being taught, but the subject matter in regard to the program or the subject you want to take in that particular classroom is available anywhere in the Western Territory, than having some students without materials to meet the marks they need to graduate and be successful and know that once they graduate they can continue on to post-secondary education, or university, so that they can improve in the economic society of the west. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, I recognize the concern of my colleague, but as a government, as a department, when we do look at numbers we do see that the graduation rates are up, that post-secondary attendance is up and that over the last ten years there has been a significant increase in student financial assistance. That is not to say that there are not problems. The issue that my colleague mentioned in regard to the leakage from when you start in grade 1 and you have 20 some students as he indicated, or in my community they graduate out of grade 7 about 60 students a year and we are not graduating 60 grade 12 students every year in grade 12, but that is an issue. Where do they go? Why do they leave? And do they come back into the system five or ten years down the road and take adult education? That is an issue that has not been addressed.

The core subjects, communities with grade extensions are there. Once again my colleague talked about the quality. That is an issue that the department, every DEC and DEA struggles with to ensure that the quality for those courses that are taught is the highest possible. Very clearly, small community school grade extensions do not have the same curriculum that is available to the larger communities, for instance I toured Sir John Franklin a week or so ago and it is under construction. They have automotive courses, they have fine arts courses, multi-media courses and they are all nice courses and it would be nice to have those in every community, but the reality is that they do not. Once again, that is an issue that is predicated on revenue and funding and no matter how you dice it or slice it in terms of these particular issues it always comes back to that particular matter. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I have on the list to speak, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I spoke earlier about the issue of grade extensions in the communities and I want to preface my remarks again that I am not against grade extensions in communities but I am interested in knowing what the costs are. Mr. Miltenberger referenced the fact that it is cheaper or it makes no difference, if I recall, to do community education by grade extensions in the communities. I would like to make reference to the Hansard from back in July 2, 199,1 when Mr. Kakfwi was the Minister of Education and this was a subject discussed extensively at that time. The Minister came back with actual costs of grade extension in reply to a return to a question and it was pointed out that in this reference to Cambridge Bay where there were nine students and the total cost to run the program would be $164,000. It would be $50,000 cheaper to do that in Yellowknife. As I say, I am not advocating that we return to that kind of system, but what I would like to know, and Mr. Miltenberger gave me statistics that contradict this. I think these are the kind of issues that we need to tackle as a department. I think you can get real with your statistics. It is okay to say, well you know, this, this and this. I have heard a number of times today where statistics were used and we can sit here on this side and argue the total opposite. That is reality. I say, with grade extensions, it does cost money. As I say, that is fine. If we are all in agreement on that and that is what we want to do, but we do have one community that has been raising some concern about this and has stated they want to look at alternatives to doing higher education or grade extensions other than in their community. If we do not know the costs of this, then, that is where part of our problem is. That is number one.

The second is, today I tabled a letter from a gentleman from Inuvik who wrote to the Minister and commented about the fact that his wife could not get a permanent position. I do not know whether this information is correct or not in this particular letter, but it raises the question, since the person cannot get a permanent job, they are moved in and out of the community from the south to the North in order to fill term positions at some cost of $18,000 to do this. There are apparently two or three other teachers who are in the same position looking at that. That is an extreme expense to fill those particular term positions. Like I say, I cannot verify this, but, if it has some truth to it, then we are spending an awful lot of money to do this type of employment. Those are the kind of issues I think that are here that we have to put before the Minister to say start looking at your department, start looking at some of these programs. It is fine to say, well we cannot find more money, fine, we cannot find more money, but we also need to say then, what are we doing and are we doing it to top efficiency. That is very important. Let me perhaps, we have been rejoined by some of our other colleagues again, to allow them some comments and some questions too.

The other question I have is a general question on the People Our Focus For the Future. This is the Ministers' Forum on Education. Could the Minister tell us here, because we do have an audience that is disappearing rapidly, but, we do have a number of people here who would be quite interested in knowing what are we doing with respect to the forum report? The Minister commented previously that 32 are non-monetary, that leaves 12 that are monetary. Could the Minister perhaps address that issue for us here? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. The Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regards to the issue of grade extensions and the comment that they do cost money, yes they do. The grade extensions were financed by the reprofiling of the $8 million that was saved as a result of the shutdown of the various residences I mentioned earlier. Your reference to a community that wishes to possibly send their students outside the community to go to school is an option that in fact they do have, but they have to be prepared to, at this point, live within their existing budget, working with the DEC at the region in the Sahtu. As I indicated at one point, they have about $250,000, I believe roughly for their grade extension. They have to look at, once again, if they wish to send students south, can they do it with $250,000? If you pull x number of students and that money out of the community, there are implications down the line in terms of the effect that decision will have. They have to look at that. Very clearly at this juncture, as I indicated, there is no new money.

In regard to the letter that Mr. Ootes tabled today, I as well have seen the letter and was struck by the same concerns that the Member raised about the seeming inefficiency of not giving permanent positions and spending, I think it was $18,000 a year roughly to relocate teachers in and out which is a significant cost that is getting checked into by the department. That was one of the first things I asked that they do to find out what the situation is there.

Very clearly, like any organization the size that we are, the issue of efficiency should always be on everybody's mind. Are there efficiencies and economies to be realized? I think there are. Where they are, I think we have to look at some that have been identified like that issue raised in the letter.

The Ministers' forum, as I indicated previously, the plan is that we are going to be looking at the non-monetary recommendations that the department has already been doing that. We will be meeting this week with the forum members themselves to look at their further more specific suggestions in terms of implementation. As well, the week of the 25th of May, we are meeting for three days with the board chairs, DEC board chairs, to as well look at the Ministers' Forum, the strategic plan and accountability framework where we are going to try to touch on a number of critical issues. I still stand by the commitment that I will be able to bring back something in June to this House that will outline specifically how we intend to try and implement working with the communities and the DEAs, those non-monetary items raised in the Minister's forum. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of magnet communities that the Member talked about is a concern. Right now Education, Culture and Employment recognizes what they call magnet facilities, but does not have any place in the formula for magnet communities which would be the regional centres with the better services. Yellowknife, of course, probably being the largest and the biggest of all magnet communities where people come for specialized services. As we look at trying to bring greater clarity to the issue of special needs in a more coordinated and effective approach, that will be one of the issues that are looked at. This is going to be a complex undertaking, the issue of special needs is very diverse and wide ranging. As I indicated earlier, the broader the definition, the more people that will be included and the wider the range. We are going to have to look at that in discussion with the DEAs and DECs and people that are involved in the work.

I agree as well that the issue as a government and as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, the issue of training is one where we as well have to look at doing better. We have to be more coordinated, more consistent in the approach we take to training not only with special needs but in a whole host of areas, but special needs being the question at issue right now. We are going to be looking at how in fact you do that with what we have available, how is it done and how do we build it in so that it is done as a matter of course and not as a reaction or as a sporadic kind of attempt depending on who is there or where the interests may be. So the Member raises some points that we are adding to the mix as we try to move ahead on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is a possible scenario. Once again, we have not, I do not think, reached that level of detail. I would also like to point out that when this budget is finally passed, the intention is to take $150,000 out of the money for Community Strategies for Work and we intend to devote that and direct it to the training of special needs assistants. So, just another added incentive to all the Members to pass this budget to be able to move it along because there are needs out there that we would like to address,

in addition to youth employment, of course. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The federal government, as the Member indicated, has shown a marked increase in interest in the whole issue of FAS/FAE and I met a few weeks ago with our Member of Parliament who is also the Minister responsible for Youth and she indicated that they do want to get involved in initiatives both on their own and they are willing to, I think, sit down with ourselves. My colleague, the Minister of Health and Social Services, as well, just came back from a meeting of Ministers on The National Children's Agenda and that is looking at the information, that is one of the issues that they are looking at and trying to come to grips with. Of course it is early in the day yet in terms of the money, but there is a lot of interest in this issue and talk about working together but money has not really been identified or tied to these initiatives as of yet but we are going to, through the social envelope program departments, we are going to make this an issue and it is on our agenda of issues that we want to develop a common strategy for. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Are there any general comments? I have Mrs. Groenewegen and then Mr. Henry. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move we report progress.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The motion is in order. It is not debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried. Thank you. I will now rise and report progress.