Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, watching the show West Wing on Wednesday last week, a quote that the acting president said caught my ear. He said, "Education is a silver bullet to cure a lot of ills in our society." I am thankful to my colleagues in this House for making education a priority in the House today.

In the Northwest Territories, our education system should be one of the best, but unfortunately, it is not responding in that nature. The system is not responding to the needs of our communities and our communities are unfortunately not responding to the education system, Mr. Speaker.

It takes a family, it takes a community and it takes partnership to have a good working education system. A lot of the problems with the school system in our communities where we see grade levels far behind grade levels in other parts of the Territories, Yellowknife, for example, compared with Lutselk'e, Yellowknife compared with Edmonton, Lutselk'e compared with Edmonton.

My office called a lot of schools during the last couple of days asking about different programs. Even if the parents are not helping the children, which they should and they must make education a priority in order for the children to grow up independent and healthy, most of the schools and teachers my office spoke to are saying that most of the schools in the communities do not bother to rely on the parents to help the children because of the background or lack of education the parents have, and the parents have a lack of interest because of that.

There is also a question of space in the home and quiet time for the children to study. A lot of our homes are overcrowded. Most times, the teachers stay after school to help the students. They do not send homework home because it does not come back, Mr. Speaker.

In some schools, if the parents were able to go to groups with their younger children, it would help because they would learn together. Even the communities that have programs for adults find that adults are not interested in some of these programs. All teachers feel that by working together, the education system would be more responsive and more successful. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause