Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is new from what we’ve heard. When we had the Aboriginal Languages Symposium we heard from various stakeholders and the general public that we need to do something about our language preservation and revitalization. They wanted us to have a system in place similar to the Languages Bureau that we had back in the 1990s. This is a similar set-up where we have an associate director in that position in the past, a director of official languages, and having a couple key staff within the museum to work very closely with the language groups. We also provide funding directly to the language groups to have a coordinator approach. This is a fairly new initiative that we’ve established. We’re at the preliminary stages but we want to make some changes that will benefit the communities. If I missed out on key points, maybe my deputy can elaborate more in detail.
Debates of March 5th, 2015
This is page numbers 5977 – 6020 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was plan.
Topics
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Eggenhofer
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the Member is right. It is new. What we’re trying out is to see if housing the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat together with the people in the museum who work so much around cultural preservation and cultural activity, whether there is going to be some synergies having Aboriginal language together with culture. It was generally quite well received. We’re monitoring closely to see if there’s a good fit. It could be equally as good a fit to have the secretariat as part of our curriculum development folks because we’re also providing language and culture through our schools. There’s no real science to it but we thought for the time being let’s see if it works.
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Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that response. It’s good to learn a little bit about that. I guess I would just ask, are they physically in the museum and is that taking up space and is there a budget allocation to the museum to help support that, or is it more a virtual administration by the museum staff?
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Eggenhofer
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Originally the plan was to have the associate director sit in the museum, but I think there was some feedback we received around the office space encroaching on the space in the museum that was used by the public in order to see maps and stuff. There was a bit of space in the Lahm Ridge Tower, so we moved the secretariat back into the Lahm Ridge Tower and now there is full access of the public to the space in the museum.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the deputy minister for that response. My next question is in the area of early childhood development and learning. I mentioned I was very pleased to see the $1.24 million investment into this program. I wonder if I could get some specifics on what the intention is with these dollars and confirmation that these are new dollars. So, are these new dollars and where they’re going, and maybe I’ll just throw out another part to the question on the financial side. I don’t see this reflected in the budget. The budget, in fact, has gone down from the revised estimates for the current fiscal year, so I’m just wondering how this fits with that situation. Three parts to that question.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Lovely
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Early Childhood Development Action Plan has $1.24 million allocated towards that. That was money that
was internally reallocated from other areas within the department. In terms of what we are planning to do this fiscal year, there is some money set aside for EDI data collection and GIS mapping, public campaigns, iPads, senior secondary child development course, the early childhood program review, the early learning framework and integrated play-based curriculum, ECD symposium for daycares, competency-based assessment of early childhood development workers, and development of monitoring, evaluation and accountability plan.
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Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you for those details. Of course, I’m horrified to see more iPads out there. I know that’s going to hurt us more than it helps us. I still haven’t had an explanation. Was this reallocated from inside the early development and learning program? Have they taken the early development and learning program dollars and reallocated them to early development and learning programs?
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Lovely
The $1.24 million was reallocated from inclusive schooling a number of years ago, and this is, I believe, the third year of the ECD Action Plan.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Bob Bromley Weledeh
When the Minister highlighted this in his opening remarks, this budget proposes an investment of $1.24 million. These dollars, in fact, were proposed and implemented several years ago. Is that correct?
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Lovely
That is correct. However, it’s the continued implementation of the Early Childhood Development Action Plan. As we stated earlier, that’s year three of this action plan.
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Just moving on to education operations and development, let’s see if I can get through this smoke and mirrors here too. Just on student achievement, obviously, the slight rise. I think the deputy minister had it right. One data point does not make a trend. What other monitoring do we do on student achievement and do we have other sources of information other than the EDI?
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Eggenhofer
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The primary measures are the graduation rates. They are the AAT results, and we are monitoring those closely. What we will have soon, I hope, as part of the ERI Action Plan and the 18 actions that are in this plan, all of which are geared to improve student achievements, that plan will be supported by an overall monitoring and evaluation plan that we are currently working on with the education authorities, because we want to be sure we are identifying the right kind of indicators and the right kind of performance measures, and we can’t do that in isolation. We want to do it together with our superintendents to make sure we all are in agreement that we’re measuring the right kinds of
things in order to know whether the implementation of the actions under the ERI Action Plan accomplish what they have set out to accomplish.
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Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow through on the early childhood but I’ll leave that, I think. No, I have to ask the question again. The certificate that we are currently issuing through Aurora College for early childhood educators, how portable is that to other jurisdictions within Canada?
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Jackson Lafferty Monfwi
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I believe my deputy answered that, where through our partner from the southern institution it is an accredited program that’s transferrable to other jurisdictions across Canada. Dealing with universities from southern institutions, they are recognized from other provincial jurisdictions as well. Once we deliver that program here in the Northwest Territories, through our affiliated university partners, they are recognized in other places as well. Mahsi.
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Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m really confused. This is a one-year course, I think, or less. I’m not sure. It may be recognized as being part of a course in the South, but can I get a certificate here in the NWT, go to a daycare or an early childhood facility in Alberta, for instance, in Edmonton, and be accepted as a fully trained early childhood educator and meet the requirements of an Alberta certification to be an early childhood educator? Thank you.
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters