Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to follow up on earlier suggestions that I made by reinforcing the need not only for cross cultural training for teachers that are coming into the community, but also for parents about the importance of education, their roles and responsibility in supporting their children in learning.
The other area I would like to touch on is the area that has been touched on by my colleague, Ms. Lee. It is the education for work. It is great to have Arctic College and Aurora College doing training, but I think we have to start earlier. I think that we have to start in junior high.
We all know what our economic base in the Northwest Territories is. We have a document that has been developed by all the people in the Northwest Territories in one form or another. I think you should be able to take this document and try to incorporate some of the information into the education system.
We should start teaching our children about tourism, about marketing, about geology, about different mine methods, how you take it out, et cetera. I think that will help students get motivated at an earlier age to tie their education to a possible job at the end.
We want to get devolution happening from the federal government to the North, but there are no guarantees. I think if we start incorporating our economic base into the education system, we may find that we retain more people in the Northwest Territories, people who come back after school and stay and work in the areas I just mentioned.
We could develop the curriculum in partnership with industry, communities, et cetera. I thought that would be a good suggestion. I am sure a kid in grade 8 would love to learn a lot about diamonds or tourism. It is something that is real. It is something you can take to a higher education. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.