Thank you. I would like to get back to the issue of standardized testing and, indeed, transparency with the results and the discussion of the results that we see or do not see in some cases in education. I guess I will start by indicating my frustration in the last three years in sitting through numerous presentations by the department through the business planning cycle in the Standing Committee on Social Programs. We know that standardized testing is being done more or less standard across various districts, but at the Grade 3, Grade 6 and Grade 9 levels. We know there are departmental Alberta exams being taught at the high school level and kids are taking them and passing them, and we know what our results on those exams are because I have been able to get the information when my office has asked for it. We know that we have a huge number of students who have special needs in the Northwest Territories, but it does not seem to be something that we document very well.
I could not tell you, in sitting through these business planning cycles in the last three years, if we are getting better or worse. I have no idea. I mean, I do not know if we are doing better in departmental exams this year than we did two years ago or worse. I do not know if we have more students presenting with special needs at kindergarten are fewer. I do not know if our results are getting better at grades 3, 6 and 9. It is not something that certainly the department presents, in my opinion, to standing committee in a manner where we can actually see trends and talk about results.
I hate to give the Department of Health and Social Services a pat on the back, but when Health and Social Services comes in they present information like the number of people smoking in the Northwest Territories. It is horrible. We talk about the incidents of STDs and it is terrible, as are communicable diseases. Our rates are right off the charts compared to other jurisdictions, but we talk about them. We can sit down with the Minister and we can say here is where the bar is. Now, let us talk about achievable goals in the next five years. Let us talk about where we might make some headway. The benefit of that is at the end of a term you can sit down with the Minister, you can assess the progress that has been made, you can talk about why progress has been made or has not been made, and you have something to measure yourself by. I find myself without an ability to discuss our goals and to actually track them and to monitor our progress.
It feels like we are just sort of stuck in quicksand here in education and we are sitting here treading water, because I do not know if we are getting better or worse. It might be the case, Mr. Chairman, that we are doing better than Alberta students are doing. Anecdotally I do not think we are, but even if we are not it could be the case that we are making great strides and getting closer to closing that gap. I guess the bottom line is, Mr. Chairman, I have no idea because that is not something that we discuss in the business planning cycle in committee. That is not something that we talk about. I do not know why we do not talk about it, because I know we are able to glean this information when I ask for it privately. I get very comprehensive information from the department. They do a very good job in compiling a lot of these statistics.
I do not think this is about blame. I am not indicating that if somehow our marks are going the wrong way on exams that it is the department that is at fault, just as I do not think that somehow if communicable disease rates are up that it is somehow the Department of Health and Social Services( fault and there is something they are doing that is causing these rates to climb. But I do think it is something that we need to talk about because we have to be honest. Starting with ourselves we have to be honest, but we have to be honest with the public because unless we are going to talk about these things we are never going to get a handle on them.
I guess I would just like to state my frustration with the lack of analysis of trends, the lack of goal setting as I see it. Maybe, to be quite honest, Mr. Chairman, maybe it is being done and it is just not being communicated very well to committee. That may indeed be the case. I think we certainly have a role to play in talking with our constituents and talking to people at the grass-roots level about the kinds of results we are seeing or not seeing and so, therefore, I think the department has a key role to play in involving us in much of this work.
Again, as I say, it is not about trying to blame somebody, but it is about accountability. I would like to see this department improve in its presentation of information to committee, especially in those areas of standardized testing at grades 3, 6 and 9 and departmental exams. For goodness sake, we have to know how many kids are presenting with special needs. It is not enough to say we presume we have higher levels than the South and we cannot quite compare funding across jurisdictions. We know it is bad. I mean, we do not even know if it is getting any better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.