Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment is responsible for employment and cultural programs, early childhood, primary, secondary, adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) and post-secondary education (PSE), and training in the Northwest Territories. The department shares responsibility for education with eight regional education councils and Aurora College, among other education and training delivery agents.

ECE has made uneven progress in its monitoring of early childhood education

Inspections of daycare facilities

Earlier in this report the standing committee registered its alarm at the Auditor General’s findings with respect to daycare facility inspections. The Auditor General considers ECE’s progress on these inspections to be unsatisfactory.

In the 2010 audit, the Auditor General reported that the Department of Education did not inspect all daycare facilities each year as required by law. The

department responded that this was due to a shortage of staff and committed to developing an electronic tracking and reporting function for inspections within its client management system (CMAS).

In the follow-up audit, the Auditor General found that ECE had started to develop the electronic system but had not yet been able to generate reports on the inspections. The Auditor General reviewed the two most recent inspections for each of the 121 daycare facilities in the NWT, and found that only 90 percent of the facilities had been inspected in 2010. The committee considers these results not just unsatisfactory but unacceptable.

The standing committee is extremely concerned that the Auditor General found “serious issues related to noncompliance with health and safety requirements” in some of the completed inspection reports with no record of follow up. Issues included locked fire exits, chemicals within reach of children, and uncovered electrical outlets. The Auditor General found that the department has no guidelines for following up on inspections when a facility is found to be violating requirements.

The deputy minister noted at the public hearing that the department has taken actions on the issues identified in the inspection reports and has started to develop guidelines to ensure daycare operators adhere to health and safety regulations. The committee considers this response slow at best.

Measuring the impact of early childhood education

Early childhood education is a particularly striking example of the GNWT’s overall problems with data collection. In 2010 the Auditor General reported that ECE was not collecting data on the educational component of daycare programming. The department had not developed a way for early childhood educators to share information with the K to 12 system on the progress of children entering school, nor had the department developed performance indicators to assess whether children who had attended daycare performed better than those who had not.

Further, ECE had not evaluated its 10-year-old Early Childhood Development Framework. After the 2010 audit the department committed to evaluate programming developed under the Early Childhood Development Framework for Action in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The deadline for completing this evaluation was then pushed to early 2012. This evaluation has not yet been tabled.

In the follow-up audit, the Auditor General found that ECE had introduced the early childhood environment rating scale, used to determine if programming is improving, and completed 16 assessments using the scale. Thirteen daycare facilities had developed quality enhancement plans;

however, the department indicated that it is not yet in a position to revise its early childhood programming because it has not yet collected data on children’s cognitive development, language and communication skills, and emotional and social well-being.

While the Auditor General considers progress in measuring the impact of early childhood education to be adequate, the standing committee would like to see much, much more improvement in this area.

The 17th Legislative Assembly has placed great

emphasis on early childhood development. On May 30, 2012, the Assembly passed Motion 5-17(3) strongly recommending that the Ministers of Health and Education work together to bring forward proposals for a new and comprehensive early childhood development program to begin in the current fiscal year.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations endorses the recommendations of the Auditor General on the inspection of daycare facilities, and adds its own, with respect to measuring the impact of early childhood education. The committee is pleased that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment will now have the resources to implement these recommendations on the monitoring of early childhood education with greater speed.

Recommendation 7

The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends:

1. that the Department of Education, Culture

and Employment address any outstanding issues of noncompliance identified in the current daycare facility inspection reports;

2. that the Department of Education, Culture

and Employment ensure that inspections of daycare facilities are carried out annually and that immediate action is taken for any identified deficiencies;

3. that the Department of Education, Culture

and Employment address the outstanding issues with regard to measuring the impact of early childhood education, including collection of data on the educational components of daycare programming, information sharing with the K to 12 system, development of performance indicators, and collection of data on children’s development and well-being, and that the department report on these measures annually in its business plan; and

4. that the Department of Education, Culture

and Employment carry out the renewal of the Early Childhood Development Framework in partnership with the

Department of Health and Social Services within the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

Monitoring of Education Councils

Twenty ministerial directives give Northwest Territories education councils detailed direction on the requirements of the Education Act.

In 2010, the Auditor General examined how well the Department of Education, Culture and Employment monitored councils’ compliance with the reporting requirements of the directive of an Aboriginal language and culture-based education (ALCBE). The Auditor General found poor information in reports and lack of follow-up by ECE.

The Auditor General recommended that the department:

• follow up on corrective actions taken by

education councils;

• develop a strategy and timetable for assessing

the effectiveness of education directives; and

• strengthen the reporting requirements for the

ALCBE directive.

The Auditor General considers progress on the monitoring of education councils to be satisfactory, and the standing committee encourages the department to continue its progress in this area.

In the follow-up audit, the Auditor General found that ECE reviews and provides feedback on some reports received from education councils. More follow-up is still required. The department has also established a schedule for assessing the effectiveness of directives, and developed a new reporting template for the Aboriginal language and culture-based education directive that requires more detailed data from schools.

Monitoring of Adult Literacy and Basic Education Programming

In 2010, the Auditor General examined how the Department of Education, Culture and Employment monitors Aurora College’s compliance with the adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) directive and found that many of Aurora College’s reports had limited data on results achieved.

The Auditor General recommended that the department, in collaboration with Aurora College, should:

• establish key performance indicators and

targets for expected results for ALBE programs;

• review the reporting requirements of the ALBE

directive to ensure key information is being collected;

• monitor adherence to reporting requirements;

and

• take action to improve program results.

During the follow-up audit, the Auditor General found the evaluation of the ALBE program is underway for completion by December 2011. The ALBE review was completed in December 2011 and was reviewed by the Standing Committee on Social Programs.

Although the department has not yet fully implemented the recommendations of the 2010 audit, the Auditor General considers ECE’s progress on monitoring adult literacy and basic education programming to be satisfactory, and recommended that the department develop implementation plans for the recommendations where progress is incomplete.

The standing committee concurs with the recommendation, but remains concerned about the measurement of results for the ALBE program. During the public hearing the department minister of ECE indicated that one obstacle to better monitoring and reporting in this area is Aurora College’s obsolete student record system. The ALBE review also revealed that the program does not have adequate financial information available with which to make more effective and directed programming allocation decisions, in part because of the inconsistent and non-standardized reporting systems that currently exist.

Given the continuing low levels of adult literacy in the Northwest Territories, and the relationship of literacy to many social and economic indicators, it is critical that the government’s funds be spent on effective adult education programming, and that the government has efficient and reliable means to measure program effectiveness.

Recommendation 8

The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends:

1. that the Department of Education, Culture

and Employment develop implementation plans for the Auditor General’s recommendations on adult literacy and basic education for which progress today is incomplete, with specific goals, targets, action items, timelines for achieving results and indicators for measuring progress; and

2. that the Department of Education, Culture

and Employment develop and implement a plan for the improvement of data collection and quality, for adult literacy and basic education, student achievement and financial information in the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

I will now pass the floor back to the chair of the committee, the Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli, to conclude the report. Thank you.