Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The peer passing has been brought up on numerous occasions. There are mixed feelings about this from the parents, even from the educators, due to research that has been done nationally and internationally that peer passing is benefitting those students and so forth. There are mixed reactions to this.

Within our department we’re doing what we can to assist those individuals so they can achieve or be prepared for a workforce environment. We know that post-secondary is not for everybody. Some students would prefer going straight to the workforce once they receive their certification. That’s what we’ve been focusing on. I’ll get my acting DM to just elaborate more on the peer passing that’s been in play and where it’s at and where we should be going with that.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Iatridis.

Thank you, Ms. Iatridis. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My next question to the department would be: Do they have a defined policy on social passing?

Would the department be willing to supply that to all Members?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The revised version of 2006 we can certainly provide that for Members for their review.

If there’s not a defined formal policy on social passing, where does it come up in the dialogue or policies under ECE? Where is it referenced? It seems to be an acknowledged policy or informal policy, so it must come up on something.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Ms. Iatridis.

I’d like to request a copy of that ministerial directive, if possible, to be given to all Members.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Lafferty.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I’ve already committed to that.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a significant issue with a number of Members here

and I’m glad we’re starting to have this type of discussion. I would like to now move a committee motion on page 10-17 and I will read it as follows:

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We’ll just allow a minute here for the motion to circulate to the committee members.

A motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I anticipate other Members will speak to this particular motion, but it has caused concerns of parents that I have spoken to in the riding, as well as I’ve mentioned my colleagues have expressed concerns. Since I have been an MLA I’ve heard this numerous times in committee. I don’t think this is a bureaucracy problem, but I think this is something that we could re-engineer and ask ourselves why are we doing this and are we setting our students up for the best abilities going forward in the future. I recognize that this dovetails into the Inclusive Schooling Policy and that is why it is part of the motion, but what the question really comes down to are we really helping them.

I have had parents tell me they have asked for their children to be held back. For specific reasons, the schools do not want to. They keep referencing Inclusive Schooling Policy or other particular reasons and say it’s better to keep the kids with their peers. That said, yes, I couldn’t fully disagree that that doesn’t have some benefits. With that said, I’m not sure that we’re giving the kids the best start. This type of positioning should be cause to re-examine why we are doing this and re-evaluate our policies, and that said, it would be best preferred and recommended that we discontinue it at this particular time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to lend my support to this motion. It speaks about the functional grade level that the Alberta Achievement Test showed us sometime in March. It talked about the grade levels in our small communities, that we are measured at a lower grade level than the larger centres and that in the small communities students were graded or measured lower than, far too low than my expectations compared to the regional centres and

Yellowknife. That is totally unacceptable and if the social passing has some contributing factors to those low score levels, than we need to make some changes.

For example, through the Alberta Achievement Test, the Grade 9 students were very low in our communities. Only 15 percent of Grade 9 had shown an acceptable standard in the English language arts compared to 53 in regional centres and 61 in Yellowknife. Small communities also showed that 12.1 percent of Grade 9 students have achieved acceptable standards in mathematics compared to 40 percent in regional and 38 percent in Yellowknife.

We have a high level of low standards in our community. Many of our students who are graduating from high school are requiring upgrades before they enter college or university. Even when they enter into the workforce, they require extra training and extra schooling. The data suggests that it is the results of social passing, particularly with respect to high school students and a number of students who are exempt from taking the AAT, the Alberta Achievement Test. Many would be exempted because they would be two or three years below the enrolment of their grade level.

The Alberta Achievement Test results are terrible. The data says nothing why this is the case. The performance of school and the education system is obviously one potential reason, but there are many other social factors that contribute to the child’s success in the school. We have been trying to deal with that in the last eight years since I have been an MLA. This is my ninth year. There is a real difference between the Alberta Achievement Test and the functional grade level. I think that the government, the department needs to start looking at the social passing issue and get our students a fair chance in life and in this world to make it and not to allow this to continue when we have communities that are struggling, communities that we celebrate at graduation every year.

As we sit there, we think well, this child has to go back to school next year. These Grade 12 students only have to take one Grade 12 subject to get a diploma. That is not fair, Mr. Chairman. They should be able to take Grade 12 courses to be in Grade 12. Students do not have to…almost a norm, an acceptability that once you take your Grade 12 you would have to upgrade even to go to work unless you are very committed, strong parents, strong discipline to say I am going to take more than what is expected of me so I can go into university or college.

The social program passing, we need to change that. It might take awhile, but in the long run it will help us. It will help us with our students. We have to start somewhere. I have been an MLA for nine years. I can see it every year. I go back. The

leaders tell me that the students who have graduated are walking around with hands in their pockets in town. I heard it two years ago. I heard it last year, and say how come our education system…

We are pumping a lot of money into our education system. There might be some concerns that students who are 16 might be in Grade 4 or 5 and that is the issue we have to face in our school. We are not really doing any service to our children.

For myself the social passing is the easy way to get a diploma. It is a soft way. I think we need to make some changes that when a child enters into our education system, you know that child coming out at Grade 12 has a Grade 12 solid diploma and that Grade 12 diploma could get you into university, college or get into the workforce and say yes, that is a good school and the world will go around, that education is solid in the Northwest Territories. It is solid in our communities. They could go right into a university or college program in our community.

This motion hopefully will kick-start that long-term planning, struggle and work with the issues that need to be worked with. I look at that not only as an MLA here but also as a parent. It is a very fine line. Where does the MLA take a backseat and the parent comes out? Where does the parent come and take a backseat and the MLA comes out? That is a very fine line that I play, Mr. Chairman. I am very concerned. I have many constituents whose parents also have this issue with social passing, so much that they are sending kids out to Hay River, Yellowknife, Fort Smith and Edmonton because they are saying our education in our communities is not the way we want.

In closing, I take this analogy of also training my son to be a hunter or trapper. I would train him properly and train him so that when he is done at 16 or 14, I know he could survive on the land; not that I have to worry so much about him. That’s how I look at my education for my son on the land. That I could leave him there and he could survive and he’ll know how to hunt, he’ll know how to trap off the land. That’s what we need to look at for education for our children, but once they finish Grade 12 you’ll know that they can write a formula on how to get a mathematical problem, they know the formula and won’t have to take their computer or their calculator and say here it is, but they can actually explain a formula to me and they can write their name and they know that they can get a good job.

So we’ve got to be very, very serious about education. That’s how I look at it when I put it into the context of being on the land with my son, train him well that I know that if I die tomorrow that he will be okay and he can make it in the world. So that for me is an education and that’s how we need to look at our high school education.

Social passing for me, I think we’re taking the shortcut. That’s for me. My son is worth more than a shortcut to his education. So that’s why I’m supporting this motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Speaking to the motion I have Mr. Bromley.

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.