Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few remarks here. As my colleague said with the social committee, we were pretty much tasked with consulting with the communities here. It's a very difficult position we were put in. Many of the students weren't aware of everything that was being proposed. I think that's one important part to emphasize on because the parent should have known about this before it was even agreed to. I feel – I know we do have to do things a little differently. Many of our students are somewhere between two years behind grade level in some of our communities and it's a huge, huge concern of the parents especially up in the North. I know the department has done their research and the research does say that in the long term that this will benefit the students. I'm sure everyone will be keeping a close eye on this. It is a pilot project, a three-year pilot project, that we will be keeping a close eye on. I know it's most likely a longer term that we'll see the outcomes of this, but those are some of the concerns brought forward.
Also, a number of concerns are students in high school, especially with reduced hours once they graduate may not be ready to move on to post-secondary, and I'm hoping the department could assure us that that won't affect our grade 12 students moving forward. Also, the department did make some changes to JK, junior kindergarten. In the last year, it was working well. It was optional to the communities to offer junior kindergarten. Some of us MLAs here have Aboriginal Head Start programs that were successful for over 20 years in our communities. Now they're competing with junior kindergarten.
It is a very difficult position that they are being put in, themselves, having to scale back, whether it is staffing. Also, the funding that they receive is based on the attendance that they have, which has gone down because some students are attending junior kindergarten, whether it is in the morning or afternoon. That was also brought up. What we are told is junior kindergarten is now competing with Aboriginal Head Start, and for sure, junior kindergarten is going to win. Those are all brought to our attention, and I know the schools have been trained to work with the Aboriginal Head Start programs, whether it is junior kindergarten in the afternoons and Head Start in the morning, and that was working well. I am hoping in the future here that these programs could work jointly, but the bottom line is whatever decision we make today, we are going to get some backlash. The bottom line, I guess, is we do need to support our teachers. I am hoping in the long run that this reduction of up to 100 hours now, it has not been clear what every school has decided to do. I know some are around 45 hours. Some are at 60 or 80, but if schools are not going above 80, it should have been up to 80 hours. Maybe it could have been a little better sell.
Moving forward, I guess, I will be supporting our teachers on this one, and I know the department has told us that every year this will be reviewed, so if things are not working out, I know we could go back to what it was before. Thank you, Mr. Chair.