EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I don’t think that the Coral Harbour DEA is running their own funding because they usually have some problems. I think the budget is being run out of Baker Lake.
This has been a problem and when they want to hire someone from the community for a different project, they have to ask permission from another place.
I think that should be corrected. Perhaps you can provide an explanation to the DEA in Coral Harbour so that they have a better understanding.
I’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I understand clearly.
The finance people for the DEA have different levels and if they need more training, they get more training.
In regard to Coral Harbour, we will see how they can be assisted more and look into it. If they need more understanding or any more information, then we can do that.
We’re on page G-7.
Just before we proceed, using my authority as the Chair, we will take a 10-minute break.
>>Committee recessed at 17:02 and resumed at 17:14
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you for coming back early. You guys are listening well because we’re dealing with education.
Mr. Tapardjuk, I think I had your name on the list.
I will have questions on G-8.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tapardjuk. Please be patient.
We’re still on G-7. Mr. Elliott.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve had a lot of talk about education, education levels, standards, attendance, and getting students to high school.
I was just wondering: does the Department of Education have a number on the average time it takes a student in Nunavut to graduate from high school?
Is it three years, four years, or five years? How many years does it take for a high school student to actually work through high school and attain his or her graduation certificate?
We don’t have the information here with us, but it usually takes about four or five years for students to finish high school. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On page 75 of the business plan, one of the priorities for 2013-14 is to “Provide school-level support for implementation of new high school graduation requirements and ensure employers and the public understand the changes.”
I figured, maybe for the listening public, would the minister like to explain what some of the changes are and what supports there are available? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Eva Aariak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are multiple options. They’re not completed yet.
They’re in progress. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In terms of the multiple options for high school graduation, is the minister able to explain the differences here today? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The multiple options program will provide an opportunity for students to select a major area of study from about six options, such as fine arts and crafts, introduction to trades and engineering, information technology/communications/media, entrepreneurship and small business studies, history, heritage, and culture, and community caregiving and family studies.
Thank you for that explanation. One of the things I’m trying to do is actually wrap my head around it and be able to help explain it when we go back to the communities and are back with our constituents.
You said that there are six different choices that individual students could make. When would they make those choices?
Is it when they reach grade 9, which is relatively around age 13?
Hon. Eva Aariak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is from grades 10 to 12 and the DEA would be involved in those as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Elliott.
Just so I understood correctly, is it an individual choice per student to decide or is it the school that decides that this is the path that the school is taking, one of six?
Is it for individual students to choose the path or is it for the whole school? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Very good questions by the way from the member.
Because there is so much detail, I will have to ask you if my deputy minister can add information on it.
Ms. Okpik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman (interpretation ends) There are ongoing community consultations right now and in-servicing happening right now as we speak. All principals have been in-service and in-servicing for actual schools is starting.
There are still some questions that we need to answer around the implementation of multiple options.
Right now, we’re drafting a very comprehensive implementation plan where we have to look at consultation with the district education authorities and selection of the multiple options.
Some of the things that we’re developing right now for the DEAs are a checklist, for example, to assist them to help make the selection of which options.
You have to look at current school space, for example, in determining what option you want to provide.
It would have to take place within the current teaching allocation, so no other teachers would be provided. It would be from the current staffing compliment, and then you would have to look at the expertise of the teacher, for example, and then classroom space.
Those are different types of things that have to be looked at.
DEAs would have to decide if they wish to select one option or many options as part of decision-making.
It would have to be a choice that they would have to stick to throughout the life of that grade 10, 11 and 12 program, for example.
We’re still developing a communications plan as well so that we can make sure that our communities, the students, and the teachers themselves know about what multiple options is.
Implementation is not happening in the 13th school year. We hope to implement in the following year. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Elliott: Actually, that confuses me a bit more.
It sounded like you had said that if I’m a grade 10 student and I have multiple options, you’re telling me that if my DEA in the community decides they want to go with arts and crafts, as a grade 10 student going into that stream in that school, with the decision made by the DEA, I wouldn’t have the choice of taking the academic stream because the DEA and the school chose to go with arts and crafts.
I would have to do arts and crafts.
Is that what you’re saying? The way I heard it, that’s what I thought you said and I really want to make it clear before I move on.
Of course, the core program of grades 10, 11, and 12 will not change. These are multiple options that would be available. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So once again, if I was a grade 10 student going in and the school was sort of focusing towards arts and crafts and I was hoping to go through the academic stream because I had aspirations of going to college or university, I would have a choice of taking an academic stream. Could you confirm that?
I will get my Kathy to respond to that if it is okay with you, Mr. Chairman.
It is okay with me.
Ms. Okpik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) With respect to academic programming, we’re compiling that information right now and had committed to getting that information to the standing committee.
With respect to academic programming, what we call academic courses would be the courses that prepare you for entrance into post-secondary education. For example, we have a 30-1 and a 30-2 English exam.
The 30-1 would allow you to enter post secondary if you pass it.
The 30-2 enables you to enter college and vocational school, for example. The majority of schools are offering 30-1 and 30-2.
There are some schools that aren’t offering 30-1.
So to say that pure academics being available in all schools would not be a correct statement. The other option for students, if they wish to take academic programming which includes the higher math, the higher English, physics, chemistry, biology, those are the core courses and there are a couple of other ones that I haven’t named that make up the core of academic programming. The rest would be sort of like a general grade 12 diploma, for example.
The opportunity is available for students to take distance education right from Alberta.
We’re looking at creating a distance ed. strategy where we will actually have supports for students and to have it interactive so that if you only have one student, for example, in one community and you have two students in another community that need to take pre-calculus, they can have that teacher interaction through distance ed. So that’s something that we’re working on right now. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In terms of part of the rollout, this is what is going to be explained to the DEAs and the staff as well.
The concern I have is, I think, with what we have been told and the number of guidance counsellors that they have across the territory to provide assistance with either… .
It’s a big decision, I think, for someone in grade 10 to start making choices.
We do have to make choices at a certain point in our lives, but I’m hoping that there is the proper support in the school to help with the parents and the youth making that choice.
Does the department feel that there is enough support?
Prior to a student reaching grade 10, they identify their chosen career field when they are still in grade 7. This is when they are provided direction on the types of courses they will need if they wish to work towards their chosen career.
I believe the member raised another question, but it has slipped my mind.
I refer to his second question.
If I was a grade 10 student who started out in the arts and crafts and then, say, after a year and a half, there was a decision or a life change where maybe I was interested in going on to college or university, can and is there something built into the system to change streams or to change options, if it’s multiple options, when you have already started into one?
Once you’re locked into a certain option, is there no backing out?
As per my earlier comments, this is being taken care of and these are the types of questions that would need to be answered. However, we haven’t completed the final answers to these questions.
That is an excellent question, but we still need to complete our work in these areas.
On page 76 of the department’s business plan, one of the priorities for 2013-14 mentions “Survey new teachers regarding the effectiveness of the new orientation website for teachers new to their community” and then “complete development of the two-day orientation workshop with a focus on Inuit culture and language and Nunavut curriculum.”
Is everything in place for that to be done?
The website has not been completed yet.
In terms of the completion of the website, I’m assuming the deadline would be before August of 2013 for the website, before the new teachers actually come to the territory. Is that correct?
The site is currently being developed and it will be ready for implementation in the 2013-14 school year.
Also on page 76, one of the priorities will be to “Complete design of the mentoring program for new teachers.”
Specifically here, this comes to questions that I had asked through Oral Questions to both the Minister of Nunavut Arctic College and the minister. By new teachers, are you talking about teachers who have gone through the NTEP program and are going into the schools for the first time or are you referring to teachers coming from the south and new to teaching in Nunavut?
This will be for all new teachers.
I just want to add to Mr. Elliott’s questions.
I want to get more information about the options.
Maybe I am misunderstanding. I have some concerns.
First of all, I should ask about the DEA committees in the communities. They will be part of the selection of which six options are to be taught in their schools.
From the six options, how many courses can they select per school?
That will be my first question.
There are different options in each of the schools. There are some teachers who have different teaching skills. They would be factored in when they’re choosing whatever they would like from the six options.
How many of the six options can the DEAs select to be used in their schools?
We haven’t decided that yet.
I’m glad that the people of Nunavut have that option. In Pond Inlet, we were told that they can only choose three of the options and no more.
However, the minister stated that they haven’t finalized that decision yet.
Once that’s implemented, how many years does the school have to utilize the options that they have chosen? It sounds like a pilot project and there are our students, of course, who have difficulties at times. They have excellent teachers, but it’s us who are not giving the proper directive in their schools.
If we choose an option and then we change it a couple of years later, are these multiple options going to be available for quite some time or how long are they going to be available for?
We consider our students as the top priority currently within our school system.
Once we have implemented these areas, we may find that it was irrelevant and useless to the students.
As an example, the DEAs, the parents, or other parties may make those comments in our future.
So if these options are not preferable, the question becomes which options should have been identified. I imagine they will be open to changes in our future.
At this point in time, these are the changes that have been made. Also, the teachers can teach these subjects based on their availability.
You stated that there are six options to choose from. If it becomes apparent that our students find them irrelevant or don’t wish to take these courses, they could possibly change the options.
My question is this: who was interviewed or consulted which resulted in these six options currently available?
Hon. Eva Aariak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These six options are written because of their relevancy to our communities.
For example, a pilot project was initiated in Kugluktuk revolving around trades and technology. There is a term for it in Inuktitut, but I can’t recall it. This pilot project was done in the Kugluktuk schools relating to mining positions due to the mineral development occurring there and this is quite useful.
As to your question about who made the decision on these six options, I would like Kathy to respond.
The directive first surfaced under the Tamapta Mandate. We were directed to look at innovative courses that our students could take.
It all began with that direction provided by this mandate.
In 2003, the Department of Education initiated consultations with the public of Nunavut to ask them what courses ought to be made available in our schools.
The six options were identified after the consultation process in 2003.
This resulted in the creation of a committee. Additionally, once these six options were chosen, each of the six options had a committee struck to review them over a two-year period.
For example, we had representatives from the elders, the school system, Inuit organizations, and various government departments, as well as specific organizations, depending on the area. For example, if we were looking at archaeology, Inuit Heritage Trust, NTI, and QIA were involved. There was a representative who came from the Kitikmeot Heritage Centre.
There was one representative from Victoria University.
They outlined what should be made available to the students if they had chosen their career goal.
(interpretation ends) We looked at determining the expectations, skills, attitudes, characteristics, and knowledge for each grade to complete for this program.
That’s the history of where it started and how we extensively created an advisory committee for each of the options with subject expert areas.
All the courses are mapped out.
All the options contain the core programming. For example, the English, math, science, all of those core subjects that you would require to graduate are still in there. The other subjects would be the ones that make up the heritage piece, for example.
There has been extensive work. We can share what each of the multiple options looks like and what the course offerings would be. The next phase for us right now is to finish the implementation plan and the communications plan so that everybody goes in knowing the same information both in selection and undertaking.
I would also like to offer the information that two of the multiple options have already been piloted. The trades option was very successful in Kugluktuk and the entrepreneurial option in Rankin Inlet has also been very successful.
So those have been piloted.
You can see that the students in Rankin Inlet have started up small business, for example, but are also taking the core academic programming as part of the program. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That confuses me a little bit.
In whatever endeavour we decide on, we have to put first priority on the student. I think we all have the same thought in that case.
As we heard, there are options to change what was selected for a particular school. They have that option.
Were the students consulted on what they would like to see in the schools?
I don’t understand at all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Please clarify that part.
I understood exactly what you said.
As I stated earlier, I’m sorry if I confused you. I was trying to be as clear as possible. What I was trying to say is that it’s not written in stone.
I didn’t say that we’re going to change it next year. We’re looking at what are the best options for the community to make sure that the students reach their highest achievements.
In 2003, we had a consultation process.
I can look into whether the students were involved in the consultation process. (interpretation ends) The current status is schools and DEAs will conduct community and student consultations to determine the most appropriate options to offer in their schools, depending on their employment opportunities and student interests.
For example, in Gjoa Haven, with the new care centre, the community may choose to offer the community giving and family studies option.
(interpretation) This is the purpose of the comments I made. If there is any development adjacent to a community, then these options would be more useful to the community and would be preferred by the student body as it would lead to opportunities. That is the way it is set up.
I certainly hope this question will be my last one and I will try to make it my final question.
The schools that offer kindergarten to grade 12 in Nunavut are quite numerous. Actually, they’re in every community.
The government keeps stating that we require a more common foundation whenever we try to deal with an issue.
Based on the responses, these six options currently available for choosing provide each school with too much freedom should they decide to choose any of the options.
I like this aspect, but aren’t we setting up ourselves for completely different systems? Since the schools have the freedom to choose, won’t this result in vastly different responsibilities based on their choices between these six options? This seems to muddy the waters rather than provide a common foundation.
In my opinion, the choices the schools make will mean they all have different needs.
If the department states that will not be the case, then fine.
Please tell me that this will not be the case.
That is why these options are identified as choices that the schools can decide upon.
These aren’t complex choices which still allow communities to choose their preferences since we want them to have alternatives that allow their student bodies to pick careers in their chosen fields.
These provide, if I were to say it in English, (interpretation ends) multiple options.
(interpretation) The actual core subjects for high school students in grade 12 won’t change. (interpretation ends) The core curriculum for high school (interpretation) won’t change even with these multiple options.
I have no more names on my list. (interpretation ends) Branch Summary. Education.
K-12 School Operations. Total Operations and Maintenance. $155,747,000. (interpretation) Do you agree?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) G-8.
Education. Branch Summary. Curriculum and School Services.
In reviewing school services, including the certification of teachers, as well as the assessment of the progression of our students in their grades, what I want to ask about are the teachers.
How do we evaluate the effectiveness of our teachers? Are they assessed as to their capabilities? Do they need to be tested to see if they are effective teachers?
Obviously they have certification; otherwise, they wouldn’t be teachers, which is something I understand.
Can the minister clarify how they will deal with this issue, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman (Mr. Enook)(interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Tapardjuk.
When teachers are going through the certification program, teachers who don’t have certificates can be provided with a temporary certificate if they pass the DM’s assessment. I apologize. They are provided a letter of authority.
Mr. Tapardjuk (interpretation): Actually, I want further details since I don’t quite understand her response.
As per my question, I asked about certified teachers who, having passed their requirements, receive a teacher’s certificate. However, it is only when you actually watch them teach that you can tell whether or not they are effective teachers. Are there teacher evaluations done for our teachers?
That is what I was trying to ask about, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, there are teacher evaluations conducted annually, which includes the principal of the school, but I don’t have those details.
My deputy minister can provide those details, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Okpik (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) We have a very comprehensive teacher evaluation tool and also a principal evaluation tool broken down by the duties and responsibilities, for example, planning, classroom management, to name a few.
Based on that, it’s mandatory that new teachers coming in have the teacher evaluation for the very first two years.
Our next piece of work that we’re going to be developing is a computer program where it can be done actually on the computer, and then we can track and look at what areas teachers need to improve in. So if you have, for example, a cohort of teachers that need improvement in classroom management, we could start to target improvements in those areas.
So we can provide the teacher evaluation tool by letter to the committee so that they can see first-hand how comprehensive it is. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
What is the time period in between these teacher evaluations?
Does the evaluation only apply during their first year or do they conduct annual evaluations? How is it done? I would like to comprehend this part, Mr. Chairman.
There is an evaluation when they first start teaching, with a face-to-face meeting identifying their needs.
Further, during the same year, another assessment is done.
There are several evaluations done to identify certain areas requiring improvement and to see what progression they have made to date.
I want to ask another question to help clarify the situation in my mind.
After the evaluation, if the assessment is that either the teacher is considered incapable or ineffectual, has that resulted in the termination of that particular teacher? Has this occurred?
For example, if the person worked only as a casual or held a term position or was going to be a permanent teacher, the evaluation includes how to improve their effectiveness in the area where they are the weakest.
This could be a self-assessment to be evaluated by the school principal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to get more information on that because we are trying to encourage the number of Inuit teachers and school principals. That would be a benefit to the Inuit.
I hope that we are not putting in Inuit teachers just to increase the numbers.
Under Curriculum and School Services for 2013-14, there is going to be a significant increase for curriculum and program development.
Why is there a significant increase in 2013-14?
The staff position was vacant and due to this vacancy, the funding lapsed and was returned. That is why the funds seem to have increased.
It is referred to as a vacancy factor.