EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
So, I am asking the minister if the current management is not capable to implement these, (inaudible) how does he feel the current manager will be able to make the changes needed?
The member reads from the document and I will read from the document also to answer his question.
Mr. Speaker, this is what the document also says: “The college is fortunate to have many dedicated and committed managers, faculty, support staff and adult educators working across the territory.
All of the employees interviewed during the external review process were willing to speak openly and honestly about the current state of our college.”
It goes on to say there was significant staff support for the external review, and “staff members were optimistic that the Minister of Education and the Board of Governors would take appropriate action to improve management effectiveness and accountability in order to reposition the college for future success.”
Mr. Speaker, that’s what the minister and the board of governors are doing, repositioning the college for future respect because we are following the recommendations made in the report that was commissioned by this minister.
I realize there were issues at the college.
The members do too, so does the staff and indeed the student base.
That is why the report was commissioned.
That is why the recommendations, all 75, have been accepted from the external review, by the board of governors, by the minister, and by the senior management who is working on them.
So, I think that’s a pretty good indication of a positive response to the member’s question.
Let the record show there was only one member applauding his own remark.
I wanted to, again, clearly state to Nunavummiut that our young people deserve something better than what the college has been providing.
The report is quite clear.
The management has failed in many respects, including creating a new vision, new direction, and creating an optimism for young people that is so much needed to face the challenge ahead.
Will the minister indicate once again that unless he makes restructuring one of the priorities in the Nunavut Arctic College, that there will be no new vision established.
So, will the minister commit to making further changes that will ensure that the new management is capable, including guidance from the other members of this House.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I would concur with the member.
If you can’t clap for yourself, then who can you clap for.
I would agree with the member and I would suggest to him again, for example, in the last few months, the senior director of the largest campus in Nunavut was just hired, and that person is an Inuk.
There are changes underway within the college and within the college structure.
The recommendations of the report itself will help facilitate that, and I agree and thank the member for his support, not only as myself, here as the Minister of Education, trying to bring forward the 75 recommendations, but the support of the members of the House and, indeed, the staff who willingly gave their time to the report itself.
That’s why we’re moving forward with the board of governors on the 75 recommendations.
Question 215 – 2(2): Student Accomodations
I would like to address the minister of the Housing Corporation in regard to Nunavut Arctic College students who have to leave their homes behind when they travel to study in Rankin Inlet or elsewhere.
Sometimes, during their absence of up to three months, the local housing association repossesses their houses and gives them to other tenants.
As a result, students get so worried about losing their homes that it affects their studying.
I just want to know from the housing minister whether that’s part of their policy.
Speaker (interpretation): Minister responsible for the housing corporation, Mr. Kilabuk.
The local housing authority makes the decisions of that kind.
If there are any concerns from the member’s riding, I would be happy to speak with the member and make some corrections.
Speaker (interpretation): First supplementary.
I thank the housing minister.
The people that go out to go to school, when they find out that their houses are going to be repossessed they have to pay their own way back to their community.
I would be happy to talk with the minister.
Question 216 – 2(2): Shipping Control over Our Oceans
Mr. Barnabas: (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I have heard of concerns about our oceans from my constituency, and I have heard through the media that Federal Government has no control over the shipping routes.
My constituencies are quite concerned over the shipping routes, what is Nunavut Government doing to deal with this issue?
Speaker (interpretation): Which Minister did you ask?
Hon. Okalik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The federal government does not have total control, especially the ocean between Greenland and Baffin Island is not under the jurisdiction of either government, it is open to all.
Since the High Arctic is part of Canada, we have an agreement with federal government that High Arctic, and especially the Lancaster Sound area, is part of Canada, so we need to detain ships before they go through that route.
Mr. Netser?
I would like unanimous consent to go back to Item 5.
Speaker (interpretation): The member is seeking unanimous consent to go back to Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery.
I would like to acknowledge this individual from Coral Harbour, who have been helping the Department of Health and Social Services for a long time; she and her husband take in people who are homeless, Ms. Susie Angutialuk, please acknowledge her.
I would like to acknowledge an individual from Baker Lake, who is very beneficial to our community, Ms. Barbara Tagoona, from the Department of Justice, originally from three other communities.
I would like to acknowledge an individual who just walked in, Ooloota Ovaluttannguaq, who is sitting behind me from Repulse Bay.
She is stuck here due to the bad blizzards in the Keewatin region.
Item 13. Item 14.
Item 18. Item 19.
Tabled document 52-2(20), and Bill 8, with Mr. Netser in the Chair.
In accordance to the authority provided to me by Motion 3-2(2), the Committee of the Whole will stay in session until it reports itself out.
Before we proceed with the Committee of the Whole, we’ll break for 20 minutes.
Sergeant-at-arms
>>House recessed at14:58 and resumed at 15:31
In Committee of the Whole, we have the following items to deal with; Tabled document 52-2(2) and Bill 8.
We wish to continue with Bill 8 and review the Main Estimates for the Department of Education.
After education, we will commence the review of Community and Government Services Main Estimates, followed by the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
Are we in agreement that we first deal with the Department of Education.
Minister Picco, do you have witnesses.
If you have witnesses, Sergeant-at-arms, please escort the witnesses.
Mr. Picco, please introduce your witnesses.
With me today are the Deputy Minister of the Department of Education, Ms. Pam Hine, on my immediate right and on my immediate left is Janice Mobbs. Ms. Mobbs, is the Acting Director for Corporate Services for the Department of Education.
Chairman: Welcome to the Witness Table.
Ms. Hine, Ms. Mobbs, welcome.
Before we proceed with page by page approval of the 2005/06 Main Estimates for the Department of Education, I would like to take a moment to remind members that we are considering two separate documents, the Main Estimates and the departmental Business Plan.
From time to time, members may wish to pose questions that relates to information in one document or the other.
Please be specific as to which document and page number you are referring to when posing questions or referring to a specific section.
Also, I would like to remind members the of the Question Period guidelines which applies during both formal Session and the Committee of the Whole.
The guideline states that questions must not be hypothetical or seek an opinion.
I will disallow questioning of this nature.
To page G-19, School Operations, Total Operations and Maintenance.
The other day I was continuing on with the need for following up on your objective that the relationship between the District Education Authorities, the community, and fostering that relationship is important.
I believe it’s not only important just to foster that good relationship.
The reason I was after it because I believe you need to continue to monitor that relationship as well, and the policy is to monitor and foster the relationship.
I think the question has to be asked; what for?
My belief is that if our kids are going to succeed in school, then they first have to stay in school and work hard, but I believe it’s not just because they have a good relationship with their teachers and the students is vice-versa.
I believe the part of the missing link that we have in monitoring the school attendance and all of the other failures, and so on, with the school drop-out rates, are all linked to whether or not the District Education Authorities, the Department of Education have, I think it’s to a degree, relates to the type of relationship the school has with the community.
Okay, I hope you get me on that one because our society, unlike the dominant society, is really quite more social, in our view.
Our people have come a long way from a very sociable relationship, we never did believe there was something as confidentiality of any sorts and all that stuff that is going on today that you can’t even do very much because the confidentiality of some aspects.
Teachers are watching out for how do discipline students for fear of like they are being charged with a court case or something.
So we are living in an atmosphere of fear, I think, fear of either being reprimanded by the community or what not.
I am going to get to that.
The point is; the relationship between the District Education Authorities in some communities need more encouraging than some.
Because I believe the success for students is dependent on not only, like I said earlier, between a good relationship between the student and the teacher, I think it also relates to the parents, the communities, and the District Education Authorities.
So will the minister or the deputy indicate to me that this will be one of their ongoing monitoring to see how well the District Education Authorities are relating to foster, not only to foster a good cooperation, but actually having a solid relationship because I really, truly believe that elders need to become part of the school environment.
So could you indicate to me how you are going to do anything differently than what you have been doing to try and foster that relationship?
First of all, I think that there’s some concurrence with the member’s point.
We are in the process, right now, of setting up the District Education Authority Steering Committee, which will consist of District Education Authority representatives from across Nunavut, as well as an ex official member on that committee from the Department of Education to deal specifically with some of the issues that Mr. Curley raised.
This is a fundamental shift, again, in the way we are delivering education in Nunavut, and it plays pretty well from what Mr. Curley has outlined.
So we are in agreement with that type of process, and we believe that points that Mr. Curley made are some of the same things that we have been hearing, and therefore we put together this District Education Authority Steering Committee to address, certainly those types of needs and some of the other issues.
I certainly would like to share in that optimism with the Minister but I think it there needs to be a little more clearly defined definition or statement.
This kind of policy so how is it going to work because the solution I don’t believe is to set up another committee or this committee, you already have a committee or DEA that exists in the community; it is a matter of working with them.
I often wonder what the Department of Education is doing because everything was with the DEA, and they are setting up a committee.
What else is the Deputy Minister’s team doing? What are you guys doing?
Could they not do something in that regard and keep that momentum and build a relationship, I can call it capacity building but also communicating and do all kinds of tricks of the trade to involve that so they will encourage the children and what not to stay in school?
I want to at least go to the Deputy Minister also to express to this House, to this committee on how they will foster that because I think it is other thing for the minister to try and say that the DEA and the other committee are all there, and so on?
Deputy Minister Hine or Mr. Minister.
Very quickly, I think that the member is talking about two issues one being the administrative issue, as well as the issue around governance.
The governance issue of DEAs and the role of responsibilities are being played out within the new Education Act, which will be coming forward.
Some of the constraints that the member is talking about are probably facilitated and coordinated within that Act.
That is some of the work that Ms. Thompson has identified.
Ms. Thompson will be moving forward on that type of program.
Mr. Chairman, at the same time, on the administrative side of things, away from the government side, we would agree with the member that there has to be better conciliation of what is occurring with the DEA at the local level.
At the same time the DEA members that the member has pointed out, as all locally elected people from their community, and they have chosen to serve on the Education Authority.
One of the toughest jobs in many of our communities is working on and serving on the DEA as local officials.
The Department of Education’s role is to support the DEA.
Whether that is through a financial contribution as well as providing some of the administrative issues around governance.
Governance being what is the powers and authorities under the DEA.
I think that a lot of work has been done and there is more work to follow and outline within our Business Plan.
That is what some of the new initiatives we are bringing forward.
I would like to ask the Deputy Minister whether she shared the minister’s view if not could she explain that this area that I am expressing makes sense to her.
What kind of initiative will the Department of Education put in to ensure that the community at least given a better interaction aside from the daily administrative responsibilities of the DEAs?
Yes I do agree with the comments that the member had made.
Community development at all angles is one of the priorities of the Department of Education and one of my personal priorities as well.
That is why we want to move ahead with the Education Act, so we can clearly state what the roles and responsibilities are.
I know that there has been confusion as to where the roles and responsibilities lie.
We want to make that clarified.
We have DEA Development Officers in each of the regions working with the DEAs.
That is not a committee that is a staff person that is actually committed to working with the DEAs and developing the DEAs, as the members had stated previously.
They are elected officials.
Every time the election happens we have a change over in DEA members so the capacity changes. We do what we can to assist them.
From the community perspective, we would personally would like to see the schools as the heart of the community and a place where the people can come in and actually participate, not just to learn but also to use the facilities.
We have a lot of multi-use agreements in the communities where the schools are used for community events.
That’s one of the ways of bringing the community into the schools and being comfortable with the schools.
Chairman: Thank you, Ms.Hine.
Mr. Curley (interpretation): That’s it.
This area deals, as the Minister is aware with the way the schools are funded.
They’re looking at the formula as he had indicated.
Mr. Chairman, my question deals with one of the issues that were raised as a concern in the past and it’s something that I know effects the schools here in Iqaluit.
What is the cut off time and what do they use in numbers to calculate the funding for the next year.
With Nunavut Arctic College being here, a lot of times they get up to 60 students after that cut off time enrolled into the school system here and they’re never taken because of the timing of the numbers of the enrolment in which they use to calculate the funding.
Those students are never taken into account the funding.
So, basically there are always a number of unfunded students here and I know other places.
They would prefer to have the numbers from the spring time and the fall.
So, I’m just wondering if the Minister can indicate any steps that they’re taking in redoing the formula and addressing this issue?
Hon. Ed Picco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the past the school enrollments were based on the spring enrollment.
Usually there were two numbers taken, the latter being the spring number, usually in May.
It is my understanding that at that time in the last couple of years that there has been recognition that those numbers may not be the true enrollment numbers, so we have moved to September 30th now as the cut off date.
We would say that in most schools, and you will see it right across Nunavut, that indeed when you look at peak enrollments, it’s usually in the fall of the year, in the first two months when school starts.
The member is correct, when you get to the end of the school year, usually April, May and June, for example, for communities like Iqaluit, May for the majority of our communities it’s getting spring like outside now and the attendance drops off and indeed the truancy rate increases.
September 30th, in the fall is a good opportunity when you’re basing your numbers.
In the new School Funding Formula that we’re bringing forward and we’ve talked about this before in different phases, we would hope to be in a position in the second phase where we’d actually do two checks, one in September and then again sometime during the winter to see if there has been an increase in those numbers.
The double jeopardy being, if the numbers actually decrease from the September numbers to your winter numbers, then you would look at a corresponding possible reduction in the school fund and that’s an issue that we’re trying to look at in terms of how we would do it.
That is part of the make-up of the School Funding Formula as we move forward into phase three.
We’ve completed phase 1.
We’re in the process now of doing the implementation of phase 2.
I like what I’m hearing.
I’m just wondering if the Minister would commit, especially in the regional centres where there are Main Campuses for Nunavut Arctic College, like here, Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay, where they do have programs where people come in to take those programs and often have families.
Their kids are going to school is there, that there be some way of looking specifically at that?
The College falls under the same Ministry so surely, they should be able to coordinate some way to try and address that specific issue.
I know it’s been an issue here in Iqaluit in the past and I’m sure it’s been an issue in the other two communities where they have Main Campuses to some extent.
I’m just wondering if we could get a commitment to make sure that especially those areas are looked at?
I think the member has made a good point and that’s a commitment that we are willing to make, as again, the review of how those enrolments are done, especially with the larger campus.
Let the record show that it wasn’t the minister clapping for himself this time on that one.
One of the other things I know has been an issue, and Mr. Curley talked about it a little bit, this deals with the relationship between the department and the District Education Authorities and how their budgets are handed down and delivered and stuff like that.
But I know one thing that the District Education Authorities here had some concerns about, and I am not sure if any of the other ones have, and I had heard that it was something that the department was looking at doing, but I would like to just ask the minister, for the record, if the department is looking at taking the funding and the responsibility for paying the utilities for the schools and putting those into, as Community and Government Services that pays for, you know, looks after all of the other government buildings.
I was just thinking because I know that’s money that is base funded to the District Education Authorities and if those costs go up, that means then there’s no extra funding for it, that means that they have got to take more money out of the rest of their budget for the schools.
So I am just wondering if that’s something could be, if the department is looking at doing it or has done that?
As the members know, last year’s budget was a stand fast budget; we didn’t have an opportunity to do much changes because it was just after the election.
This budget, as the members see before the House, is one where all of the ministers have an opportunity to work toward.
One of the issues that we dealt with very quickly was to transfer those utility costs out of the Department of Education to the Community and Government Services Department for all of the reasons that the member just mentioned.
So that has been done.
This next question is something that I have addressed in the past by the minister and he had indicated, at that time, that they were looking at something, but haven’t quite gotten there yet or the first draft of it was not, I guess words were that it didn’t go over too well, so they were going to look at something else and that deals with the graduation requirements for high school.
We have heard over, and over by the Members in this House, that we want to make sure that our young people get the quality of education that they deserve.
So I am just wondering if the minister could update with whether they have got another draft that’s gone forward.
Will he ensure that the programs and the courses that you need to take or you need to have in order to access post-secondary education other than outside the territory, whether it be a college or a university in the south that the students have the opportunity, within the curriculum, to be able to obtain those courses?
We have been looking at the graduation requirements, as the member has talked about.
Again, the last two weeks, I have had an opportunity to address a two plenary sessions during the Federation of Nunavut Teachers Conference here in Iqaluit, teachers in K to 6 and then from 7 to 12, issues around it, and this is one of the questions that came up.
We are reviewing different options right now and again, trying to get feedback from our schools and from our teachers at the school level to see what we can accomplish.
We have also had the Secondary Steering Committee, which is made up of educators from across Nunavut working on this.
So we are still in the proposal stage, as well as looking at different options.
We would hopefully be in a position in the next several weeks to bring something more concrete forward, and then again, to bring that back out to the teachers, and so on.
The whole idea of graduation requirements is to give the student a stronger base of different core subject areas and knowing it enhances their academics but it also focuses on some of the other issues around life-long learning and the career path that they would like to move into at a different time when they graduate, but at the same time trying to be inclusive with some of the issues around Nunavut, culture inclusion, and so on.
That is what the issue is around the graduation requirement.
I appreciate the minister’s comments on that.
I applaud them in their efforts and it is quite the task ahead of them to sort that all out.
Given that and given the minister’s comments will he ensure that the level 30, or whatever courses that you need to have when you apply to a post-secondary education, it would be a College or a University in the south, they don’t ask you.
Their requirement is not do you have a Grade 12 diploma.
They ask you do you have English this, Math this, whatever, Biology, Science, these different level certain courses.