Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of questions with regard to the funding for special needs and special needs assistants. We are putting more money into this particular area to lower the PTR, and as well increase support for special needs students.

Could the Minister indicate, further to my general comments yesterday when I was talking about the concerns I had heard from the school in Fort Smith, whether there has been any change to how funds are allocated for special needs assistants and special needs children in the schools? Has there been any change to the formula from last year? Thank you.

The Minister responsible for Education, Mr. Ootes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Cleveland.

Mr. Minister, do you want to add?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we should also point out that the allocation of the funding is also done upon recommendations to the Minister by work done by the school program and resource committee. That is a committee made up of district education council representatives, department representatives and health and social service representatives. A report is presented to the Minister in that regard to suggest the allocation of funding, especially in the special needs area. We get fairly in-depth input into the approach to this, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have not had the opportunity to check with the divisional board, so I will do that. Should I have any further questions on this particular issue, I will contact the Minister and his staff directly. I have no further questions on this activity. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have been waiting patiently here. I do have questions further to my line of questioning about similar curriculum here and in Alberta, and our performance on departmental exams. Specifically, it has been brought to my attention that there seems to be concerns -- and I do not know if it is just suspicion or rumour -- but often, final blended marks can drop from the marks going into departmental exams in the Northwest Territories, in some cases by as much as 15 percent, or at least the marks on the exams end up being 15 percent lower than the marks on the part of the year before the exam.

This does not seem to be the case in Alberta. So if we have the same curriculum and we have the same methods of teaching, I am wondering if the Minister could speak to what the differences might be and why we seem to underperform compared with Alberta. I know the deputy did refer to a wide variance of performance depending on the subject, but I am wondering if the Minster could address that. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have to get Mr. Cleveland to answer that question.

Thank you. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I do not have information for this year, but as I go through the past several years and the statistics, I am struggling as hard as I can to find a situation where our exam marks on departmentals are higher than the school-awarded marks or exam marks higher than the Alberta average. I do not want to get into specifics here because we could debate this all night, but consistently, subject by subject, we seem to not do quite as well in certain subjects.

If we are teaching the same curriculum, you should not see, unless we are not preparing our students for the exams, such a...I will give you an example. In 1997, the Northwest Territories average mark going into the departmental exam in Social Studies 30, the average school-awarded mark was 63 percent. We scored 51 percent on the exams. You can just go through this subject by subject, year by year, and that seems to be the case. I am wondering if we are maybe not doing a good enough job in preparing our students to take the departmentals, or else we are not teaching the same curriculum as Alberta is. I think people are concerned that we seem to be underperforming Alberta. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I will have to get Mr. Cleveland to address that.

Mr. Cleveland.

Thank you, Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I do not know what kind of an answer I am expecting from the department. The deputy indicated that we are doing things to try to address the distance learning opportunities for students in smaller communities. Hopefully, these things will build and help us to perform better on the departmentals. I think this is the one thing that people always point to.

It is one of those bellwether indicators. It is just a focal point. When we talk about the cost of living difference in Yellowknife compared to Calgary, that is something people can get a hold of and understand. I think we can all recognize when we talk about standardized testing, there may be things that put us culturally at a disadvantage in taking some of these tests because they may not relate as well, but certainly there should not be such a huge discrepancy.

I know the department will continue to look at this, but the one thing that has been suggested to me is we are now just starting to get a handle on the number of special need students that we have in our school system. FAS and FAE are certainly much higher in the North than anywhere else in the country. I think this is a reality that is starting to hit home. We are having kids go through the school system struggling to learn. Sometimes they are able to slide by, but it really shows up when we have them take these standardized tests.

I know we are committed to student support. We are putting more money into it than we have in the past. It has been a big issue since we have been elected. I think we are going to have to keep pushing and keep raising the bar in this area. Until we can come up to the level and perform as well as Alberta students do on exams, I think it is going to be an issue for Northerners.

I think it is also an issue when you talk to people considering relocating to the North. People working at the mines considering making the move from Edmonton to Yellowknife. Certainly there are cost issues, cost of living differentials, but parents want to be convinced that the education system is equal to the education system in the provinces.

This is one of the things we can point to and say, "Look, our exam marks are every bit as good as Alberta's, Saskatchewan's, whatever." Maybe this is not the best way to evaluate our school system here in the North, but in my view, it is the easiest and it is the one most people will point to when discussing the difference.

We may not like what it shows all of the time, but we do not have a choice. We have to deal with it. I hope the department will continue to push to look into trends that may be disturbing, that may not be good news stories, but I think sometimes a dose of reality is not always the worst thing for us. Maybe that is what it takes for us to rise up and meet the challenge. Thank you.