Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during our last session, I spoke and questioned the Minister of Education extensively on the system of delivering education.
Currently, we have a system that promotes students with their age bracket and not based on their qualifying for the next grade level. Test results show that a good percentage of the students are hitting the wall at around grade 9 and we are seeing a large drop-out rate at that level. The Ontario government, when Premier Harris first became elected, seeing that problem area -- and the system in Ontario at that time was the same system we have today -- if we make the changes that Harris made, we could change our system so that students are promoted based on their achievements.
I will be asking the Minister of Education what has been done since the last session to address this problem area. It is a problem area that is recognized by the Literacy Council. It has been a problem area that has definitely been recognized by industry. We do not seem to be matching our education system with the needs of the economy. As a result, Mr. Speaker, we are seeing a lot of our young people not benefiting from the opportunities that are available in the Northwest Territories.
As an MLA representing small aboriginal communities, I receive a lot of complaints that the mines are hiring people from the south and flying them over to go to work when they need workers. The mines are clearly saying for a lot of reasons, and safety being one of the major ones, they are not educated enough and they are not qualified. Why are we not providing an educational system that ensures our children and our young people will qualify for the opportunities we have in the Northwest Territories?
I will be asking the Minister of Education whether anything is being done to change the system we have, because clearly, it is not working. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause