I just want to thank the mover and the seconder on this motion here. We’re talking about education, which has been a long-standing issue in this government. This is not something new. Over the years, as an MLA, and as the Minister is well aware – this issue is not new to him – we’ve been talking about the quality of education for a long time. Whether it’s in Yellowknife or it’s in the small communities such as Colville Lake, we’ve been talking about the quality of our education and the quality of our certificates that we give our Grade 12 students, called diplomas.
When I read that we’re the lowest in Canada in regard to our schooling, our education quality, that is shocking. I want to say to the parents and to the Ministers, would we stand for this. Are we going to stand for this? I know parents in southern Canada would not stand for this. If you’re educated, you grew up in southern Canada, you would have a high quality of education. Parents would not stand for this. Why are we standing for this in the Northwest Territories? It’s not okay.
Parents down in the southern parts of Canada will say, what’s wrong with you guys. Why are you doing this to your children? Stand up, for Pete’s sake, and fight for them. We won’t stand for it in Ontario, B.C., Alberta. It’s ludicrous.
I think that’s a real challenge to us, because we’ve got some really smart kids in the North. Some of them are really good. They sacrifice, they do the work, and they make it through. They make it
through to university or college. Good for them. Good for the parents. They sacrificed. They know. But our indicators and our records show that that does not happen, especially in the smaller communities where Mr. Dolynny has mentioned. It’s pathetic when you see students that are falling behind. It’s pathetic that we’re allowing this to happen. We as legislators, the ones who put their X beside us and said do something about this, that’s what our job is.
I think we’ve really got to rethink and reload. I mean, there were students around this table here that had gone into the old system, Grandin College, Grollier Hall, Akaitcho. I talked about that in my Member’s statement, that we’ve come out okay. We had to sacrifice, but we had to sacrifice to get a good education, so when we graduated, we knew that it was a good Grade 12 diploma, and you can take it to the bank and say cash this in because I have a career. I don’t have to go down to the loans and say I need another year; lend me some more so I can pay off my debt. We had good education but it was at a sacrifice. That’s what I’m talking about. We’ve got to emphasize that.
The young people, how is it that when you first take your children to school, they’re all excited? They want to learn. You know, kindergarten, Grade 1, 2, but over the years, somehow, they seem to regress, and after a while, in Grade 10 or 11, they’re like this and hard to talk to. They don’t really want to share. How is it that they move through that system? I don’t know. I mean, something happens. Where is that excited 6-year-old, 7-year-old, 8-year-old, all excited to learn, all that energy? Is it our system that dampens that spirit and soul, and that shuts down their individuality and creativity and spontaneity? And we’re just telling them they will acquire this information and gain this knowledge. I don’t know. There’s some real serious thinking here. How do we take care of this in our school system?
Three more points I want to touch on. This motion is about our system here and it’s about the relationship with families and involving the families into our school system. The real education begins at home, about values, belief and hard work and sacrifice. We cannot just send our kids and say to the teachers, take care of them for the next six hours. And by the way, little Johnny needs this, this and this, he doesn’t like this, he doesn’t want this. We have to be there with them. We have to be there with the teachers. They have enough on their hands to teach the children. We’ve got to build that relationship with the families.
We certainly learned a good lesson when the government implemented the residential school system, but we need to move from that and say that’s no longer there, and move to a new system of
saying we want the families involved. How do we involve the families? There are ways.
My last two points, and again, one of the Members brought it up. It’s no different for us being legislators in this government here. If we’re not here, then we miss important information. It’s no different than attendance. You can have the best curriculum, but if you don’t have the student there, it doesn’t do us any good. It’s just like a sports team, I said at one time. If you’re not practicing with the team and you only want to come when the games are, it’s not good. You’re missing key pieces of the information to be a good player. Just like school. You’ve got to show up to grow up and to be there. That’s really, really key. That’s what we’ve got to stress, and that’s how we’ve got to work with the families.
My last point is that we need to do something new. It was done in the old TEST program in Inuvik with the skiing program. We have to look at something like that where it involves sports in school and it does wonders. We should have a TEST program in our school or one of our regions or something, so we can use sports as a means to put a group of students through a school system where they can excel at a national/international level. We had the first sisters, the Allens, the Lennies, the Cooks. We have all these great skiers. I say that we have wonderful athletes, also, so we could look at a TEST program that would help with our education.
I thank the mover and seconder for bringing this very important motion to the floor to have some discussion. I certainly look forward to working with the government on how to develop something within the next two years that could raise the numbers of our students in Canada and not be the lowest. It’s not good to be at the bottom. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.