Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To actually pinpoint why graduation rates are low is difficult. There can be a lot of extenuating situations that make people leave school. It can be a lack of support. It can be family dynamics. It can be poverty. It could be "I met a new boyfriend, and I just want to hit the road." There are a whole host of reasons why students leave school, but what we are noticing is that we do need to do something about it. It is not okay. We are looking at things that we can control within education and things that we can actually do to support students to make positive choices.
Currently, we have a Pathways program that actually works with students. We are going to strengthen that. We need to actually look at getting more career counsellors into the schools, to actually working with them from younger grades, from grade 9, and talking about, "What do you want to do? Do you want to be a truck driver? Do you want to be a doctor? Do you want to work at Wal-Mart?" and not limiting their options. Working with the students to define what their options are, what they would need once they choose an option, and what school services and supports and curriculum that they would need to actually be successful in obtaining their goals in life.
Like I say, Mr. Speaker, we can do what we can from an education aspect, but a lot of reasons that children decide to drop out of school are not as simple as the education system itself. There are a lot of reasons. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.