Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that, we’ll go to Ms. Martin.

We can. Mr. Bromley, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of the early childhood development and learning, the $8.243 million, the top line, I’m wondering what amount is going to the implementation of junior kindergarten.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate that information. That is the larger one there, $131 million. Could I just find out what amount we are putting into junior kindergarten this year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We will just give the department a second to figure that one out. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We have been talking about rolling out the program, phase one, two and three approach. We are at around $7 million over a three-year period. Mahsi.

Mr. Chair, I guess maybe I will go somewhere else here for a minute and maybe come back to that.

What I’m hearing from people in the field, so to speak, that are delivering programs related to this sort of thing, I’m looking at early childhood development and so on, there’s a great concern as I think we have already heard that attention will be…because there’s not extra funding being provided for this, attention will be taken away from those with special needs and other categories of students that require a particular amount of

attention. They tell me that really it’s not so big a deal in the small communities because there is a small number of students there, so it won’t be a big impact and there is a very high per capita investment in small communities, both of those compared to the larger centres and in particular Yellowknife where there is a very large number of students. We know that the net funding will be negative, for example, for YK1, and at the same time, it will be accepting 120 new students.

An example I have heard that the Four Plus program at Weledeh school for example, a very important program. I’m sure the Minister would agree. For young children that are referred by public health or are coming from a socially disadvantaged situation, and again a great concern that that program will suffer because of the junior kindergarten, so the net benefits, again, will be low. Could the Minister explain to me again how that is going to be looked after without any investment whatsoever in the larger centres like Yellowknife? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, the Member talked about those individual children with special needs. Obviously, we are currently reviewing inclusive schooling. That’s a particular program to focus on those individuals with special needs. We’ll do what we can through the review process to capture those individuals even more, strengthening the programming itself. That is currently under review.

Also, the Member talked about the community delivering age four programming and other programming. We are currently introducing junior kindergarten for four-year-olds. This is an area that we feel that it could be utilized in the school system because there is low enrolment throughout the Northwest Territories, more specifically in Yellowknife as well. Those are some of the areas that we have targeted that we can work with the schools and work with the school boards.

Through the engagement, the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, early childhood development engagement on that, educational renewal, we have heard over and over that we need to start from a very young age. This is an area that research has told us to focus on the junior kindergarten area. This is the best way to go. Through the research that we have conducted, we feel that we need to move forward.

We have heard from Members, also, that there are some students who are entering kindergarten. Some can’t spell or read or verbally they can’t communicate due to the fact that we need to start even younger. That is an area that we are working very closely with the Department of Health and Social Services. Part of the focus, of course, early childhood is a very healthy programming is zero to three. We are working closely with them on that.

We want to capture all realms. This is a four-year-old that we are going to capture. Mahsi.

Mr. Chair, I’m just about out of time; I have to get back on the list here. I’m hearing from professionals that there are concerns that there are programs already in place for four-year-olds’ special needs type situations. Given the lack of investment in these added responsibilities in large centres like Yellowknife will, in fact, cause the resources to be attracted away from these important special needs four-year-old programs such as the Four Plus program at Weledeh school. I’m just telling the Minister. At this point, I’m hoping that he will be very alert to that. I hope he is recognizing the strident calls from all quarters to invest in this, rather than take away resources and use them. There may be some degree of that that is warranted.

I agree with the Minister that there are some potential gains to be had here that the evidence suggests, not as much as the zero to three but the Minister has decided to shoot his target at four-year-olds. So be it, but there are some overwhelming studies and evidence that says only if it is a high quality program delivered by fully trained ECE workers. Can the Minister tell me that every small community will have at least one fully trained, fully qualified up to federal standards, not our lower standards, ECE workers before the community program goes in?

Mr. Chair, obviously that is our overall goal and objective, to have qualified people to look after our most vulnerable children under their care. Currently, we work with the college. Obviously, Members have stated that we should be delivering a high-class early childhood development certification diploma or degree program. That is an area we are currently focusing on as a long-term plan. Currently, we have some stats on number of individuals that are working within the early childhood programming that have either certification, diploma, degrees, even teacher degrees. Mind you, some of them do not have those credentials. We are going to focus on those individuals, if we can have professionals working with them. Those are some of the areas that we have highlighted. We are fully aware of it. We want highly trained professionals to deal with our vulnerable children in our school system. We are, as the Member indicated, fully alert of these different professions that should be looking after our kids. We are working at that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Bromley, I put you back on the list, as you indicated. Just to give Members an idea, we have Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Moses in the order. We will go to Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Chair, as Mr. Bromley stated, this is a huge section. I appreciate that you are

allowing us to come back and ask different sets of questions, because there is every one of these three sections we could spend a good five minutes on.

It’s kind of hard for me to know where to start, but I think I’ll start with some questions about the junior kindergarten, and I’ll follow up where Mr. Bromley left off, to a certain extent.

I read the activity descriptions and I look at the early childhood development and learning division, and it states program and curriculum development for children from early childhood through to Grade 3, and then under education operations and development division it talks about delivery of education for K to 12. There’s a bit of an overlap there and I’m a little confused about that overlap to begin with, but the other thing that I am not sure about is whether the department considers junior kindergarten to be an early childhood development initiative or whether they consider it to be an education school development. I’ve heard it placed in both places. It’s being funded out of school contributions, we’ve been told tonight, and yet I really am not sure where the department thinks it sits, so I’ll start with that, the contradiction in grades and just where does the department place junior kindergarten from a pedagogical perspective.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. As you’re aware, we were going through the Early Childhood Development Framework. The action plan has been developed, and part of the action plan, obviously, will capture the junior kindergarten. I understand where the Member is coming from. Where would it be situated, because we are currently using the PTR as part of the school contribution, so there’s ECD Action Plan, part of the recommendations brought to our attention, so junior kindergarten would capture that. At the same time, we are having this school contribution as part of PTR to offset the costs of introducing junior kindergarten. After a three-year period, the funding flow to the school boards will be based on the actual enrolment of those individuals that are in the junior kindergarten. Once that is taken into effect, I guess, at that time it will be part of the school contribution organization. That’s where it’s at right now. We’re at the preliminary stages at this point but we are moving forward in those two spectrums of ECD and school contributions, because the money has to come from PTR, but after a three-year period it will be part of the school contribution.

Thanks to the Minister. I have to say that I’m really concerned that we are not placing junior kindergarten where I believe it rightly belongs, in early childhood development. Placing it within the schools, albeit junior kindergarten is play-based and kindergarten will become more play-

based, and again, from a pedagogical perspective, it’s probably going to be taught differently, but putting it into schools and treating it like schools is, in my mind, quite dangerous, and I think there’s an opportunity for schools to treat junior kindergarten not like early childhood education but to treat it like school education, and that’s not where we want to go.

In terms of the funding, and this is just a minor thing, but I don’t understand why you can’t internally take the money from K to 12 PTR but place it in early childhood development. Just to say that it’s coming out of school contributions and after the three years to say that it’s absolutely going to be part of school contributions, again, just in my mind, contributes to the mindset that junior kindergarten is school, it’s not early childhood development, and again, I’m really concerned about that.

The other thing that I have to say about junior kindergarten, and Mr. Bromley kind of alluded to it, but I am very concerned that we don’t have… I know it’s early yet. It’s the end of February, and we’re talking about September, but still, I’m very concerned that we will not have qualified early childhood educators in our JK classrooms. Teachers are not early childhood educators. Not all of them. Some of them are if they’re specialized in that specialization. Music teachers are specialists. Early childhood educators are specialists. I think we are not quite prepared to properly teach junior kindergarten because we don’t have the early childhood educators that we need for these classrooms. I know that teachers are flexible and you can take a teacher and move them from one grade to another. You could probably take a kindergarten teacher and put them into a JK classroom and they would be fine, but you can’t take a Grade 3 teacher and do the same and expect them to fully understand early childhood education. There’s a difference between teaching elementary, teaching primary and early childhood.

I share Mr. Bromley’s concern, and he has asked the Minister if we’re going to have fully qualified to federal standards early childhood educators in our classrooms, and I didn’t hear from the Minister that we will. I heard that that’s where we want to go, what we want to have, but I didn’t hear from the Minister that that’s what we will have in September, and I again have to express some concerns about the quality of junior kindergarten that we’re going to be presenting to our small communities. We constantly say the small communities don’t get the same quality of education as the larger centres, and if we start off with that kind of, you know, well, it’s okay, we’ll make do with what we have, then we’re never going to get them up to the level where we think they should be. That’s a major concern for me.

I’d like to ask the Minister, I think I have heard in our conversations and debates that we’ve had to date, but I think I have heard that we’ve got spaces in our schools in our small communities now so we can just put junior kindergarten into the schools. That may be, and I’d like to know if the intent is to have a stand-alone junior kindergarten classroom in the schools where JK is going to be starting.

We are serious about qualifications, as well, for those professions that will be looking after our children, and junior kindergarten teachers obviously will be required to have the same basic qualifications as K to 12 NWT teachers. Most NWT teachers have a minimum of a Bachelor of Education degree, so that’s what we’re striving for, also the undergraduate degree in a specialized area, and a master’s degree. All junior kindergarten teachers will be required to be registered under the department’s ECE NWT teacher certification. The Member alluded to if there is going to be such training. All junior kindergarten teachers as well as kindergarten teachers of five-year-olds will receive training, resources, materials needed to deliver new NWT four to five-year-old kindergarten curriculum as early as this spring. In May and June 2014, those teachers will be identified by their educational authorities to receive such training. Another one will be offered, once we roll out the program in September, for those teachers that may be new to the NWT or have missed the spring session.

Those are just some of the areas that we will be conducting. We are looking at some of the schools as we realize the 29 schools do not have licenced child care programming, and we want to have those junior kindergarten with the kindergarten class, as well, because it’s play-based, and we’re going to have those qualified individuals working with them as teachers and then providing additional training that is required for those individuals so they can look after our children. We’re doing what we can to have those professionals in the field, and if we don’t have them then we’re going to provide that training.

Again, we are working with the college. This is over a three-year period and then on a long-term basis. We will be working closely with the college and with Health and Social Services and other agencies such as licenced child care operators and so forth. We will be providing those qualified teachers to look after our kids.

Unfortunately, Minister, that doesn’t give me any comfort at all. What I heard you say is that we’re going to require the same certification as other teachers, and what I am trying to say is that early childhood educators do not require the same certification as teachers. They may require a degree, but they require a degree in early childhood education, they don’t require a degree in teaching elementary or high school. They are different and I

really am concerned that here we are at the end of February, and I think the department is expecting that in September we are going to have people that are going to be qualified and trained to take on junior kindergarten and kindergarten, and I just don’t think that is on.

The other thing I heard you say is that we are going to train the people who are currently teaching in the authorities, so that tells me we are not going to be adding staff for junior kindergarten, that tells me we are going to be moving junior kindergarten students in with kindergarten students that are already there. In terms of numbers, it’s probably doable. Maybe there are 10 kids in kindergarten and you can add three or four JKs. Sure, from a numbers perspective that’s good, but from a teaching perspective and from an education perspective and a childhood development perspective, it’s not good. We need to have people who are able to differentiate between grade teaching and early childhood development. I am not sensing that the department is really willing to go there.

The other thing that really concerns me is that it’s difficult. I guess my question to the Minister is: How are you going to staff junior kindergarten? Are they going to be a stand-alone class or are they going to be combined with kindergarten students? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that particular question will have to depend on us working closely with the school boards. The infrastructure, the space availability within a school, so we would have to work out those logistics and as the Member indicated, we are in February, and September, so we do have some time to work with them as well. We have done our research and we have done analysis of the spaces that are available to us, and we have that information before us. Some of the information that Members… I totally agree with the Member that we need qualified professionals to deal with our children in the Northwest Territories and I can just highlight some of the areas where we have early childhood workers taking courses currently. Thirty-three of them. We have early childhood workers that have certification, 27 of them. We have early childhood diploma workers, 15 of them. Those early childhood workers with degrees, there are three of them. Obviously, we want to increase those degrees and diplomas and certification. We have some of those individuals that do not have post-secondary programming; that is around 31 in the small communities. So, Bachelor of Education is another seven individuals that are working within the system of licenced child care programming, so those are just some of the areas that we currently have. Again, we want to increase those numbers and that is what we will be doing as we move forward on the junior kindergarten and so forth.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Before we continue on with questions, committee, I just want to caution both the Members as well as the witnesses here, we are only getting about two or three questions in a 10-minute block. I will give lots of latitude to make sure that we cover this activity efficiently and effectively, but I would ask that we try to get a little bit more of the preamble down and more of the questions to the activities themselves. I am asking for your cooperation. In order I have Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These are interesting exchanges between the Minister and my colleagues. I wanted to ask the Minister, in regards to junior kindergarten, when we are looking at staffing these positions for this specific group of children, junior kindergarten, is the Minister also open to the flexibility of the small communities that we are going to be putting these programs in, to look at the strong Aboriginal culture component? We have teachers; they may just not be qualified in the eyes of the Department of Education and Culture. That could be into these schools, some of these teachers are well specialized in child development in their culture world point of view. Balance that with what we are trying to do. These are four-year-olds, you know, they are just developing and developing into life. I am trying to think of my little guy when he was four years old. His grandmother was around quite a bit to teach him, so I would want to ask the Minister, there are some strong components to some of these smaller communities. If they are unable to get the qualified teachers that we want, there are people in the communities that could come in as a teacher under the project here to work with the junior kindergartens in an Aboriginal context of child development. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The junior kindergarten, again, as I stated, is play-based programming and I’m glad the Member is referring to a culture base being part of the component. As the Member knows, we just introduced elders in schools, so we want to fully utilize those elders in schools, elders as part of the programming. One part of the learning themes is belonging, also becoming – those children are four-year-olds – to be independent, and learning areas such as living in a world, thinking, and also working, so those are just some of the patterns that will be taught as part of the four-year-old programming. The culture component, again, we want to utilize those elders in the school to work with those teachers. They are there as a resource and we want to fully take advantage of that. Obviously, I want to see more elders into our schools, to take advantage of these particular four-year-olds. They

can take them out on the land. I know they are a young age, but you have to start them somewhere. So, that is an area of focus for my department. Mahsi.