Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very happy to rise and support this motion. As people probably know, I have a bit of a passion for education. The intent of this Education Renewal Initiative is to use the most current educational research finding and promising practices of the 21
Century. That’s the intent. I’m not sure we’re getting there, but we will.
Education systems are very complex and changing them requires multiple concurrent initiatives. It requires motivation and collaborations if we are to make the change successful. Given the additional layers of complexities in the NWT, it’s even more important to ensure that we get the process right at the beginning, that we ensure that all the necessary partners are at the table, to make sure that NWT students are given the best opportunities for success, that the final product is going to make a difference, that it will be welcomed by students, staff and community members, and it’s even more critical as we move from the framework that we have now seen tabled into the action plan which the Minister tells us is coming.
From my conversation with educators on the front line, so to speak, the teachers in the classrooms,
the principals, board members and so on, I hear that they have not been rigorously consulted; never mind rigorously consulted, they haven’t even been consulted in the development of the framework. That must be changed as the department goes to producing this action plan. Every teacher, every parent, every school trustee must get a copy of the framework to provide input into the action plan as we go forward. Any education renewal should be ongoing, it should be local and it should be continuous.
Most education renewal across North America is based not only on research findings, but also rely on relations with university and experts in university, professors and experts in educational reform. I don’t know, but I would hope that the NWT has engaged educational research experts to provide guidance on this huge project, to take advantage of the experience and the knowledge of education experts that are out there. I hope that the department will continue to use experts for peer review through the development of an action plan and then the implementation of that action plan. It’s extremely important that we are working on a plan, but we are also getting it reviewed by people who do this work and to make sure that we’re going in the right direction. We often say we have to get it right and we have to get it right from the start. Well, this is a case where any action plan that we put forward for the next 10 years has to be right in year one, not right in year five.
We have some examples of connections that we already have with our experts. We have a relationship between the University of Saskatchewan and our NWT Teacher Education Program. Have we engaged the people at the U of S in this Education Renewal Initiative? I don’t know. I haven’t seen that in any of the literature that I’ve seen.
A question that I haven’t got an answer to, as well, is whether or not the ERI document was peer reviewed before it was tabled and/or made public.
I have some other concerns about the Education Renewal Initiative. Where did the education authorities fit in this process? How does ECE expect to address the responsibilities that fall directly under the education authorities? How will the department ensure the accountability of the education authorities? And we heard that question from the Auditor General’s report on education a couple of years ago.
There’s mention many times in the ERI document of training of teachers and educational staff. Will the financial resources be there for these ongoing training sessions? Will the teachers be given the time away from their regular classroom and other duties in order to take the training?
There are a number of items in the ERI document that can’t be measured. Community involvement is
one. There’s a fairly large section on the commitment of the department to involve teachers in the community, to involve the community and the schools, but I don’t know how ECE expects to monitor that and how they expect to encourage that. It’s a very difficult thing to tell a community that this is what you have to do.
Junior kindergarten is a concern. You heard about that yesterday, and the motion states that we need to substantially increase and improve community-based, GNWT-supported early childhood development programs and resources to support them. I absolutely believe that and I do not believe that junior kindergarten is aptly named an Early Childhood Development program.
Attendance is not addressed in the ERI document. That’s a concern for me and it’s been identified as one of the major barriers to student success. That’s been acknowledged by the Education department itself and it’s been acknowledged certainly by Members on this side of the House. That needs to be addressed better in the ERI document as we go forward.
The timing of the implementation of this major change is a concern for me. From what I understand, the department is looking at implementing this change beginning in September of 2014 and that’s a really short time frame. We have a framework and this is the beginning of November, we have less than a year in which to develop an action plan, set all the parameters in place to put that action plan into place and I think it’s a very short time frame. It’s going to have a huge impact on teachers in our schools. If you consider that it’s September 2014, we’ve got new teachers potentially in some schools, it’s the beginning of a new year, which is always a very stressful time, we’re going to have new materials for them because there are plans to change curriculum quite a bit and there’s going to be additional reporting because that’s suggested in the ERI document.
Research suggests that the biggest, most consistent factor in student success is a good teacher and I have major concerns that teachers are going to be negatively impacted by the ERI document if we implement it in haste, if we implement it sooner than what it should be.
I am concerned that if we’re not careful, what started as a genuine effort to renew education in the NWT will instead result in increased teacher workloads and increased teacher stress as the teachers try to make up for the gap that’s been caused by the reduction in services and funding. We have to be careful that this Education Renewal Initiative does not end up putting the responsibility for implementation and success on the plates of school authorities and school staff.
The bottom line is that teacher stress and burnout not only affects the teacher, but it also inevitably affects the learning environment and interferes with educational goals. From that we get kids who can’t succeed.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am fully in support of this motion. I do believe that we need to have concrete targets as is itemized in the first operative clause. I do believe that we need to improve our community-based, GNWT-supported Early Childhood Development program. I do believe that we need to involve communities and parents and teachers more in the further development of this ERI and I do believe we need a response from the government in 120 days.
With that, I urge my colleagues to support the motion. Thank you.