Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Are there other questions? Member for Great Slave.
Debates of March 2nd, 2022
This is page numbers 3665 - 3710 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd 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 know.
Topics
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm just wondering about -- looking at the northern distance learning, and I know there's a slight drop there, but not I guess by too much. I'm just concerned with the results of the pandemic and moving more to online learning etcetera. This often is -- this unit came up often as sort of a bridge to help students and communities access their online learning. And I'm just wondering if we've ended up sort of overloading them at all or if we do require more funding here if they should need more, or are they supporting that work further now that COVID is sort of moving to an endemic stage? Thank you, Madam Chair.
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R.J. Simpson Hay River North
Yes, thank you. And this is an area that I think we expected to expand a little more in the past couple years, but the fact is that there is, you know, equipment that needs to be installed in schools and there was communities who just didn't want people coming into their small community. And so because of that, we haven't moved forward as much as we would have liked. And this is -- you know, this is -- you know, uses the internet but it's different from the sort of distance learning I think that students have been saddled with the past few years. It is -- it takes place in schools and there's more -- there's a real teacher in front of students in person, and then there are students who are remote with another adult in the room to assist them and they can interact fully with that -- with that instructor. So it is a bit different and, you know, it's still something we're very committed to and see a lot of benefits to. Perhaps I'll stop talking and I'll let the Member ask another question, and then if we need to, we can go to the deputy minister for more information. Thank you.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, perhaps I was mixing it up with the Aurora College sort of outposts or whatever you'd like to call them in the communities. And I do appreciate the Minister clarifying that for me.
Yeah, I definitely would like to see that, you know, as COVID has -- wraps up here, that we do start looking into that more. I often think and talk with other engineers and such before I got into this role about how we could get more engineers from the North which would solve a lot of our problems. And I could never sort of wrap my head around how a child from a community would take those calculus courses. I found it challenging to go to UBC after growing up in a suburb of Vancouver. So, yeah, I just wanted to emphasize that.
I guess my next question is around the northern youth abroad. As we haven't had any real, you know, travel happening in the last year, particularly internationally, is there money that's being sort of left over or carried over from these programs and do we see a need to maybe increase them as the -- you know, because there's been a lack of opportunities for the last two years, you know, to make up maybe for some that haven't had that chance, we could put more money here to send more students abroad. Thank you -- or youth.
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Macdonald
Thank you, Madam Chair. So ECE has long recognized Northern Youth Abroad as a strong partner for a number of reasons, primarily and initially for their core programming. But over the past number of years, we've partnered with them for other areas and supports for students one of which actually connects back to the northern distance learning program, which you were just asking about, which would have northern youth abroad escort students to a university campus in Edmonton to help them see firsthand and to help them acclimate for that transition.
Specifically due to COVID, a number of the typical Northern Youth Abroad initiatives could not go forward but as was the case across government and across ECE, we continue to flow funding to them so that they continue to maintain operations, and they did provide counselling supports to students over the course of that period. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate that. And it reminds me actually of -- I did a program at UBC connect where they brought grade 12 students into UBC and we lived there for a week and thought we were much older than we were. So I think that's great, and I would like to just sort of reiterate my support for this program.
I guess the question that I have there, then, is the support that's being provided more on the -- like, kind of more emotional and personal level of supports, or is there also a piece of an educational support there from a tutoring or, like -- yeah, educational perspective? Thank you.
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Macdonald
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the focus is primarily academic, but there are elements to that are a little bit more, let's call it, the social-emotional realm. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you. I notice the paper's been making that mistake lately too with me and the Member for Frame Lake.
My next question is around the professional development fund for the teachers. I notice that there really is not any substantial change there.
Given sorts of some of the challenges, again, that we've had in the last couple years with COVID, you know, do -- have we been able to maintain that same level of professional development for teachers that we would have in the past? I've often spoke about my mom being a teacher, and I know a lot of that time was spent in conferences and networking and that one -- or collaboration of teachers, they're quite a collaborative profession. So could the Minister's department speak a little bit to whether or not we're sort of on track there, or are we going to need to do some catch up? Thank you.
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R.J. Simpson Hay River North
Thank you. So and that number is something that is negotiated with the teachers. It's in the NWTTA agreement. The teachers really have a lot of -- a lot of control over their professional development. We are taking steps to make it easier for teachers to -- you know, to find different opportunities and to track those opportunities and to track, you know, the credentials the teachers gain through their professional development. But for some more detail, I can ask the deputy minister to answer. Thank you.
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Macdonald
Thank you, Madam Chair. So professional development is, as the Minister mentioned, bargained. It's an article within the NWTTA collective bargaining agreement. So it's through that mechanism that teachers individually or collectively make decisions about their own professional development as any association or professional group would.
In addition to that, ECE has increasingly played a role in providing training opportunities and supports to both education bodies and directly to teachers and schools. That's through our education operations and educator development division, including a shift over the past years towards an increase in remote or virtual learning through a new online platform that we provided.
And lastly, education bodies themselves do provide training to schools within their respective regions. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Katrina Nokleby Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate that. I think, yeah, there's many ways that teachers could access different types of styles of learning. And I guess my last sort of area of interest is around the healthy food for learning. I notice that it's staying the same for the last few years here with $650,000. Again, given supply chain issues, given, you know, how the pandemic has made everybody a lot more -- you know, having to stretch their dollars, the cost of living is increasing, I'm a bit concerned that sometimes I hear that this is the only good meal that a child may get in their day, and so I'm just wondering why we're not seeing an increase here to this amount of money and perhaps would it not be a great way to sort of set our kids up better for success, and maybe there is no need for it and the Minister can speak to that. Thank you.
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