Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the last Legislature, an inclusive schooling directive was introduced and in our legislative time, our department and I have signed off on a student assessment evaluation and reporting directive. That paved the way for the department and staff to address the issues that are there and there. We want to ensure that student assessment processes are in place and that teachers have a mechanism by which to do that. As I mentioned yesterday, there are tests. There is also the teacher's ability to deal with the students. They know the students best as to whether they are functioning at the level that they should be functioning at. Those kinds of processes are in place up to Grade 9. As well, more and more we are introducing tests, but we are very dependent on the assessment processes of students and assessments are done by teachers, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should also state that the Beaufort-Delta District Education Council and Beaufort-Delta leaders pushed a number of years ago to push testing in the Beaufort-Delta region so they can start to gauge some of our own students up there. In fact, full-time kindergarten started in the previous year to try to get students to go further and learn more at a young age. So I would like to know from the Minister if, in fact, he has worked with other groups out there that have taken advanced positions, for example, on the testing side to try to help them out, because those testing requirements do cost dollars from existing budgets. Thank you.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Testing is taking place. More and more we are using the Alberta process of testing. That is more directed at the curriculum that we teach, similar to the curriculum we teach. Some of the other testing may not apply, but certainly that is an area that we are encouraging more and more and want to see come through. That testing can take place at Grade 3, Grade 6 and Grade 9, Mr. Speaker, so that there can be indicators for teachers beyond the classroom assessments that they do. In addition, Mr. Speaker, we are working on developing tools to assist teachers and making judgments on how to do assessments for students. We have that on the way, Mr. Speaker, for a number of areas. We've also done workshops with program support teachers. We're also developing a handbook, Mr. Speaker, that would be available to schools to use to standardize the understanding of what a modified education program means; if a student is, in other words, in a Grade 7 class but taking courses at different levels. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as parents look to the education system to help them with their children and their needs, we must also look to the information provided and one is those results that come home is a report card telling you if your child is achieving. Yesterday, I asked the Minister what is taken into consideration in coming up with that achievement mark on those report cards. I would like to know from the Minister today what does that achievement mark reflect? Thank you.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason for our student assessment evaluation and reporting directive was to set out guides for teachers, schools and so forth to look at the methods of reporting back to the community and back to the parents on the level that students are achieving at, Mr. Speaker. On the report cards themselves, in the Beaufort-Delta specifically, the report cards provide the grade levels and whether the student is above or below a grade level, Mr. Speaker, or whether the student is on a modified program. Then it gives the opportunity for the teacher to address that issue directly with the parents, to speak about the areas below, above or at grade level the student is being graded. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister inform us if through these ratings they are assessing how the child is doing in the education system, or if those tools are used to help prepare them for entrance into college or universities, or is that just a tool to grade our existing system? Thank you.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a tool, at the moment, to use for assessment of students, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned, we are working on a number of areas to improve the system and it allowed us to identify, once we had the two directives in place. We needed to do that as first step. In 2001, we introduced the last student assessment and achievement directive. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, I should point out that we have been concerned about student achievement and the bottleneck that is created at Grade 10 for example. What we've done in the early childhood development program is to introduce a school improvement program, where we're doing more counseling and effective behaviour support programs. We also addressed the class sizes, student support needs and so forth. Strengthening the role of the parent in the community is another area that we want to work heavily on. There are a number of those kinds of things that we are working on, Mr. Speaker, to address the whole area of student success in our schools. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question this afternoon is for Mr. Ootes, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, in his capacity as one of the Ministers involved in the harmonization issue. Mr. Speaker, a few days ago, in a discussion or in question period here, Mr. Bell asked some related questions and one of the Minister's answers suggested our criterion for determining what is a low income threshold for a family in the North. Mr. Ootes replied that the figure is $3,833 a month, and under that anyone would receive a benefit. This is a national standard, Mr. Ootes pointed out. My question, Mr. Speaker, is taking this number of $3,833 a month as a national standard, is it appropriate to apply that here in the North, given that the cost of living is at least 20 percent above Edmonton's? Thank you.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that was a level that was provided to us by the Housing Corporation and it gives us the opportunity to provide an incentive for low income working families to reduce their rent, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Well, you know if this is a national standard, we have to apply some things because we have rules like the National Child Benefit, which can or cannot be applied at our discretion. I guess where I'm concerned here, Mr. Speaker, is that here we have a cost of living, as I say, in Yellowknife that is 20 percent higher than Edmonton. If we go into some of the communities where we are now pushing 30, 40 and 50 percent higher, is it realistic to say that a national standard is really the right one for the NWT? Thank you.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm informed that this is an example of a level, and that does vary from community to community in the North. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Braden.