Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Yes, the Aboriginal language, obviously we’re starting to see results on whether it be the immersion programs, the early learning programming on the language. There have been some pilot projects in the communities. Now we’re pushing more into the communities and regions. We are starting to see results. It’s a very excellent initiative that we are working with our partners across the Northwest Territories.
When we talk about the passing peer placement, we’ve heard from various community members, elders, educators, parents, when we did the forum on Aboriginal student achievement, and we’ve heard mixed reactions from the general public. Some support, some not supporting. So through the educational renewal we want to tackle this area, how we can best mitigate that. Obviously, through my department, as it stands now, the policy does not prevent schools from retaining or holding back students if deemed appropriate or agreed upon by their parents. So it is a parent’s wish if they want to retain that student, their child back or move them forward. So we work closely with the district education council and also the authority and also with the parents and educators on what’s best for the child, to hold them back or pass with their peers. That has been ongoing for a number of years now. As I stated, there’s been mixed reaction. We’re doing the best we can to work with that, with our partners.
The JK, obviously, we provide options, in the Member’s riding as well, that they opt out. The review is underway, and based on the review, that should be available by this summer. Based on that it would have to be decided upon for the future of how it’s going to look for junior kindergarten to be delivered as of 2017 and onwards.
Income support worker, there was one in Tsiigehtchic, as the Member alluded to, a while
ago. There have been some increases in caseloads in some of the communities. I’ll have to check if Tsiigehtchic is one of them; I can’t be sure at this point, I don’t have the information in front of me, but we will be gathering that information if a caseload is high in that region. If it is, then we are identifying some of the income security workers to these communities that are in high caseloads in addition to the workforce that they have. So now, obviously Tsiigehtchic is served out of Fort McPherson, so we’ll gather more information on that.
SFA, obviously the policy that we have is that in order to qualify for SFA you’ve got to have three courses or higher, and that’s been the standard process for quite some time now. Yes, I understand where the Member’s coming from that we need to support all students. There are a variety of subsidy programs as well. SFA is just one of the key areas. There’s the Labour Market Agreement that we have with the federal government that supports those individuals who want to pursue, whether it be the trades access or other programming and there’s also, at the community level, access programming. Then there are a couple more programs that are out there that we encourage those individuals to access as well. With SFA we will be coming back to the standing committee with some changes that we want to undertake as we move forward for short-term and long-term strategy. So, I will be presenting to standing committee on proposed changes that will benefit and also attract our students to come back to the North.
Small community employment has been very successful to date and we continue to support that project as well. We continue to make it a priority for my department on the long-term plans, as well, because it is building capacity at a community level, even at the regional level.
So, Mr. Chair, those are just some of the remarks for the Member. Mahsi.