Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Education Minister has been talking about reforming our school system and we are sure it can be improved. We also need to fully support education councils that are making positive changes to help their students.
They have a very good example of this in the Beaufort-Delta. The education council has successfully grown and improved its e-learning program. The schools are using the…(inaudible)…on-line platform and the telehealth system to broadcast courses from Inuvik to three smaller schools. After sorting out the best systems, video and audio quality is now very clear. This should bring better and more varied courses to students in small communities.
Fifteen academic courses have been developed. This also makes very efficient use of our teachers. Even so, students in the smaller schools still need support to succeed.
We have a great opportunity to inspire students through new technology. We are showing our young people that their home community, no matter how small, is not isolated from the rest of the world.
I am told that 15 students in Fort McPherson and Tuktoyaktuk are now taking e-learning academic courses at their local schools. It should be available to the rest of the schools in the Northwest Territories also.
E-learning is efficient, but there are still costs such as course development, teacher training, additional training classroom assistance, dedicated Internet connections, computer software and hardware. There are probably a couple of things that I’ve overlooked.
In the long run, e-learning is likely to save money. For example, high school students will be able to stay in their home communities longer instead of going to Inuvik. The Beaufort-Delta has four year-round fly-in communities with very high costs of living, and two more fly-in about half the time, but the Beaufort-Delta Education Council is actually cheaper to run than some other agencies.
On a per student basis, it costs about the same as it does in the French schools in Yellowknife and Hay River. In the Sahtu region, it costs about $4,000 or more per student –
