Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Junior kindergarten for four-year-olds is recognized across the country as one of the best ways to provide quality, free and optional care for our children. Junior kindergarten is especially beneficial for parents and caregivers in 10 of our smallest communities where no licenced child care exists. Junior kindergarten will provide young children with a hands-on play-based program offered in our schools to support their development and learning.
Since junior kindergarten was announced at the start of this session, some questions have been raised about how junior kindergarten will be funded. Mr. Speaker, as with all government programs, we must be fiscally responsible in how we make investments in important and necessary programs such as junior kindergarten. As previously stated,
the department will be re-profiling existing K to 12 school contribution funding in order to implement junior kindergarten. This re-profiled funding will come from readjusting the current K to 12 pupil-teacher ratio, or PTR, for communities that have more than 120 full-time students.
We chose this approach to ensure that our smallest communities do not experience a reduction in their overall funding for teacher staffing because of junior kindergarten. This is important because small communities already experience unique challenges that are not as common in our larger communities, like having one teacher teaching multiple grades in one classroom.
Mr. Speaker, the legislated territorial PTR is 16 to 1. Over the past several years, the K to 12 education system has been funded above this level by approximately $11 million annually. This represents a territorial PTR of approximately 13 to 1. This means there is already flexibility that will allow education authorities to redirect funding to implement junior kindergarten without significantly affecting the K to 12 education program. We project that once junior kindergarten is fully implemented across the territory in 2016-2017, the territorial average PTR will remain under the legislated 16 to 1 and will be closer to 14.5 to 1.
As is to be expected in a territory with widely varying community sizes, the proposed changes will not impact all education authorities the same way. The two Yellowknife education authorities – Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools – were projected to have their respective funding reduced in a way that would mean they, individually, would exceed the territorial average PTR level of 16 to 1. It is important to note that the Education Act speaks to PTR at a territorial level, not at an education authority level. But it is true that Yellowknife schools would have a greater challenge than other schools in implementing junior kindergarten.
Mr. Speaker, in an effort to make the implementation of junior kindergarten a success in all of our communities, this government will commit to ensuring that the funding provided to each respective education authority meets or exceeds the territorial PTR level of 16 to 1. Anything above and beyond the 16 to 1 PTR level will be subsidized by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. This will ensure that the introduction of junior kindergarten does not threaten the success of our K to 12 education program. We will continue to work with our education partners to make the implementation of junior kindergarten a success in all our communities.
Mr. Speaker, we are committed to doing what is right for the children of this territory, and junior kindergarten is clearly the right thing to do. We all agree on that. This government is also committed
to operating in a fiscally responsible manner, because even doing the right thing costs money. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
