Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was an excellent answer. That's the kind of thing I'm looking forward to hearing that that discussion is going on. It's certainly not meant to solve the problem, but it's certainly to look at it and start talking about it.
The last area at this time that I'd like to talk about is a matter I brought up before in this House. I directed my questions to the Premier because it was a commitment made by the last government and the Premier's office. It was a commitment reaffirmed by the Premier in regard to the hiring of our teachers. Our students who enter the TEP program, students that go through the education program and who have been promised opportunities to become employed teachers in the Northwest Territories and it's a significant problem.
The Premier at the time had mentioned that there were incentives, but it has also been alluded that these students are being educated maybe at a lesser level, if there's some stigma that comes with them or whatnot. I really don't know and I would like to hear what the Education Minister is doing to work through this problem from an education point of view, whereas he's reaching out into the regional district education authorities, he's reaching out to the local education authorities and seeing what needs they need in order to, say for example, take serious these new grads and help get our northern students teaching our northern students.
So what is this Minister doing in that regard? Stats aren't necessary at this time, but I think we're all well aware most of them are not being hired and I think it's not a question of was it 10 out of 20 hired or 11 out of 20. The fact is we've got a huge number of these kids that are not being hired and what is this department as a whole, pushing forward the education mandate, doing to assist these regions, district education authorities?
I think it's a real problem out here that the kids are traveling to these schools, putting their hearts and souls into their dreams to teach the children, become these new educators of our future and that being said, they're hitting a stone wall when they get there and say I'm ready to work and no one wants them. I imagine that's quite stressful for them knowing that they've emotionally committed to something, financially committed to something, our government has committed through SFA to help support these kids go through this process and we put a lot dollars, efforts and emotions into this and our kids are not given the chance. So time is running out and I think really I just would like to hear what he's doing to help address this problem. Obviously I won't have time for a follow-up, but that being said I'd like to hear what the Minister is doing to solve this problem. Thank you.