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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was our intent and our desire. I appreciate that the committee also wants to proceed on that basis.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In his opening comments, the Minister also talked about developing an internship program to employ graduates of programs other than teaching and nursing. Again, this program was going to be finalized by the end of March, so I would like to see the same sort of commitment on that specific program as well from the Minister.

The Minister responsible for Education, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a number of areas we are working on with regard to students, Mr. Chairman, and we would like to bring that forward to the committee for consideration. There are a number of areas that we want to deal with. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One other area that I am interested in -- and again, the money is not in this budget, so I would like to get some commitment from the Minister -- has to do with the early childhood development program. As we know, that money does not show up in this budget. Do we have an idea of when that program is going to be ready for presentation to committee, so we can hopefully discuss the program before it is sent out to the public?

Thank you. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our intention would be to have it presented to Cabinet. We are looking at April to finalize it with Cabinet and then we would go to the standing committee, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The balance of my questions I can have answered during the detailed consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not want to repeat a bunch of things that have already been said by my colleagues, but there are some areas of concern I would like to bring up in general comments.

If there is anything I can support easily, it is extra money into education. It is pretty hard to look at new initiatives in education or extra funding with any negativity, but it does create some problem as I do have with the whole budget this time as to where the money is coming from and how long we are going to be able to maintain it.

We know from where we were a year ago to now, we are putting another $9 million into education. We can introduce a whole bunch of programs with that. I would certainly hope, Mr. Chairman, that we are not setting up a whole bunch of programs just to, in a year from now, have to start pulling money out of them because we cannot afford to keep up with the programs that we have put in place.

I know there are a lot of energies and strategies being put into our young people and the importance of starting them off on the right foot and I agree with that. I think that is very important. However, we are still seeing letters coming across our desk that say young...(Microphone turned off)...are not being able to access any funding to continue the support. When they try to access funding, they get pushed around back to this department, to the federal government, to Health and Social Services. It just seems to be a go-around where they can never get any funding. We have ones right now that are on the verge of closing up because they just cannot access any funding. I think if we are going to be serious in this area, then somewhere we have to be able to fund these programs.

There is also a part in that which has been brought to my attention. Although we do want to start our kids and have them ready for learning when they hit school, there are still parents who would like their kids just to be kids for the first few years of their lives, and not necessarily start a system that we are putting them in school at three-years-old or two-years-old and have them two years ahead of every other kid that starts at kindergarten or grade one.

If we are going to start that system and have it in place, then we are going to have to have the support staff in the schools to help the ones that are maybe not as prepared to start learning, or their attention spans are not quite as long as other kids. We do not want to set up a system where we basically have the same thing as we have now in some cases.

The system we have allows kids to go along until grade 9, and they just basically go along with the rest of them, whether they are at the same grade level or not. I think it goes a long way to saying why we lose so many kids between grades 10 and 12. They hit high school and all of a sudden they have to have good study habits, they have to be able to write exams, they have to get marks. In many cases, they just do not have what it takes to meet that grade level. We lose an awful lot of kids who do not end up graduating because the support staff has not been there through their earlier years in school.

I do not think that is going to change, Mr. Chairman. That is going to stay there regardless of how many programs we put out at a younger age. That difference in learning ability is going to be there. We are going to have to put the extra help in the classrooms to help these kids along.

We know that we are losing a lot of teachers in the North, and recruitment and retention is big. I know that the department and education boards went on a big recruitment and I think that was great. I made a statement in the House the other day that I had to clarify myself on a little bit, because to some people it sounded like I was maybe a little critical of the drive they went on. That was not the case. I thought that had to be done, and I think it was an important recruitment effort.

At the same time, there were also some incidents brought to my attention where we have qualified teachers here that have applied on jobs and have not even received an interview. They are people who live in the North and qualified teachers. I think that if we have those people, if it is one or two, it is too many. I think that we have to be able to identify those and hire them and put them to work.

Student financial assistance is a problem. We have heard that it has been very big on our agenda for a long time. Even though it was overhauled about a year ago, it only created some more problems because it got too complicated and too lengthy to try to apply, and the kids were having a hard time understanding. The biggest concern of all was trying to get hold of somebody to find out the information and get help.

The students are out there and they are phoning a number and all they get is an answering machine. Nobody is returning any calls. In checking with Hay River and people that administer the program there, they do not have a problem with it being in Yellowknife. I certainly would not want it farmed out to the regions that we have right now anyway.

I do think there can be some improvement made at headquarters as far as having people there to help students and to help parents when they are phoning to find out about the student financial assistance.

We talk a lot about maximizing northern employment. I think that is very important. It is an area that I think that I have had some concerns about for a long time. We talk about bringing our graduates back to the North and putting them to work here. Now that we have some activity in the North and are able to do that, I think we could take that one step further.

I think we could look back over the past five years and look at the kids that we have educated in the North, and this government has paid to educate a lot of kids. The kids who came back to the North and were qualified, who were educated in certain fields, they could not get work in the North. They ended up going south again to find employment. Not because they did not want to work in the North. They just did not have the work here. For some of them, it was for different reasons, but I think that there are still some kids out there whose parents are still living in the North and working here. I think that a lot of those parents would like to retire in the North, but there is not much here to hold them if their kids are working down south.

If we could bring those kids back, we might be holding some of those parents here as well. Those are very important to the fabric of the Northwest Territories.

We have teachers who have been here a long time. They have contributed to our communities. If we could keep them here in their retirement age, they would still do a lot of good for the Territories.

Oil and gas training in the oil and gas sector, I think there is room there for the government to take that one step further where it is bringing money back to the Territories as well. When we are training, especially in safety training, right now there are only outfits in the south that have set the standards for safety training for employees in the oil and gas sector. I do not see why this government cannot set the standards they would have to meet to work in the oil patch, in the oil field. That money that is paid for training employees comes back to this government and does not go south. I think there is a lot of money going south that this government could keep right here in the Territories. I think there is room to move and move quickly.

One of the areas I have talked about in the House many times is the area of seniors and the disabled. I am happy to see that there is extra money going in there for our seniors and our disabled. The subsidies that are going in there will go a short ways towards alleviating some of their problems. I am sure Mr. Roland could tell us that the extra activity in Inuvik, although it is great for the area and has created a lot of economic activity, it has certainly driven the price up of everything in Inuvik. That goes across the whole spectrum. It goes to seniors and disabled, and they end up paying the extra prices. Although we are putting the extra money in, we may not have been meeting their full needs as well.

Those are some of the areas I have some concerns with. I will deal some more as we go through detail. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have covered a lot of areas there as well. I will try to address a couple of them where Mr. Delorey was perhaps seeking some comments back. On the daycare, the access of funding to it, we do seem to find pressures, specifically at the end of the year because the organizations start to run short of money and therefore get on to us. It is an area of concern that we have noted and are working on in the early childhood development program that we are developing.

In support staff for schools, again I understand what Mr. Delorey is saying. Our programs are geared to ensure that we increase the support staff in schools, both through the PTR and through the student needs funding.

The recruitment and retention of teachers is an important area. They are in demand. We seem to be having some success, however, with recruitment. There is some positive feedback from recruitment teams. Our concentration is to develop a northern workforce trained and educated in the North. These are the people who remain here in the North, Mr. Chairman.

On the SFA Program, we have a policy area and an administrative area. We keep making improvements in the administrative area. There have been some problems. I will readily admit that. Certainly in the fall we did hit a few problems around early January. That is when the intake takes place and it is a bottleneck. We are continuing to work on that. I think Members will no doubt see tremendous improvements in that as the year goes on.

With maximizing northern employment, we definitely want to concentrate on bringing our students back to the North, those students whose education we have paid for. Even those we have not paid for, we want to bring our students back and have them work in our systems. We as a government want to bring them into our government. We want to bring them into private industry in the North. It is a key area for us that we are working on.

That pertains to oil and gas training as well. We want to ensure that we get the jobs, that Northerners get the jobs. We understand we have to provide the training for that area. It is a big challenge. We all know that. It has come on to us very rapidly, certainly in the Beaufort Delta area and in the Sahtu area.

Seniors and the disabled and the extra cost they are facing, as I mentioned earlier, we are continuing to work on the whole seniors area to see what we can do there. Thank you.

General comments? Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It appears that my colleagues are on a roll and I am not sure I can say anything to better the suggestions already made. I would just like to make a short comment.

Basically, the Minister's opening statement talks about all of the good news. This report here talks about how to improve your policies. I think most of the points are covered there.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to indicate that generally, I am in support of the direction the department is going. I think that a lot has been done by the department and this government in the very short time of a year. I think it is worthy of celebrating.

I really feel that it is going in line with what I have in my campaign platform. I think we are doing a good job of balancing the economic development and that sort of political agenda with the need to take care of the wellness and educational needs of the people. Looking back, one of the first things we did was to amend the Education Act to allow for lower pupil-teacher ratio and more support money, which is going to take effect shortly here, starting this year.

I applaud the latest change to the Student Financial Assistance Act where the appeals will be heard by an independent body.

The Literacy Strategy speaks to the priority that the Minister and the government is placing on the importance of that issue, and $2 million is not a small amount of money.

Guaranteeing jobs for students out of nursing and teaching programs, I think the meat of this will be on how they are implemented. I think the Minister appreciates that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure all of the details are taken care of. I think it is a statement. It is quite a moral boost for those students who are in these programs to say we appreciate you and we need you. I think that is good for the teachers who are in the system as well.

I applaud the department for working on early childhood development and the healthy children initiative. I think those are the things that successive governments have talked about, but we are beginning to see a tangible result of that. I think that those are small celebrations or big celebrations that we should recognize.

I quote from the Minister's statement here, on page 4:

"Due to an improved territorial economic situation, increased emphasis on career development and improved administrative systems, we are anticipating reduced spending in the income assistance program during the 2001-2002."

That is good news. That is great. I have lived here for 23 years. It is not usual to see a decrease in social spending. As soon as I read that, I was thinking what did you do with the money? I see that the money has been put back. It is sort of going in the direction I would like to see it go. I applaud the Minister for putting extra money to increase the disability allowance.

I do have to say that I do have some constituents who were unhappy about the fact that they were not grandfathered on the Student Financial Assistance Act. I do not think that they will ever be happy with me until I could somehow get this back for them. I am not saying that everything is perfect, but I think that we are on balance and we are going in the right direction.

Mr. Chairman, I have one point that I need to make to highlight the concern in my riding and in the city of Yellowknife. It has to do with crowded schools. I innocently thought that when we passed the legislation, the Education Act, to say that pupil-teacher ratio should be going from 18 to one to 16 to one, I actually imagined that there would be 16 students to one teacher. Then I learned last fall, as a result of what went on at J.H. Sissons, that some of these classes in grades 3 and 4 have almost up to 30 students. As you know, there was a lot of back and forth between parents, teachers and school boards, and the situation has settled a little. I learned a lot through that process. I have also spent some time at Range Lake North School with a special-ed assistant to see what it is like to take care of special-ed students.

What I learned out of this process is that we need to have a better system of identifying and evaluating students in need. I understand that out of this came, I heard in the news that Yellowknife District No. 1 is going to try to fund schools based on PTR rather than all the staff in the school combined to the student. I do not know what the formal word is, but I think that the board is looking at revisiting that formula. I understand that the board is going to make it available to the public for input.

I would, and I learned, and that I think is worth looking at.

I am sort of jumping from one to another, but I guess I somehow relate crowded schools and additional resources that are needed to the special need situation in our schools. I think a lot of parents felt there were a lot of students in their classes, especially in combined classes, that needed extra help.

They were discouraged that they could not convince them of that and there was no mechanism in place to see whether these students really needed extra help. I learned that the Yellowknife District No. 1 could only afford half-time teachers to even assess the situation.

I would really like to encourage the Minister. I have been a beneficiary of a great school system in Yellowknife and I would really like to do everything I can to protect that. I would like to ask the Minister to help the boards in any way he can, and also for the department to work out a system -- probably not just only in Yellowknife, but all through the Northwest Territories -- to have a system where we can identify, test and assess different levels of needs, of students with special needs, whether it be from FAS-FAE or from any other conditions they may have. I think that will be a challenge for us. We need to really look out to that.

Early childhood initiatives are on the prevention area, which is important, but I am talking about students who are already in the system who need to be taken care of. I do not think they can be taken care of unless we know what their needs are. I am not confident at this time that we have a system in place to know that. Those are my general comments, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comments of the honourable Member. Certainly she has touched, like some of the others, on many areas. Perhaps I can deal with a couple of them that are of interest, naturally to her and to others.

The reduced spending in the income support area was referenced and we are putting money back into the food basket area, as well as support for disabled, Mr. Chairman. We are realizing that, and it is a good news story, that income support numbers are reducing. It is because of the employment possibilities out there for individuals. They are taking advantage of that. Even the public should be applauded for that, Mr. Chairman.

The school situation that the Member spoke about substantially, the Member is aware that we did start funding last year for a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio, as well as funding for student support. As well, through the fall period, we did a student needs survey. That survey was completed. It had two or three components to it.

The second component is a technical report that we pass back to the regions and the district education councils and DEAs, so they can take those reports and analyze and utilize that information for their own planning. I think that will be valuable. We are approximately seven or eight months into this program to reduce PTR, to support student needs support. So it is early days yet, but we believe we are making progress already.

As well, Mr. Chairman, I think that we have, on a semi-annual basis, a gathering of chairs of the DECs with myself and the directors of education in the various regions. It has always been an opportune time to discuss issues of this nature to see what progress we are making. We are looking at accountability reports back from the boards as well.

I really appreciate Ms. Lee's comments in this area, because that is the ultimate purpose: to ensure we resolve problems in this area. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too have some concerns in the area of education in light of what is going in the Mackenzie Delta with regard to the oil and gas sector. We still have a real problem especially when we are trying to keep our students from dropping out before they have a chance to conclude high school. In the Delta, it is a real problem where we are not seeing the graduation rates we should be.

In most communities, we have not had any graduates in our communities for a number of years. We have to do more to assist our students to understand the importance of education, but also making them aware that they have to realize that with all these opportunities, you have to have an idea of where you want to go and how you get there.

We have to take the time with the students when they are in grade seven or eight or sooner, so people know that career planning is important. You have to be able to determine exactly what it is you want to get into. What courses do you need to get there?

Mr. Roland touched on it, where we see a lot of students get through the system, but after they get through the system and they try to find a job, they find out that they do not have the qualifications or they do not have the education that is needed to take on these different opportunities and jobs that are out there.

It is important that as a government, we seriously look into this problem, realizing that the industry, oil and gas, diamonds or any private sector out there, are requiring people with higher and higher education qualifications to take on these jobs that are out there.

Talking to people in the oil and gas industry is important as well, so they too are willing to work with the government, work with the Department of Education to identify what their needs are when it comes to different areas.

A lot of these companies and corporations have scholarships and different program manuals they develop themselves, in which they work all around the world in different areas, regardless of whether it is in northern Canada or foreign countries. They have confronted this problem. We are seeing the problem in the diamond industry, especially around literacy.

That is another problem I see we are going to be facing in the oil and gas industry unless we do something now and make it mandatory that we develop different curriculum in our schools, so we know we have the sciences, the math, the biology, chemistry. People need these courses to be able to get the grades needed to get the high paying jobs that are out there. Sure, you can get the people through the system, but at the end of it all, if all they are going to get is the low paying jobs, either labour or else finding jobs in the lower ranks of the wage scale, it is all for naught.

I believe we have to do more to develop the education funding programs we have and make them more accessible to all students, regardless of whether they live in the communities. I mentioned in the House about students in the Arctic College program and trying to access the different government programs with respect to child care subsidies, so students could access these programs more readily and faster than we are presently doing.

I think we have to work in conjunction with other agencies within our communities and also agencies that are presently being funded through federal dollars in different programs. We have seen those programs working in the other areas in our communities. Brighter Futures is one, and there are other programs that are out there. I think we have to work with the institutions and organizations that are in our communities so we are better able to deliver these programs and services closer to the people, closer to the students in our communities.

We have to seriously look at the quality of education that we are delivering and ensure that the teachers and the people we have in the different positions in our communities have the qualifications and are teaching the curriculum, and they understand exactly what is going on. We have to ensure that we have a high standard that we set, not only for the students, but our teachers, to ensure that the programs and the education curriculum is being delivered with the strong expectation of meeting high goals.

I also feel that it is important that as a government, we do more in the way of ensuring the student financial assistance program has to be taken out of the major centres and given to either the divisional education boards or closer to their regional centres, or closer to the college programs that are being delivered.

We are delivering three major college programs: one in Fort Smith, one here in Yellowknife, and one in Inuvik. If we can somehow tie them into the college system so students could register at the regional college or access those programs at the regional colleges, it would make it a lot closer and easier for the students at the regional level.

If possible, in the future, to look at having it delivered or accessed through community programs, either through the employment process that we have in place or through the income support system that we have out there.

I think it is also important that we consider ways we can assist students if they are falling behind on a particular year or if they need more credits. In southern Canada, you hear a lot of students taking summer schooling programs. If there is some way we could do that in the North to assist students who may want to take maybe one course just to get their credits up in one area, so they are able to take summer school instead of having to waste a whole year to go back and redo the whole course. They are able to do it in a short period of time, so when the next semester comes around, you are able to get back into it without having to waste a whole year just to make up those extra credits that you need to get into that next year.

You see a lot of that happening, especially in southern Canada. That is something we should seriously consider in the North so we are able to use the whole school year, not just parts of the year, and students are able to make up that time. If they are falling behind in a certain area, they are able catch-up on their courses, so they are not wasting a whole year to go back and redo the whole thing over.

I think it is important that we start expanding the education system, especially in the area of literacy. From what we have seen with the experiences we had with the diamond industry, I think that in the regions where we have the oil and gas industry, we will have the same problems. The education rates we have and talking to a lot of people who are in the industry, they are already seeing that. People are not understanding particular documents that they have to know or understanding manuals that they have to understand.

As a government, we will probably have to be there to assist, similar to what we are seeing happen with BHP on their literacy program. I think it is important as a government that we try to strive in those areas to put more money into literacy in order for people to have success in these jobs.

The other area that some people touched on is regarding the cultural aspect of the department. From the region I come from, the Gwich'in group I represent are really losing their culture and their language. As a department, we have to put a priority on the whole aspect of culture and trying to find ways of enhancing the language, especially the ones that are in dire straits and do need assistance from this government to find new ways or initiatives in dealing with that. Those are some of the issues that I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Oil and gas has been discussed extensively by many Members already tonight, and certainly there is a need to ensure that we continue to concentrate on ensuring our people are trained in that whole area. I would like to just state that in the Inuvik area, we are very active. Our superintendent is part of the Inuvik training committee, the Beaufort Delta Training Committee. That consists of a number of representatives in that area. It has been in business for a number of years now and has been working very successfully. We recognize that support is required for that.

On the college reference with child care subsidy, it is an area again that we have to address in the early childhood development program that we are looking at. We are working more and more with the various agencies around the Territory to coordinate our programs with aboriginal programs that may get funded through sources other than the territorial government.

I would just like to state about the quality of educators, we believe that our educators are extremely well qualified, Mr. Chairman. They are teachers who are in demand elsewhere as well, but we are proud of the educators we have and the fact that they can deliver the programs and the curriculum that has been set. We do not have any questions about that. There are other problems associated with that, of course, and I think that we all know that does exist.

The student financial assistance, as I mentioned earlier, we have already initiated action to have more ability to assist students through the career centres in the various regions. Mr. Krutko made reference to the college system. A very good point, but we feel the career centres can provide the same thing because they are in those particular communities.

The ways to assist students at summer school, yes, that is something that has merit. You have to remember as well that students can access distance learning and it is done on a six times a year basis.

On the cultural aspect, it is important throughout the Territories to maintain our cultures and promote them. In the case of the Gwich'in Cultural institute, we do provide some funding to that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.