Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, it is high school graduation rates in our territory. I wouldn't want to be in the Education Minister's shoes because of yesterday's tabled Auditor General's most recent report on performance audit on Early Childhood to Grade 12 Education across out territory.
Regular Members had the opportunity to meet with the Auditor General staff to hear about the findings, things that shocked me, Mr. Speaker. ECE is using an outdated method to calculate graduation rates. The audit found that ECE reported a graduation rates that are 72 percent in 2017. Using a more accurate method, the Auditor calculated the actual rate was 44 percent, Mr. Speaker. We are graduating less than half our kids, and ECE is telling us they are closer to three-quarters. Now, that is a cause for a red alert across our territory; not only that, in my riding of Nunakput, Mr. Speaker.
To make matters worse, the audit found students in smaller communities had lower graduation rates, fewer kids than Yellowknife. The overall graduation rate is 44 percent, and what does that say about our graduation system for our kids in Nunakput, in our smaller communities, and other ridings?
The audit was pretty critical of the practice of social passing, which is something I have been against for a long time. In the past, I have brought this up seven times in Member's statements, and it has to stop. That percentage of students repeating grades from dropping out "increased dramatically" from students from grade 10, the year in which social passing is no longer an option. When we keep moving our kids through the system, even though they are not keeping up academically with their peers, we are treating them as no better than cattle through a slaughterhouse, Mr. Speaker. We are setting them up for failure.
We have to stop social passing. The policy of this government has to stop. We have to take responsibility for making sure that our kids are learning and understanding the curriculum before they are moving on to the next grade. Period.
Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Government Operations is holding a public hearing and audit on this report and will be making recommendations to this government on how ECE should be implementing changes across the audit on their deficiencies. I am putting this Minister on notice and the Members to expect to see detailed implementation with a plan, timelines that are provided to Regular Members to have input into fixing this mess that our education system is in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.