Mr. Speaker, our work on Education Renewal and Innovation is well underway, with more feedback, information and support coming forward as we share our work with northern stakeholders and experts in the field.
As you know, we have held extensive engagements with many of our stakeholders, including our education partners. This inclusive approach has continued into the development of the action plan. As we speak, the ERI team is out in the communities and regions talking to the public, teachers, parents and students. Early feedback from these meetings is very positive and people are engaged and asking good questions. All this feedback will help shape our three-year action plan.
Because we have heard from many education authorities that we need to get out into the communities, the finalization of the action plan will be a little delayed. I now expect the draft action plan to be ready this fall, coinciding with the development of business plans.
Mr. Speaker, education is changing around the world. Studies and research are emerging daily on
the need for change, that our children are not prepared for the world today. We agree, and we are gratified to learn that others do as well.
In fact, we are hearing from national and world leaders in education and related fields, providing us feedback on our proposed approach.
This past January some of you had the opportunity to meet Dr. Stuart Shanker, a world authority on self-regulation. He wrote:
“My immediate thought when I read Directions for Change was that it presents us with an inspiring “vision for the future” that applies to all children in Canada. Directions for Change will not only shape the future of the NWT but will, I hope, be read and embraced by the entire country.”
We recently also received a letter from Dr. Allan Luke, an international leader in education research. In his letter he indicates that the work he is doing in Australia strongly supports the approach we are taking:
“We have a decade of evidence from Australia but also from the U.S. and New Zealand systems that “back to basics” approaches – no matter how appealing to many – simply do not begin to address the core issues that, I believe, your Directions for Change
document
addresses head on… What is so laudable about your work is that it is “whole scale” – at the system and school level. It offers a realistic but positive overview of challenges, and then proceeds to provide a larger template for moving schools and classrooms, teachers and administrators, students and communities forward.”
Mr. Speaker, this is the feedback we are receiving from experts that live and breathe educational change. To see these words volunteered to us after a review of our Directions for Change is emphatic reinforcement that we are doing good work, it is work we need to do, and work that is moving in the right direction.
I will be tabling a collection of northern, national and international comments on the framework later today. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.