Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate my colleague bringing this motion forward. I will also be supporting the motion. We have talked about this before in committee and with the Minister about the decision to go with social passing based on data exclusively from the South. I know in discussions we’ve often talked about the need for northern data to really assess that decision and we’ve never received that information.
We have quite a different situation in the North with many very, very small communities. Everybody knows each other and it’s quite a different situation. I certainly agree with the comments of my colleagues, though despite their best efforts, you know, trying social passing, pupil to teacher ratios that are off the charts and now we’re talking about the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and so on. A lot of good thinking has gone into that, but our graduation rates are not acceptable. Our various achievement scores do not show the progress we want and it is really guesstimating. When we see the bewilderment that our graduates experience when they finally realize or when they go on maybe for the next step in advanced education, that they do not have the qualifications that they are carrying certificates for, or the bewilderment or consternation of our businesspeople who have hired our graduates and are startled to find the lack of basic skills that depend on a good education causing grief to the employees as well.
So I would expect that the department would do due diligence here following this and making sure that we’re on the right track. I would also urge, once again, that the thought and priority be given to the earliest years of early childhood development, because again I see the potential there for even this issue to be very much advanced with such an approach.
So that’s it, Mr. Chair. I will be supporting the motion. Mahsi.