Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. It is also my understanding that we administer departmental exams that come from Alberta based on this protocol. I know that parents and children have just started receiving marks. I am wondering if the school board has the latest departmental exam marks written by students in January, that are now in, and looked at the data?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Minister.

We will certainly check this out. We are not aware of any delays in this area, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Bell.

I am not aware of any delays either. I just wanted to ask the Minister some questions on how the Northwest Territories seems to compare to Alberta. If we have the same curriculum, the same teaching methods, the same standards, I am trying to get a gauge as to whether or not the level of education our children receive in the Northwest Territories is the same as they would receive if they were in any community in Alberta -- High Level, pick any community. I wonder how we compare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask Mr. Cleveland to address that question.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Cleveland.

Thank you, Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, under the education culture activity, yesterday I advised the Minister during my general comments that I would be looking for some detail in the area of the pupil-teacher ratio and some history. I would like to know if the Minister has that information available.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the information that we have available for the one Territory, because before a certain time frame it was only available on the combined basis of Nunavut-Northwest Territories, the pupil-teacher ratio for 1997-98 on is available. I believe that prior to that, it was combined with the Nunavut figures. So it would be difficult to compare them.

That is the information that we have been able to garner to date. We did have a figure for 1968, and it is coincidental because it was Mr. Devitt's father at the time who was in Education, and the figure then was 17.9 to 1. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For 1997-1998, looking at the pupil-teacher ratio, would there be much of a difference, even though we might have some numbers that included Nunavut? Unless there was a real slant in some of the smaller communities, but you should be able to pull those out and maybe just go by community or something like that. Is there anything like that? You mentioned 17.9 to 1. Is that for 1968?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We did restate those for 1997-1998 and that was 18.2 to 1. It would take some time to restate them for the previous years, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for those two numbers alone, in 1968, 17.9 to 1 to 1997-1998, 30 years difference, there is a .3 difference.

To me, that just goes to show the arguments that we hear a lot. The pupil-teacher ratio has gone through the roof and that is why we need more funding, to lower the pupil-teacher ratio.

In 30 years, we have not seen it, but when we look at it, I can recall the days when I went through school and quite a number of things have changed. However, there was not the general areas. We had separation.

I know when I went to junior high and high school, there was, for example, in grade nine, you would have A, B, C and D level classes. That has changed because they say that is not a good thing to do. So you mix the classes and try to bring everyone along.

Maybe the one thing that we have seen as a fairly significant area is the area of special needs as impacting the ability for teachers to get the information and to teach the children in the classrooms. Judging from this information, there has not been a big difference in 30 years in the actual pupil-teacher ratio, but our graduation and "stay 9s", as they say.

For example, in the Beaufort Delta region, it has been a number of years now that there has been some testing going on to see what our children are achieving.

It has been quite a concern, as they have discussed with parents and had public meetings on that with parents, stating the actual results that are being shown. It is rather disappointing to see where our children are achieving compared to the national average in Canada.

Now there are a number of factors that would play with that, or that would end up being there, but it is still a concern and it is more, not to say that our children... the basic point being, are not achieving the national mark, but it is more of where is their system.

I have made comments in the 13th Assembly in committees. I made them in this Assembly when we go through budgets about the programming and having the proper programming is the way that I look at it.

I refer to social pass. There are arguments on both sides of the table. If you hold somebody back, you do more harm. I use the argument, if you are a young man or a young woman in grade nine, you go to challenge the test or write the test when it is mandatory in grade 10, and find out that you do not have anywhere near a grade 10 reading or math level, the real world kicks in in the school yards. We cannot soften that up. So that is a concern I have. Where are we going with this and are there changes being looked at?

Is there something in between the two that we can try to adapt and put into place? We talk about literacy and we talk about job training, but if our young men and women in grade 10, or year 10, cannot comprehend at that level, how can we then put them into job training?

That just shows that our programs, from start to finish, we have to make them connect and link up as we heard. It is great to say good things and we are doing stuff, however, it would really be nice to have some solid examples of where we are actually going to make the movement to improve on this system.

I can recall, and I think in Inuvik, when we had the Canadian Forces station operating in the community, they demanded a higher level for education, especially since they were in a remote section of Canada, as they saw it. Parents are starting to do that again. They are starting to say, "We want to see some results."

Numbers can be used in different ways. I think it is unfortunate that, you know, sometimes we can have parents using them to say that teachers are not doing it, while teachers can go say that parents should be doing more.

It is back and forth. However, we need to find some ground that we can actually see students achieving, not to measure parents and not to measure teachers, to have our children ready and able to take on the jobs that are out there once they graduate. So is there any activity in this area to see some changes or some modification of the systems we have in place today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will speak and then I will ask Mr. Cleveland to address it as well. On the resource side, that is an area and we are always concerned about that. It always deals with the actual delivery side as well, but on the resource side, we are attempting to improve that. We have heard loud and clear about the need out there, so we are addressing that particular area through the PTR and through the student needs survey.

The student needs survey certainly addressed and brought forward a number of clear identities of some of the areas that we need to put resources into. For example, it deals with classroom support in terms of areas such as support for parents and communities and the role the parents and communities play in the whole education system. It is a very broad area to be addressed. From that survey, we found it was not just one specific thing that needs to be addressed. It is a multitude of areas that need to be addressed. We are looking at that from our side, Mr. Chairman.

Areas such as the Beaufort Delta have taken a step in their particular region with regard to a homework policy. Those are the kinds of issues that assist bringing about improved school performance. Perhaps I could turn it over to Mr. Cleveland to see if he wishes to add on to that.

Mr. Cleveland.