Thank you Mr. Ootes. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. So if I can interpret what the Minister is saying, in fact we are comparing apples to apples, because when we compare our graduation rates to Alberta's graduation rates, they are exactly the same thing. Is that correct?

With the exception, Mr. Chairman, of social studies, it is correct. That is not a compulsory program. There are two years of compulsory, but it is not necessary to take Social Studies 30, Mr. Chairman, which you do have to take in Alberta. So that is the difference between our jurisdiction and Alberta's jurisdiction.

I understand the reasons for that may be that universities may not require this particular program, so the option was left for students to be able to take it or not take it, and take something as an alternate. The requirement, of course, is 100 credits in order to receive a diploma.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Bell.

That is true. Universities may not require Social Studies 30, but they may not require a lot of things. For instance, Math 30 is not required at all to graduate, but if you intend to go to business school, I would suggest you better have Math 30.

If our system is entirely based on the Alberta system, and it seems to be, almost -- we do have some variation in curriculum at some of the lower grades, but when we are talking graduations, it seems almost entirely based on the Alberta system, yet we have this one discrepancy. It does not make sense to me that we would not require our students to take Social Studies 30.

The Minister has laid out the department's explanation for this and I do not imagine I am going to change it and change their minds here in this discussion today, but I still do have concerns about our graduation rates and whether or not we are accurately measuring the ability of our young people to move out into the world and get gainful employment, or move on to post-secondary school, because universities are really not looking at whether or not you have a diploma. They are looking at your transcript. They want to see that you have passed and done well in some of these grade 12 level subjects, specifically the 30 level subjects, Mr. Chairman.

I think we need to do as much as we can to encourage our students to take the highest level of courses that they can possibly complete and not encourage students to sort of float by and attain a graduation paper and rely on that as a measure of success.

I have one other area that I would like to ask the Minister about and it is about the testing programs that I guess you can say have been piloted by a couple of districts, at least Hay River and Yellowknife Education District No. 1, with regard to Alberta testing at the grade 3, 6, and 9 levels. Our results have not been great. I think the department and the districts have admitted that and said that we want to now work to identify why they have not been as good as we had hoped, and then seek to address those problems and concerns, because clearly we want students who are competitive. We want to make sure our students are getting the highest level of education possible.

We tend to focus on the education system. We tend to ask ourselves whether or not teachers have enough professional development and whether or not we have enough days in the school year. Maybe our kids need more days in the school year. We focus on a lot of these things, but I do not think we focus enough on the outside of school factors that influence how students do in school.

I think family is critical. I think an understanding that at certain grade levels, homework is very important. I think that is something we may not have focused enough on. I do not think we have focused enough on bringing the family unit into discussions about their child's performance.

At this point, the marks are bearing out that at grade 3, we are not quite there with Alberta, but as we go on, grades 6 and 9, we test our students and the gap widens. This is a concern because it suggests to people that the more time you spend in our system, the worse off you are. I do not think that is an accurate assessment. I think there are some other issues here that come into play.

For instance, at grade 3, children are basically measured on their ability and not on their work ethic, not on the amount of homework that they do because it is not really required. However, by the time you get to grade 9, Mr. Chairman, if you are not in the habit of doing homework and you do not have a supportive family environment, I would suggest that you are dead in the water and are going to have a very hard time and really struggle to get good marks going through to grade 12.

Another problem in talking to several teachers that I had not thought about but was raised with me was attendance. Apparently, and I am sure we measure this because I know all schools do, our attendance, in some schools more than others, but overall I think is atrocious. There are real concerns about the amount of school that students miss. In fact, when we had our grades 3,6, and 9 testing last year at some schools, I understand there were a lot of students who were not even present to take the test. I am not even sure we got an accurate measure. This is something that I was not aware of but oftentimes, we have students who are coming in as much as an hour, an hour-and-a-half late consistently for school.

I know in talking to some teachers that in order to try to deal with this problem, they have decided they just will not have language arts first period in the morning, because too many students are late for school. They bump it back later in the day to make sure students are there when something as important as language arts is being taught.

I guess necessity is the mother of invention and I am glad that we have teachers who are willing to do these kinds of things, but I think it speaks to a larger problem. I think we really need to sit down and work with our communities, not just the children, but our communities, our parents, and come up with a game plan for helping children improve their performance in school. I think this will improve their satisfaction.

I imagine it is really frustrating the further you get behind, the less motivation there will be to attend class. If every day is a frustration and every day you realize that you are a few months or years behind your peers, if it was me, I would probably stop going to school. I think that is what happens to a lot of these children.

We need to address some of these other issues. We tend to focus on our education system and ask what is wrong with our schools, what is wrong with our curriculum, what is wrong with our teachers, but I think we need to look a little deeper than that, Mr. Chairman.

I hope this Minister will take up this cause, because although it possibly falls outside the specific mandate of Education, Culture and Employment, it is something that he needs to collaborate on with his colleagues in Cabinet and seek to come up with a strategy to take on this very serious problem. If we do not do it, we are going to get further and further behind. We know the problems that arise out of having children who just are really not successful in school, because they have so few options later in life. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member has covered a broad area here, which I will try and address. I think in general, what the Member is saying is that he would like us to take a look at some of the inherent problems that are there, which I readily would acknowledge that we do have some problems there.

I do have to be somewhat defensive here, though, on some areas, because while there are pockets of problems, there is also a tremendous amount of success out there. I do not think we should just generalize too much and say the whole system is not working. I think there are successes out there, very good successes.

I understand what the Member is saying in general terms with this. We should continue to improve, continue to work on the areas that are very evidently problematic.

Let me perhaps start, and I will try to be very quick with this, just so that we do not get bogged down with too many explanations. What we decided was that we need to tackle this whole problem on an early basis, hence we developed the Early Childhood Development Program, Mr. Chairman. A plan that starts to look at children ages one to five. As we know, we have a plan in place for that and extensive money that we are putting in it.

The next is the Literacy Strategy, which also contributes to this whole area of improving the whole ability of perhaps older people, but older people who will develop an ability to be able to contribute to their children, because parental support is a problem for us. We need to work on that. We need to ensure that it is there.

The Member made reference to homework. In the Beaufort-Delta, there is a homework policy. The DEC, and we are partners, we must remember that, this is a community driven system that we have, a regionally driven system that we look to partners with to help us out. In the Beaufort-Delta, the homework policy was introduced. I think it is a good move. We are following that to see what kind of success is happening, if it has success.

Family support, as I mentioned, is an important element. It is a part of an issue that was raised during the student needs assessment. We need to continue to work on that and we are working on that to follow through. Mr. Nitah asked me about that earlier in the session.

We have a program called Effective Behaviour Support, which was introduced about a year ago. We are moving forward with that because those are the kinds of programs that need to address the whole area of attendance and so forth.

Mr. Chairman, I will cut off there because I know Members have a lot of questions. I will ask Dr. Foley to address the question Mr. Bell had earlier.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to go into an area that we do not often cover in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, and that is the culture side of things. As we go through the main estimates here and the budget, Mr. Chairman, I think we will see that a number of other areas within the department, program areas have enjoyed, and quite rightly and deservedly so, substantial increases in expenditure and resources. The culture side of things, from the definitions provided in the book, are static in terms of resources and funding and have been so for quite some time. I offer that as a comment, I guess, to steer into a question as something that the Minister might be able to advise on.

In the area of the volunteer organizations, the community-based organizations, which really do such a tremendous job of preserving, enhancing and celebrating their cultures and heritage at a community level. I think they do so with a lot of sweat equity, with a lot of excellent cooperation with the corporations and businesses in the given community and, of course, with some of the help they get from the GNWT. We are getting really, really good value, I believe, Mr. Chairman, for the money that we are putting into culture.

I wanted to ask, in broad terms, Mr. Chairman, what kind of strategies, directions or trends does the department see in the area of cultural enhancement and its expenditures and investments in this area? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The programs we have in place today have been refined over the last couple of years. We have our heritage centre. We provide some support to some -- the museum in Fort Smith, for example, and an organization in Norman Wells. Plus, we provide some radio support to operate community radio stations. We have the NWT Arts Council, which hands out small amounts of money to arts people.

What I see as a challenge here, Mr. Chairman, is that we need to work on a program to identify how we can move forward with culture, arts and heritage. We have been working with the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, as well as Heritage Canada, to develop an arts policy so that we can say how to move forward now, how can we access further funding in this whole area.

I think it is an area that I am starting to be able to spend some time on and concentrate on. It is extremely important to us as a territory. The arts area is one of the critical areas that I feel I can start on, and I think we already have a steering committee in place on that, Mr. Chairman.

The three departments, the federal and the two territorial departments, are working together to develop that arts policy so that we can bring it back to Cabinet and then to pursue possible federal funding in this area to see how we can, from the territorial government, pursue this as well.

When I say the arts area, that is the visual arts, the performing arts, film and video, sound recording, publishing, new media and so forth. That leaves several other areas, Mr. Chairman. It also leaves the area of heritage. What are we doing about heritage areas? I think we need to spend time and effort to work on all these areas. First the arts, and simultaneously, if we had the time and ability, to work on heritage and culture.

On the culture side, of course, language is an important area. We have been working on that for the past couple of years putting more money into it. This budget contains the possibility of gaining additional money for that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The aspect that the Minister touched on, which is an arts policy, I think is something we have seen on the books. I think we will be going into the second fiscal year now, to the best of my recollection. I am a supporter of it. I am pleased to see too that we are talking to Heritage Canada and, Mr. Chairman, that RWED is also involved in this. Just yesterday in our discussion of the supplementary appropriation, we approved an expenditure of just over $100,000 to provide funding to increase arts and crafts sales through the development of new marketing in the development plan to look at the linkages between the arts and the tourism sectors.

This is significant, Mr. Chairman, because we need to get out of the stage where we are simply talking about the manufacture of handicrafts and artwork or this kind of thing, to really get into the tourism sector as it is developing around the world, where you look at the arts as a very broad range of things. There are the performing arts. There are the culinary arts, food and drink and this kind of thing. Along with the cultural experiences and the wilderness experiences, these are all things that people are seeking now. I am really happy to see RWED going after this kind of development and to see the linkages with this department.

If there is an aspect of this that I would like to look at well, it is under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Perhaps more specifically, under Aurora College, Mr. Chairman. It used to be called, I believe, the NWT Science Institute. I think it is now called the Aurora Science Institute. We do not hear much about this, or perhaps I should say that I do not hear much of this, Mr. Chairman. I am wondering if the Minister could tell us what comprises this institute, its governance and its function, and where is it going? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of comments before I get to the Aurora Research Institute. The Member made reference to a couple of other areas. I guess what we recognize is that we need to work with other departments and have an inter-relationship. RWED is the funder of projects that are business oriented to stimulate business. What we have to recognize in our territory is that when we talk about arts and culture, this is also an economic issue because they too are creating employment. Any arts program, any heritage program or any cultural program creates employment and stimulates business and so forth. It is a contributor to our economy and an important contributor. Besides being important from the overall viewpoint of art and culture, it is nice to have and it is important for our heritage.

On the Aurora Institute, Mr. Chairman, the funding for that is approximately $950,000. The institute also raises some money on its own part. They administer a number of areas. One is the Scientists Act. Anyone carrying out scientific research in the Northwest Territories has to obtain a licence and we provide that licence.

We have three areas, Mr. Chairman, where we have facilities. We have the Inuvik Research Centre and we have the South Slave Research Centre in Fort Smith. The Inuvik one is, of course, in Inuvik.

We undertake a number of projects. For instance, a company in Yellowknife is developing fibreglass poles. I understand our research institute in Yellowknife has helped with that. They are working in support of 3000 Energy Wall with a housing construction project. There is the Mackenzie Valley cumulative impact monitoring database. They collect information on the Mackenzie Valley issues. They participate in the Arctic Millennium Exhibition. The Western Arctic handbook is produced. There is a Natural Resource and Technology Program providing classroom, office and laboratory facilities, for instance, to researchers and scientists.

Interestingly enough, I will take one second because the public might be quite interested in this. We have a Cosmic Ray Monitoring Program that we participate in. It is in Inuvik and in Fort Smith. That is data collection by the cosmic ray monitor, which provides information on the strength of solar and galactic cosmic rays and disturbances for the solar and terrestrial environment. This is used for weather predictions. We play an important part in that, Mr. Chairman. As well, we have the neutron monitoring station in Fort Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few comments to make on the Minister's opening remarks. I see on page 2 he mentions some of the goals that support Towards A Better Tomorrow. He mentions that healthy schools that foster student achievements and success. I think, Mr. Chairman, in order to achieve these goals, we need all parties playing together and getting along and all working towards the same goal.

I am sure the Minister is well aware, as I am and many others, that sometimes all is not well out there, which makes these goals very hard to achieve. I know that in Hay River, there has been an ongoing issue with the DEA in Hay River wanting and working towards getting their own board. It is a very frustrating process. There are stumbling blocks and walls put up constantly by the department and by the South Slave Divisional Education Council. It gets to be very frustrating. For me, my involvement in it has been that it is extremely frustrating and makes it very hard to achieve the goals the Minister has outlined here in his opening remarks.

Hay River is also actively involved right now in trying to start up a French first language school. There has been a lot of work done in this area. It is, as well, to preserve language and culture. For six years now, a group has been working very hard to promote that program in Hay River and build it up to the point where there is a lot of interest in it now. There is a lot of buy-in from the federal government. It is going to need some buy-in and also some cooperation and help from the territorial government and all the players involved.

However, when I say that it makes it hard sometimes to achieve the goals such as healthy schools, this issue that Hay River has been working on with trying to get their own board is still there. It is very much in the forefront. I think the Minister will probably hear within the next day or so that there are some recent problems that have come up with budgeting and how it has been done and how it addresses Hay River.

The issues do not go away. In fact, they just keep building up and building up. I would like to ask the Minister if his department is going to continue to work with Hay River and the South Slave Divisional Education Council to try to find some kind of solution that everyone can live with on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When this issue came to my attention and there was concern, there was a petition to establish a separate DEC for Hay River, a district education council. When this was turned down, Mr. Chairman, we did a committee report on this. We had a study done to look at the issues that were there. The study did indicate some problems. The study indicated communication difficulties between the DEA and the DEC in general terms. There were some recommendations made to improve administrative matters and so forth, which are always important for us to do.

I understand the question the DEA in Hay River wants. I have indicated back to the DEA that it is problematic to create a DEC. It does base itself around a cost factor, and the cost factor we have provided to the DEA and the DEC in order to set up a separate DEC for the community of Hay River. I have indicated to the DEC that if they wish to discuss this further, I am quite prepared but I need to know from the DEC, because it is an issue. The lines of communication are more appropriately from the DEC to the Minister. The DEAs are part and parcel of the DEC. However, I have met with the DEA a number of times. I will continue to listen to what they have to say. However, the bottom line in a lot of this, Mr. Chairman, is that it is a costly matter for us to create a separate DEC. Am I prepared to talk about that? Of course I am, but there has to be a recognition that cost is a factor here.

The DEA states that they can cut a lot of costs but, Mr. Chairman, I have to go by what my officials advise on how to operate a DEC. I have to adhere to that. It is healthy schools, after all, that is at stake here. My understanding is the DEA in Hay River runs a very good organization and they should be complimented for that. I think they have the community respect for the schools they do run. I think they do a good job, from the best of my understanding, a very good job.

This is an administrative matter. It is not a matter of healthy schools. It is an administrative matter that is a problem here, Mr. Chairman, and that is what we need to work on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I realize that there are many issues surrounding this. I am simply looking for an indication from the Minister that he is quite willing to continue to work on this and to help try to find a solution. I know he continues to say it is a money issue and we come up against that.

I have been here long enough to know that there has been money found for a lot of projects since I have sat on this side of the House, money that was not there. They kept saying there was no money and all of a sudden, the money has appeared, and far more money than what we are talking about here, Mr. Chairman. Somehow it has come into play. They have found it. I think with this situation, if there is a will, there is a way and we can make it happen.

On another issue, I would like to mention briefly the harmonization program that has been worked on. I hope it is not scrapped too early, because from my perspective and the research that I have done on it, it is very helpful to a lot of people, in my riding anyway. It is helpful to a lot more people than it would do harm.

I am glad to see that maybe the department is willing to slow it down a little bit to make sure that all the bases are covered. If someone is adversely affected, certain parts of the population, then I think that should be addressed but I would encourage the department to not scrap that too quickly.

Another issue I would like to touch on is the support for day care centres, as mentioned in the opening comments here. It is an issue that has been around for a while that I have had to address. It is unfortunate that we have had some day cares that have had to close down because there was no funding out there for them.

I would like to ask the Minister if the money that is being earmarked now for day cares, how many day cares are lined up to get some of this funding? Has it been already put out there? How many day cares do you anticipate being able to help with this funding that you have now? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.