Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've been planning to make plans, and then we've been implementing those plans. I can say that much for sure.
It is clear that we need to support small schools and the students in those schools, and that's why prior to the OAG releasing their report, we've been taking steps to better support students in small schools.
One of the biggest things is junior kindergarten. You know, that's a few years old now, but that is the age where intervention has the greatest effect. And so we've implemented that and we spend millions of dollars each year on that.
Northern distance learning is a way to bring some more experienced teachers essentially into communities, virtually, to give students access to those teachers. Often in small communities, teachers are fresh out of school. They don't have a lot of experience, and they might not even stay in the community for very long. And so bringing some of those more seasoned instructors in is a way to help those students and give them some advantages. We have a territorial based support team that works with all of the different school boards and gives small schools access to some of the resources that you would generally only find in larger centres.
We have the career and education advisors that we've recently moved out into the regions so that they are closer to the small communities. And now with an end to the public health order and the restrictions, they will be travelling directly into communities to work with students.
As the Member mentioned, some of the plans going forward, as well, that have been delayed because of COVID, but there's a number of different things that we're doing to work with small communities. Thank you.