EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Multiple options and consultations to identify high school programs in addition to academic pre-trades, Inuit culture and heritage, and performing arts.
Encourage homework and support strategies.
The Department of Education will complete the Inuktitut curriculum development strategy for K-12 and table that strategy in the fall of this year.
The department will also table the three-languages-of-instruction models and implementation strategy this fall of 2004.
In 2003-2004 the Department of Education received an increase in the grant program under the Financial Assistance to Nunavut Students, or FANS: $1.965 million to meet the increased number of students sponsored by FANS.
The Department of Education is also pleased that this increase was added to our base in 2004-2005.
The Department of Education enhanced the income support program with a 10 percent increase to the food allowance, totalling $1.6 million dollars.
This increase is an important enhancement, leading a review of the income support program to ensure it meets the needs of all Nunavummiut.
The needs in education at the college and income support are great.
This presents many challenges to our government.
There are many competing demands for funds and important priorities.
The budget proposed for 2004-05 advances the important work of the Department of Education within the financial constraints that the Government of Nunavut faces.
I am confident that we will continue to improve programs and services as time goes on.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your attention, and I will be pleased to answer questions from the members.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Picco.
Do you have any witnesses that you would like bring to the table?
I would invite the witnesses to join me at the committee table.
Chairman: Does the committee agree to bring the witnesses?
Chairman: Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses in.
Minister, please introduce your witnesses.
With me today is my deputy minister of education, Ms. Pam Hine, and to my immediate left is the director of finance for the Department of Education, Kathy Stinson.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Does the Chairman of the standing committee have any comments?
As the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Health and Education, I am pleased to have this opportunity to make some opening remarks as we begin deliberations on the budget of the Department of Education.
Members of the standing committee know that the Department of Education’s operations and maintenance budget for 2004-2005 has been increased by $6.8 million dollars from the 2003-2004 O and M budget.
On the issue of education reform, committee members are aware of many needs under the current system, especially regarding the number of teaching staff, support staff for students with special needs, counselling staff, cultural instructors, and integrating the knowledge, experience, and wisdom of elders.
Members of the committee look forward to reviewing developments in the department’s planned reform of the education system as announced by the minister earlier this week.
Committee members have noted that the number of positions under the department has been decreased, with employees of the district education authorities no longer being counted in with Government of Nunavut employees.
Members were disappointed to note that base funding to DEAs has been cut.
Members encourage the government to provide more, and not less, support to DEAs and their employees at the community level.
Members of the committee have noted that despite forced growth in a number of Nunavut communities, funding for programs and services for young children has not been increased.
Members encourage the minister to provide support to community organizations that wish to develop proposals to access those funds that are available for early childhood initiatives.
Members of the standing committee strongly agree that providing adequate support to Nunavummiut who are continuing their education at post-secondary institutions, and through trades training and apprenticeship, is an important investment in our future.
The committee encourages the minister to give regular scrutiny to strategies and initiatives that will encourage more trades training to be provided within Nunavut.
Members of the committee have expressed some concerns regarding the adequacy of some income support programs.
One such concern is the difficulty that many disabled individuals have experienced in accessing support.
Members have also raised questions about the territory’s call back of the national child tax benefit supplement from income support recipients and request that the minister give further consideration to this issue.
Members of the committee are very pleased to hear that the minister has acted upon their comments regarding the current inadequacy of food-allowance rates and will be increasing these rates by 10 percent in the near future.
Individual members may also have questions and comments as we proceed.
Before we proceed, I would like to remind members of the following: according to rule 77(1), you have 10 minutes to speak. And according to rule 77(2), subject to the discretion of the Chair, a member may speak more than once to the matter under discussion, but not until every member wishing to speak has spoken.
I suggest to members that, wherever possible, you ask your detailed questions during the page-by-page review of the department’s estimates.
I would like to welcome the minister’s staff here.
I know that they’ve had their work cut out for them for the last number of years, and I’m sure that they realize that they still have their hands full, along with the minister as well.
I know for the last number of years I have been a strong advocate for support for our education system and for ensuring that adequate resources are in place to ensure that our young people get the quality and standard of education that they deserve and have a right to.
One of the things I noticed is the minister had indicated that the greater part of his budget increase of $6.8 million had to do with financial assistance for Nunavut students, the food allowance going up, as well as the impact of the collective bargaining on the payroll for the teachers.
I just want to say that I’m very very disappointed by the fact that there is no money for forced growth for the schools. From my understanding of a cursory school operations funding, overall decreases in the budget and also where….
You know, it sounds nice where they have an overall Department of Education increased budget of $6.8 million. It really doesn’t do anything to address the needs of the teachers and the students in the classrooms, in giving them additional resources over what they’ve had to work on in the past. And all through how their funding is allocated, as the minister has said himself, it is an inadequate, outdated formula for allocating that funding.
There is talk of reform in here, which I’m sure everybody is very happy to hear. Just talk of reform and not doing anything to put additional resources to the classroom is very disappointing on my part, and I’m sure on the part of the professionals, in the classrooms out there, teaching.
He talks about, in his opening comments, the fact that school enrollment is up.
In every other budget address we’ve had, it has gone to great length to indicate where there have been increased teaching positions.
In the minister’s opening comments in the budget address there’s no comment at all as to increases in teaching staff, no comment to funding directly for schools and classrooms.
We know that some of our classrooms and students don’t even have textbooks; they have to photocopy stuff just to be able to have them.
To me, in this day and age, to a government whose top two priorities over the last five years…. It’s appalling, the fact that that is still the case.
I know it’s probably no fault of the staff, and I’m sure that the minister asked for more than what he got. As is the case, he had to, he indicated in the opening comments, take a reduction, absorb $3.1 million out of their budget because of cutbacks, because the government doesn’t have any money. It’s got to address this thing at a time when education is supposed to be a priority.
We all want to see it improve and get better.
We want to be able to have our young people get an education that gives them the tools to do the jobs that we need them to do here in Nunavut, so that we can have a homegrown workforce.
As long as we don’t address those issues and concerns, we are never going to be able to achieve that.
I think that is something I’m going to be looking for over the next little while, to make sure that there are steps being taken to address that.
He talks about, in his opening comments, of a new education act.
One of the things that I’d like to see the minister be bold enough to do is what they did in the Northwest Territories, and with the recommendation that I made to the standing committee a number of years ago on the consultation for the Elections Act: to legislate class size over a number of years to be able to give them the opportunity to come up with the resources to be able to accommodate that over time, as well as recognizing the fact that it can’t all be done in one year.
To me, those are things that show a commitment to improving the quality of education of our young people.
As long as they just get lip-service there are no new teachers, dwindling cuts to budgets…. To be honest with you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Minister, I know it’s of no fault of your own; to the general public out there it almost seems that it’s just lip service.
We have to move past that.
We have to find ways to be able to come up with the resources, the commitment to put it there to make sure that it does what we say we want to do with it, and not just talk. And I’ve said it before, in regards to education: it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.
We have to be willing to do that.
I’m sure that when they sit around the table and debate in cabinet, in their budget development meetings, there is everyone fighting for their own little piece of the pie.
I think there should be a collective commitment to look at finding ways to be able to put that money in there to make sure that there are improvements and increases in the resources that are available for the education system, not just other things that you’re stuck with, like collective bargaining.
There’s no problem coming up with the money for that because it was a collective agreement. It is not our fault.
We come up and put the money for it but all of a sudden, if we want to have a better system, better resources…. Well, let us come up with the money for it and find ways to do that and work together to do that because it is our future that we are talking about here.
The future of our territory, the future of our young people who are the majority of the population in this territory.
When you look at the education levels, the dropout rate, the unemployment levels, the suicide rates, those are all indicators as to why we have to take this seriously, and do something about it, and put that money there.
I think that we have had four years, five years of saying it.
Well, let’s quit saying it; let’s do it.
If it is not going to be in this one then I would love to see the minister bring recommendations forward in the act and call for things like that to take place.
Legislate the class size; that way teachers and educators in our school system are not feeling frustrated because they can’t do their job, because they have got too many kids.
The whole idea of special needs in the classroom is another issue that is out there.
When you have a class that has a high number of special-needs students in there, that affects the ability of the teacher to be able to address the concerns of the whole class.
Another area that needs to be looked at a while is the whole program funding, something that I mentioned over and over again in this House.
This per capita funding that we provide funding to our schools with is inadequate.
It is not adequate for us as a territory; that is an argument to the federal government, yet we are providing that same formula to our schools.
So, I would like to see something in the new education act to address that, if not sooner. But, I do not think that we can continue to wait.
We need to address these issues, the sooner the better.
That is it for now, Mr. Chairman. My time is up but depending on how things are going, I might have some more comments after.
I concur with a lot of the comments that my colleague, Hunter Tootoo just made and so I won’t repeat all that. But, I think it is vitally important that as we as a government find a way to get kids to school and keep them in school, not just grade 3 but all the way through to grade 12.
We have got to get the kids to school and keep them in school.
Education is something that is very important to all of us.
It will represent a part of our long-term plan to get out of the problems we find ourselves in nowadays.
As I have said many times when I talked to kids in school in Cambridge Bay, they can take everything you have away from you, but they cannot take away a good education.
So, we have got to find a way to get the kids in school, keep them in school, interest them.
The formula…. I am not sure what the education formula is. I have heard a lot about it, but I am not sure how it works.
I am hoping that the minister can explain the principles included in the calculations to get teachers.
I have argued many years, on behalf of mayors in Nunavut, lobbied that we need high school counsellors in our highshools to help the kids when they get to those important years, teenage years, that decide whether they drop out or stay in school, and help them see the future a little bit. A lot of kids go through difficult times at home and in their communities, but sometimes a little bit of counselling in the schools…. Somebody to help them direct their energies to studies, keep them interested when you get them into colleges, universities, technical, and trade schools.
Maybe earlier in education career-kids can be identified. As you know, there’s the academic stream and there’s the trades-technical stream.
Maybe a little earlier in the years of education, maybe in grade 6 or 7, see if they’re interested in becoming scientists, or maybe they’re interested in becoming heavy equipment operators, or mechanics, or carpenters.
We need lots of folks with journeymen trades.
Not everyone is going to be a doctor or scientist, but we have to look at these kinds of things earlier on and throughout the course of their schooling.
I think that we have to raise our expectations for our students and for our territory.
We should have an education system that is second-to-none. We should support our teachers, support our educators, give them the best tools possible that they can use to educate our young people.
We talk about diamonds and gold in our territory, but our human resources are probably more important than anything else we have because if we can educate people, they can take that education and do things with it.
They can develop businesses, run governments, make decisions that will benefit us all in the long-term. When I mean long-term, I’m talking about the next 50 to 60 years.
So, we have to look at this budget carefully, help the minister with some input, assist his staff to make some decisions that will benefit our communities and benefit our young people and then stick to it for the next year and the time of this Legislative Assembly.
I would like to thank the minister for appearing before us. I feel that education is very important for the people of Nunavut, for the parents and the young people.
I would like to say that those people are always thinking about education here in Nunavut, and this is a very important department.
I feel that we’re going to have important decisions. We would like to support the minister and his officials. The deputy of the department has lived in Nunavut for quite some time, and has her own children.
Secondly, what I’m saying is that there are a lot of teachers that need to be recognized while we’re members of the Legislative Assembly.
We give them so many hours to look after our children and to teach them.
For that reason, what I’m going to be saying here in this House is that I would like to give them our appreciation.
What I’m saying here is that for so many years, not quite 100 yet, education has been happening here in Nunavut, in the communities.
Where are we today with education, in educating our children….
We used to live in igloos with no schools. We took elementary school, some of us here in Nunavut communities.
Maybe about two or three years later we were able to do a lot of stuff.
There are a lot of people here in this House that went through elementary school, commerce programs, post-secondary, and other higher levels of education.
Some of us didn’t take those educational opportunities, but if people think that if we don’t understand what’s happening, that’s unfortunate, because that’s the way it is.
What I’m trying to say here is, the elders out there have to be able to have a place, and then the elders should be given the opportunity to teach.
It shouldn’t just be if you can speak English and Inuktitut that you can be a teacher.
I think that we can use our elders, and we have to believe in their abilities.
I think they can do it.
They could work in the schools.
Some elders are now working in the schools. The unilingual people, they are not involved because they don’t have the understanding. But, if we are to welcome them into the schools, to meet with them, then give them the opportunity, not just to take them out on the land,but as well to teach them to be involved in teaching.
During the committee, the minister stated that if we have some, that is only “Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.” That is not the only “Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit.”
If the elders were given the opportunity to go into the schools, to tell stories, to teach the young people, and to have a day of that kind, because we usually have special days…. They could be invited to special days for elders to teach the children.
I have seen a lot of young people coming into this House to find out what the proceedings are all about.
Elders are like that too; we should welcome them.
In regards to the department, I would like to say I think the only difficult part of the education system for the children is that some of them are not disciplined, or they are usually late, or they don’t attend school.
If they don’t come to school regularly, then they give up.
I saw this weekend an individual who said to me that their children don’t attend school.
I think it is not just the fault of the children, or the students.
It has to be looked at by the DEAs themselves, why this attendance is not followed regularly.
As well as to talk with the elders to find out how we can help with the attendance of school children.
We know some of the reasons why there is a lack of attendance, or why there are a lot of dropouts.
We have to try to make the elders understand that with children, they cannot go to bingos all night long, or they can’t go gambling all night long, because they have to look after their children in the morining to make sure that they go to school on time.
That is our responsibility as parents.
What I am saying is that the Department of Education is trying to do their best to try to keep the kids in school and as a government we give licences to gambling places and stuff like that. The money that is supposed to be used for food for their children is being used for gambling.
They go to school without eating in the morning because they don’t have the money,and then they give up.
As politicians and locally as the DEAs we have to be able to work together.
We have to talk to them because it is not going to come about on its own.
We have to collectively deal with it.
If we don’t talk about it then we don’t fix anything.
We have to try to find the problem about non-attendance.
Some of them don’t go back home because there is nothing to support them in the home.
Then, when they become teenagers they do all kinds of stuff.
I think that should be looked at again, as far as I am concerned.
Because the department has a lot of things that they are doing to assist the students out there in the education system; they have to be able to provide the parents with a tool.
Like the member for Cambridge Bay stated, all students will not want to become teachers, or lawyers, or social workers; we have to provide them with other alternatives.
I would like to direct the department, instead of just looking at the education system…. They have to be able to have a trades school so they don’t have to always go down south to go to trade school.
There should be a trades school here in Nunavut for carpenters, miners, and all the other trades jobs that are out there.
There has to be a policy direction.
They can’t be just worked on by the consultant.
That’s not the way, that’s not the answer.
Cabinet, collectively, has to work on this.
That’s the vision that I feel I have, that’s the direction in which the department should go.
I will be addressing the minister in regards to education during the question period.
I feel that…. If you could just look at this for other regions as well.
I would also like to give my appreciation to the minister and his department about the income support that was increased by 10 percent.
I feel that the minister is directing it for food; I really appreciate the minister and his officials for that ; instead of using it for gambling, they could use it for food.
I would also like to mention, as he is the minister responsible for Nunavut Arctic College, that some of us don’t know anything about the Nunavut Arctic College, such as the president and the governance council.
I would like to state to the minister that the calendar programs…. A lot of people are happy about that. If they could only give us more regions those kinds of programs would be a lot better for the people of Nunavut.
The young people could benefit as well, instead of just one region, because our young people would like to be involved with education as well.
I would like to say to the minister: I would be very happy if, so that it would run properly, you could give some advice to the governance council on the kinds of policies that they should be following.
Chairman: Mr. Alagalak.
I would just like to make a brief comment and to say that I am very happy that Minister Picco has taken the portfolio of the Department of Education.
He is very proficient in speaking in Inuktitut.
He understands the needs that we are talking about.
What I want to say is that there should be another review or study on the people of Nunavut when they go to the decentralized communities, from other communities, to take a job as a Nunavut employee.
Some of them just moved to another community to try to make sure that they get a better education.
If they don’t have a grade in one community then they go to another community to be able to go to a higher grade.
If that study could be done by the department it would be very good.
I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the curriculum system, but they don’t really have any concrete information and so then they move to another community to get their children a better education or a better curriculum in another community.
They have to have a better understanding of the curriculum system because there’s a problem out there. Say for instance, in grades 7-8-9 they usually go back down to a lower grade and the student then no longer wants to go back to school because they keep lowering the grade.
And there is also bullying in the school. There are various reasons that the students go down to the lower grade.
It must be very hard on the students. There doesn’t seem to be any support for them, and I would like the Department of Education to look into that.
I know that we’re not directing it to the ministers because they don’t have full knowledge, but I just want to let them know that this is the case for the majority of students in Nunavut.
Another item, Mr. Chairman: I would like to give my appreciation to the minister.