Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister indicate what the intent of the directive is? The literacy strategy that is being talked about is very critical. You need to have a very clear sense of the broad frame that you want to develop the literacy strategy within.

I am not sure what the intent of this directive is. It sounds quite narrow and process-based, and focused more on government. If the Minister could elaborate on that to make sure we are both going down the same path here. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This literacy directive defines the roles and responsibilities of who will do what and who is responsible for various programs. I believe what Mr. Miltenberger is aiming towards is a strategy. That is the next step in this whole area, that we move towards a literacy and adult-based education strategy that can tie into the various programs.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister elaborate then on this directive in terms of what exactly does he mean? Or could he give examples of what he means when he says it will define who will do what? Is that within the department? Is that tiny NGOs? Given the fact that it has been in construction or design for some time, and it will be the only document until a broader strategy is done, I am very interested to know a little more detail. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We certainly can pass on a copy of this to the Member and to other Members. When we deal with roles and responsibilities, it is really looking at areas such as the department itself - what it does, what the College does; community groups and agencies; quality of programs; curriculum and standards; accountability; and program standards.

Mr. Cleveland.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to say for the record it is good to see Mr. Cleveland upright and in the saddle alongside the Minister, in a relatively healthy state of being.

Mr. Chairman, I had one other question in regard to teachers and the target of 2003. Given the fact that the Minister does not have the number, the percentage of northern aboriginal teachers that we currently have, I would like to ask, is the Minister of the opinion that 2003 is still a realistic date in order to achieve the 50 percent target? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The strategy is there, and we are concentrating on it. As I have just mentioned, we have seen an increase in enrollments. It is predicated upon that. Can we continue to increase enrollments through the college system? Can we continue to have teachers trained at other institutions fast enough to fill those positions?

We also have to ensure that the teachers we have remain within the system. It is a very good objective, and certainly a strategy we want to keep on. I certainly hope we can, but can I guarantee it? My intentions are there, but I am not sure it can be... it is a lofty ideal to perform in two-and-a-half years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think what the Minister meant to say was that the former Ministers did not leave him much time to reach the goals they had set. We will leave that alone.

I want to get back to the literacy strategy. We have heard the Minister and the deputy say that this is part of the overall bigger picture. Mr. Miltenberger has asked some questions, and basically asked what kinds of programs would this tie into? Would it involve departmental staff and resources, or NGOs and other service deliverers?

I am wondering if Mr. Ootes can lay out the bigger picture for us as he sees it - give us his vision, as it were, of a literacy strategy and leave us with something to go forward with. I know this is the early stages of this, but I am just wondering if he can give us a broad picture of what he thinks a literacy strategy would encompass.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The literacy strategy that needs to be addressed in the Territories starts at the early childhood level. We have to develop, and I am speaking hypothetically, because it will require resources to implement any kind of strategy, but let us speak in terms of looking at early childhood to start with.

We need programs such as the Aboriginal Head Start program in all of our communities to prepare children to be ready for school. In the school system, we need to address the whole issue of the literacy levels of our students. Are we achieving appropriate levels? If they are at a grade 9 level, can they read at a grade 9 level?

I do not know whether this can be instituted, but certainly we can start looking at the potential of doing some piloting, perhaps, of having students be at the level they are supposed to be at. If not, then we can address that issue and perhaps look at a grade 3, grade 6, grade 9, and when they move into the high school level.

Then we need programs outside of that to support those who are no longer in the school system. That may be through the college, or it may be through the delivery in communities by NGOs.

Tying literacy together with the culture of the North, we have to address the whole area of aboriginal language retention and aboriginal language promotion. That is another area of concern, of course, because there is a tremendous loss experienced in the last number of years, of people being able to speak their aboriginal language.

We need to address that in the school system. It is there partially, that we have some mechanisms in place to do that. We need to continue to look at programs like Dene Kede and Inuuqatigiit, and the development of aboriginal programs, because they also address the whole literacy area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Ootes for that answer. He raised some of these in his answer, but one of the things our committee wants to ensure is that when we do have this overall broader literacy strategy, we are not just talking about school years in the school system. There are broader issues in the North that we have to look at. There are health issues.

Obviously, people without basic levels of literacy cannot read instructions on prescription medication. They cannot fill out an application to rent an apartment. They cannot do a lot of things. They cannot function in our society. They are unable to find gainful employment.

I think we would like to see the focus be at a really broad level, and tie in and work with and concentrate on families, not just individuals. I think it makes a lot more sense to focus on the family as a unit and help the family learn as one.

The Minister mentioned head start programs. We think these are critical and it is an obvious and logical tie-in to literacy and family, as is work place literacy at the other end. We have heard in committee briefings from organizations like BHP, who are now faced with the reality that in order to get people up to speed and able to work at their mine, they are going to have to spend considerable money on training, basic literacy and numeric type of things, so these people can be employed.

Certainly the department has to be working with them and understanding what sort of things they can do. I think the focus for us has to be broad. It has to involve families. It has to involve the workplace and it has to be tied into head start and early childhood education.

I think this committee looks forward to seeing the work the department does in this area. The Minister may have already committed to providing us with this, but I would like to get a copy of the literacy directive the Minister was discussing earlier. If possible, could he also supply that to our committee?

I would also like to talk here if I could about student financial assistance. We did get some assurance from the Minister that he was going to look at some of the issues. He realized there were ongoing concerns and he was going to deal with them expeditiously, I believe he said in the House.

There are two real concerns I would like to get back to here. There are many concerns with the way the program is being administered, starting from the hundred and some odd page booklet. However, the two key things for me are this issue of grandfathering and the issue of transition to the new program.

I think the committee feels that our concerns were not heard when we discussed this with the Minister and the department, or not understood. Because we do not feel they were reflected in the new regulations.

With grandfathering, we are concerned there are students who were formerly told they would receive levels of funding, and now with the changes, they will no longer qualify. I use the example of residency versus years of schooling. If I was a resident and I was in my second year of university and I had my high schooling in the south because my folks lived here but sent me out to boarding school, I used to be able to get grants. That is no longer the case.

I could be two years through a degree now and with the way that the department has chosen to interpret this, be left out in the cold. It is simply not fair and it defeats the purpose. We have already spent some money to get these people to this level. We do not understand why we are now going to turn around and hang them out to dry.

As far as transition, it also does not make sense to us that if you used up three or four years of your funding under the old system that you are now eligible for lesser funding than if you have used up one or two years. The argument was made, and Mr. Ootes will make the argument again, that it is a matter of money and he did commit to the transition and ensuring that the benefits would be there for students currently in the system.

However, it has to be done in a cost-effective manner, and there were cost considerations and it was deemed to be too expensive. I do not think this committee accepts that. I do not think we are talking about a large number of students. We do have the deputy here today. I am certain when they ran the projections on the new program, they knew exactly what it was going to cost to allow continuing students to receive the new level of benefits.

I would like to hear today from the Minister with his staff exactly what kind of dollars we were talking about to extend the new program equally for everybody, and ensure that everybody had the added benefit of the new semesters, in dollars, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will go back to literacy for a moment first. Mr. Bell spoke about the need to make literacy broad across the territory and broad across the government, which I totally agree with. It cannot be narrow and deal only with schools.

We need to also have areas addressed such as family literacy, workplace literacy and health literacy, and on and on it goes. He is absolutely correct. Workplace literacy to me means that you may have individuals who know how to drive a truck, but they do not know how to read the manual. There may be people that have medication. And he is correct, It is important that people have the ability to do that.

On the issue of the student financial assistance, I believe, and I will just double-check that with regard to the residency matter of students, parents who are resident here and have children who have gone out, they are still considered a resident here and still part of the system. What you said was not correct, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can accept that possibly I am mistaken and there is not an issue here of transition in students who were formerly eligible for benefits because the criteria was residency and now is years of schooling.

I would like some clarification from Mr. Ootes, because we do have students who have been told they will not be eligible for funding now because they attended high school in the south, although their parents were residents the whole time.

If they are being told that by the department, and Mr. Ootes has a different understanding, then we need to work this out.

The second thing I wanted to reiterate is that I believe Mr. Ootes and the department know exactly, probably to the hundreds of dollars, how much it would cost to extend the new program and new eligibility of semesters to all the students currently in the system, and by in the system I mean anybody who last year was in their fourth year of university or less. That is the excuse we have been given for not extending these added semesters to all the students in the system. It is a matter of money. We are asked to consider that excuse and that reason because these are tight fiscal times, and we do realize that they are tight fiscal times.

However, we would like to see exactly how much money we are talking about here. If we are only talking about $500,000 in additional new money, how much possibly could we be talking about for extending these semesters to students in the system? I believe we want kids to go on and get a masters level of education.

I do not want to ask any more questions here. I do not want to compound things, but if I am mistaken about residency and years of schooling, then we will have to get the students to come back to the department for new information. I would like to hear dollar amounts as far as how much it would have cost to extend the additional semesters to students in the system. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.