Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we will be going into discussions with the college representatives to see how we can address the issue of a future campus in Yellowknife. It is a challenge for the college right now. They are renting space outside of the building. There's, naturally, a requirement for substantial capital investment, and that becomes, of course, the challenge, and we're identifying that. But it does not stop us from proceeding to ensure that we can look at how to proceed with designing a facility, identifying land and so forth for a campus location. We will work closely with the board. The board itself has identified this as one of their criteria and needs, and they'd like for us to work hand in hand with them to pursue this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe we have three or four years remaining on the lease.

Okay. I thank the Minister for that information. I'd like to move to another area.

I know that we're doing some standardized testing in primary school, and I think we currently, in most of the districts, do testing at grades 3, 6 and 9. I'm wondering if the Minister could indicate if that's correct, if that's being done across districts and whether or not it's the department that pays for that. Or are districts who decide to do the testing expected to take the funding and the money to pay for testing out of their program delivery dollars? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The testing choice is left to the particular district. More and more of the education councils are going with the Alberta achievement tests, which test for grades 3, 6 and 9. That gives us a good comparison to the Alberta achievements. The Deh Cho uses a different process as does the Beaufort-Delta. With regard to the costing, I believe each of the districts pays for its costing. Thank you.

So if a district deems that this testing is less important than delivering another program, they can certainly choose to not have the testing and then just spend that money on program delivery in other areas. Is that the case?

Thank you. I'll ask Dr. Foley to address that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm wondering if the Minister can tell me if next we have this new initiative and this new thrust toward testing, if we're going to be trying to encourage all of the districts to do the same, whether it be Alberta achievement or some other testing, but all conduct the same tests so that we're able to compare accurately across districts. Is that something we're trying to push? Consistency? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's important that we are able to compare amongst the various communities, amongst the various districts, how our students are performing. Yes, it is our desire to have the testing be consistent amongst the DECs, Mr. Chair, and the DEAs, and it's highly recommended that we do that.

Thank you. I just want to be clear, I agree that it's highly recommended that we do that and have some consistency, but I'm wondering if the department is going to direct districts to implement a certain type of testing so that there is consistency. I think this is one of the key roles for a department to take, and that would be in standards, in this area certainly. Otherwise we might as well devolve the entire issue of education and all education programs to the various districts, and not have any central control at all. I'm wondering if this is something that will be a certainty next year. Can we expect to see standardization? Is that a given?

Yes, Mr. Chair, it is our intent to have consistency of testing. As Dr. Foley mentioned, the department is currently preparing a directive on assessment. I'm not sure if we're going to have it completely in by this fall, but our intent is to move towards that.