Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to a Written Question asked by Mr. Bell on June 6, 2001, regarding pupil-teacher ratio calculations.
The Government of the NWT defines pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) as the ratio of full-time equivalent students (FTE) to the number of full-time equivalent teachers. The PTR is determined by dividing the total number of FTE students enrolled on September 30th in the NWT by the number of FTE teachers in all schools. Students who attend school for a full day are counted as 1.0 FTE, while students in a half-day kindergarten program or part-time high school students are counted at 0.5 FTE.
Teachers are considered to be regular classroom teachers, principals, assistant principals and program support teachers. Aboriginal language cultural specialists, classroom assistants, education assistants and school community counsellors are not counted as part of the PTR.
The PTR is a consistent measure used by all provinces and territories in Canada to measure and compare resource allocations for kindergarten to grade 12 school programs.
The interprovincial education statistics project uses the term student-educator ratio for the ratio of FTE enrolment of students to educator FTE. FTE enrolment is defined as the number of full-time equivalent students enrolled in public schools in September of the school year.
Educators are defined as all employees in the public schools system who are required to have teaching certification as a condition of their employment. This definition excludes substitute/supply teachers, temporary replacement teachers, teachers on leave, teaching assistants, student assistants and consultants. Educator FTE is defined as the number of full-time equivalent educators in September of the school year.