Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you. I think I was one of those students who was in that scenario the Minister just talked about earlier. But again, I think he mentioned Grade 9 would determine your next level of steps in post-education, so I'm going to ask the Minister, I know that we depend a lot on the teachers that are teaching the students in the smaller communities. I'm just wondering, if that's the case, isn't it the responsibility or the fault of the teachers in regards that they can't keep up to the level of education that they have to have once they reach Grade 9? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think what we need to do is look at what it would take to make our students, ensure that they're getting into the right program so that they can move on if that's what they want to do. That takes work, not only the teacher, the school, the DEA and the parents. That takes the whole group of people who are involved in the student's life, if you will, to ensure that the right decisions are being made. I've heard from a number of people the same sort of concern that Mr. Pokiak has expressed and I've started talking more and more to DEAs and DECs about what we can do to ensure that kids understand, and parents understand, that they have to be thinking about the future if they want to be successful moving into post-secondary studies. It sounds to me, because of the number of times that I've heard this, that we maybe haven't done as good a job across the North as we need to. So I've started to put some emphasis on that area with schools, with DECs, and whenever I talk to parent groups, to parents. But we're going to reinforce the fact that a student's plan by Grade 9 has to be signed by the parents. We're trying to work with schools to make sure that isn't something that just goes home with the kids and comes back. They need to make sure that the parents understand what it is they're signing. They need to make sure that people understand that this course decision may have a serious impact four years from now. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think a quick follow-up, I guess. The Minister indicated that the parents need to understand what their students are signing. I'm just wondering, let's assume, let's say that some of the parents actually didn't graduate, so they won't understand. I guess my question is how can we, as education partners, be able to assist these parents understand that their students can go one level higher than they did? Is there a way that we can work with it? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's a good point. I hope that schools will make sure that they involve parents. That may mean reaching out to parents. You can't just send home a note with the kids and hope that the parents are going to come back. It may take a phone call or may take a personal visit. I'm hoping that we're going to see more outreach to make sure the parents are getting involved, because I think that if we can get more parents involved, we'll see more success. In fact, I know that if we get more parents involved, we'll see more student success. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on another subject, under grants and contributions I'm just looking at the...I don't know if I'm going to jump ahead, but I'll let you decide that, Madam Chair. Under grants and contributions I'm looking at more specifically 8-22 and I'm just wondering, it's identified there that $8.63 million is identified for Ecole St. Joseph renovation. It has to do with the fire in August. I'm just wondering, aren't we covered under the fire insurance, or is the government covered under that so they can replace things like that? Thank you.

Mr. Pokiak, do you have any other questions for page 8-17? That's five pages ahead of where we are and we'll certainly recognize you when we get to that page. Do you have any other questions for this page?

No, I'm done. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of quick questions to the Minister about the education operations and development division dollars that probably takes up the majority of the whole education and culture of $170 million. I just want to ask the Minister, what is the Department of Education doing to integrate more elders into the school system, integrate the elders into the cultural programs, on-the-land programs? If elders that are integrated into the school system, into the curriculum for whichever school that carries out the

program, are elders going to be remunerated for their services to the schools to carry out some of these programs? I know a lot of them just volunteer their time and go into the classroom to speak to kids. How is the Education department going to improve the participation of elders in our school system with regards to tradition and culture? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The department encourages all divisional educational councils and DEAs to ensure that they are undertaking appropriate activities under the aboriginal language and culture instruction part of the instructional day. We've issued a directive that requires that any funding that they get for aboriginal language and culture education be used in certain ways. The use of elders in the classroom is clearly one of the ways we have identified to be a good use of the money. But just as we don't actually make the decisions about hiring teachers in communities, we don't make decisions about which elders they would hire in the community. That's left to the DEA and the DEC. They are also responsible, then, for determining the pay or remuneration or what they would find appropriate for the elders in that community. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I am just more or less leaning towards development. Can the DEAs develop a program using territorial government funding say, for instance, a trapping program? Could they develop the curriculum for a trapping program that would run all year? They would hire an elder, an instructor, to carry out the program. Is there any funding in this budget for something of that nature? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In this overall education budget, the amount that's going out to schools this year for aboriginal language and culture is $7.9 million. That's being divided up among all of the schools in the Northwest Territories. That sort of program would certainly fit the bill. It would be up to the individual school district to decide whether or not that's what they thought was an appropriate expenditure. The way the Member has described it, I am confident it would fit within our directive.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the recent past, we have strengthened the course offerings of the Teacher Education Program to reinforce the traditional knowledge side of things. So the teachers coming through our program are more aware of the importance of traditional knowledge.

To try to ensure that kids in school see some relevance to science or more relevance to the science courses, we've developed a new stream of the curriculum and one of the paths involves courses like Experiential Science. As that was being developed, I attended a session where elders had been brought in to talk about things in the course about how to make that more relevant to traditional knowledge and make sure that that was incorporated into the science curriculum. So we are looking for ways to ensure that our curriculum reflects the northern realities. Thank you, Madam Chair.