Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. While I am glad to see that we are almost in agreement, the fact remains that we may have similar programs, but they are succeeding and we're not. That is all I wanted to explore and say okay, fine, I didn't realize that we had a similar model and I am glad that the Minister pointed that out. But just the same, they are succeeding, we are not. Why? What is the difference here? We are going to have to learn from them, at least have a really good look. We don't have to do anything more than have a good look. If there is something to be learned from it, I'm sure they would be more than willing to share how they are doing things. Perhaps we can dedicate some resources, but we will cross that bridge when we come to that, Mr. Chairman.

The main thing that I would like to point out is that they are succeeding and we're not. I am supportive of us going down and having a look, if that is what it is going to take. The Minister indicated that they are not willing to bring them up, but we should go down, we should see exactly where they are succeeding and we're not.

In the previous discussion here on my first round of comments, the Minister mentioned something to me and something clicked. He said, yes, we are moving our children along and he said that all the teachers are equipped to deal with students in their class who are lagging. But I don't think that is true. For some reason they are not all prepared to do that, and yet we are moving along a group of class with some people that need special needs attention, they need that special attention.

I don't know if it's a huge astronomical cost to have a special needs assistant in each class. I don't know what the inner workings of the department are. The Minister did also indicate that it is a priority of the DECs to indicate how many special needs assistants we need. Do we have any power to say there must be a minimum amount of SNAs, or is it all based on funding or available cash within the budgets of the DEC? The thing that I have been hearing is that definitely special needs assistants are necessary. I don't know how to go about it, without going directly to the DEC and saying look, they are important. I am sure they know that they are very important and they are dedicating as much resources as they can. With that,

Mr. Chairman, perhaps the Minister can comment on those for me. Thank you.