Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The department is very much aware of the importance of aboriginal language and culture in seeing success in school. So that is something that is very much encouraged. In fact, it would be marvellous if we could see immersion in the language of the community, particularly the first few grades of school. So it is an area that the department is very supportive of. We have, as the Member has noticed or mentioned in his comments, there's been some advertising from the college seeking people who would like to improve their ability by taking courses that the college is offering for the Aboriginal Language and Cultural Instructor Program. We're hoping to see that program beefed up. I am hoping that, in the next year or so, we'll be able to fund the college to offer that as a base program so that we can offer it more often in more locations throughout the Northwest Territories.
We are also working with stakeholders to develop an aboriginal language curriculum to help teachers who are fluent in the language have a curriculum to work with in the classroom so that they can teach the aboriginal language. That process has been underway for a while, but most recently the group met in January of this year to review where they were. They've agreed to hire an independent reviewer to take a look at the process to date to make some comments, and then they're going to come back together in April to review that again, expand the group even further and see if they can't move towards finalizing this curriculum, which should be an important step. The first thing is we have to find people who are fluent in the language in order to be able to teach it, but this will be a tool, then, that those people who are fluent will be able to use in the classroom so that they know how to deliver that course subject. So we're trying to make sure that we can provide the assistance that's needed to make sure that we can improve aboriginal languages in our schools.
In terms of the funding for students who are over 22, as I indicated to the Member for Monfwi, I am planning to seek approval to offer divisional educational councils the option of either taking the funding for full-day kindergarten or for those students who are over 22. I think it's important to understand that we're not proposing to completely stop the funding for 22-year-olds plus. What we're proposing is that we reduce that funding to 50 percent. So it would be kind of like phasing out of funding. We'll fully fund students through the age of 21, but once they hit 22, we think the DECs can take a reduced level of funding because, in part, throughout the North, we're funding education for people in that age group through the college. So it's like a duplication, in effect. Now we've heard that in some regions the delivery system, the college isn't as well represented and, therefore, the schools want to keep on doing it and we think we can accommodate that. So we're going to take a look at how we can do that.
In terms of public housing, it's our goal to make sure that the Member doesn't receive any extra phone calls after April 1st.