EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Your business plan indicates that all Nunavut schools and principals were involved in the school improvement planning programs.
Can you provide an update on the process and how the process will be monitored in the future?
Every school in Nunavut was asked to put forward a framework accountability process to improve their school and that included looking at areas around academics, extracurricular activities, in-school activities, discipline, and so on.
That framework then came forward to the Department of Education, and we need to evolve that into and with the new Education Act, which requires our DEAs and our schools to do that type of planning every year.
So that framework is in place and we’re moving forward with the implementation of the framework.
This is my final question for the minister.
The amount of funding allocated to French language initiatives is projected to increase.
What is the current status of French language education in Nunavut and do you anticipate a growth in demand for French language education?
We’re not really seeing an increase in the number of students themselves at the Francophone School that we’re seeing across Nunavut in our K-12 system.
The CFSN is looking at implementing the grade 10 program or expanding the grade 10 program at their school here in Iqaluit.
The majority of funding, as the members know, is split between Heritage Canada as well as the GN’s contribution. There are some constitutional requirements for the French First Language of Instruction in any jurisdiction, including Nunavut.
I think it’s important to point out that right now, there are 49 students in the K-12 program, there are seven PY teaching positions, including a full-time principal, plus 1.5 non-teaching positions in the school itself.
I welcome the minister and his officials here today.
I want to start off with a question about the relationship of the regional offices to the DEAs.
As the minister will recall, last year, there was a bit of a dispute, a tug-of-war between our Cambridge Bay DEA and the Regional School Operations over an issue, and the regional operations wouldn’t concur with the DEA’s decision.
So it appeared, to many in Cambridge Bay, and I’m familiar with the issue, that regional operations didn’t support the DEAs or would only support the DEAs as long as the DEAs made a decision that regional operations encouraged them to make or wanted them to make.
I’m wondering if the minister could comment on whether that situation has improved since last year.
I’m very aware of what occurred there with the DEA and the KSO office for the Kitikmeot region. I believe, right now, you can say that there is a fantastic or very good working relationship with the KSO office and the local DEA. I know that the deputy minister also had an opportunity to sit down with them and work on some of the issues.
I was also in there just before Christmas in November and had an opportunity to meet with some of the DEA members, and I believe those issues have been rectified.
Perhaps the minister could give us a bit more clarity because it’s confusing to an MLA if you’ve got DEAs complaining to you that the Department of Education doesn’t listen, you’ve got parents complaining to MLAs because they say that the government doesn’t listen to the DEAs who were elected by all parents in the communities, and then you’ve got the district offices who are basically following the government policy, which was created here in the Legislative Assembly, administered out of Iqaluit.
So as a parent and as an MLA, how are we to view the relationship between the DEA and the GN in terms of ensuring that our children get the best possible education in the schools that they attend?
It goes back to the heart of some of the discussions that we’ve had over the last few days on accountability mechanisms that would be in place under existing legislation or introduced legislation.
In the case of the Cambridge Bay DEA, I believe almost everyone there was acclaimed. Now, that points to another situation where how many people want to run for their local DEAs. And it wouldn’t be the first place where we’ve had acclamations in all accounts.
I believe you have to have a check and balance and I think that was demonstrated in this situation regarding language of instruction in Cambridge Bay.
Again, it comes down to a situation where the local residents and parents may elect the DEA to represent them and hire teachers, hire principals, and give direction on in-school programming.
So when the DEA is fulfilling their mandate and they’re being told by the regional operations of the Government of Nunavut, “No, you can’t do that,” then what message does that send to parents and the community-at-large, that despite the fact that you elect a democratic, or in this case, they were acclaimed, but they’re parents, they’re representing the community, other parents have input into the DEA operations.
So you have a democratic organization that’s trying to represent the community but then they’re being told by the regional operations that they can’t do certain things, which is clear in their minds that they think they can.
It’s not necessarily with the language of instruction; it’s also the hiring of teachers and the hiring of principals.
Just to go back to what the member was saying, and again, for brevity and to move the discussions along, just very quickly under the new Bill 21, as an example, the DEAs establish the panel that hires the principal and direct the principal regarding the organization, the administration, and the operation of the school.
That’s found in section 16, 107, 108, and 115 of the new Act.
That’s a new responsibility that the DEAs did not have under boards. Under Bill 21, it shifts authority to the DEAs and again, they have authority over education at the community level, as well as the Student Conduct and Attendance Policy, which are two of the most fundamental issues, and that’s in sections 37, 58, and 59.
I agree with the member that sometimes you have issues between what the DEA is trying to implement and what the school is doing in a process. Sometimes it’s very difficult for whoever is in charge, in this case the principal at the local school, to change midstream in what they’re trying to do to reflect some of the concerns and issues, so that’s why you need that check and balance.
Again, I believe that we have a good working relationship with the DEA right now in Cambridge Bay.
We’ve got good follow-up through the KSO office and through the deputy minister and the ADM for K-12, Mr. Geikie, have followed-up, and I believe that line of communication is now open and I think the member would agree that it’s more proactive than it was last year.
To revisit one of my old issues in the context of DEAs, and I think it was two years ago, where we had the issue of semestered versus non-semestered, there were quite a few parents in Cambridge Bay who wanted that issue to be reversed.
The DEA at the time, in working with the local principals, couldn’t or wouldn’t reverse it, so they appealed to the minister to look at it.
On the one hand, the Government of Nunavut would, through the regional offices, tell the DEA to make this decision or would agree with this decision, but on the other hand, when the parents wanted something changed, the Government of Nunavut wouldn’t agree with the parents.
It took a considerable amount of lobbying to make some adjustments to the semestered versus non-semestered terms issue.
I’m wondering if the minister could clarify: how do parents, on behalf of their children, and their children as well, when they want to advance a certain initiative within education in their communities, who can they rely on to ensure that their best interests are taken to heart?
Again, in the specific case that the member was talking about, there were some logistic as well as administrative issues where you couldn’t change from a semestered system to a non-semestered system in midstream.
There were a lot of technical issues there as well, and I think we had some questions in the House and we had a chance to speak to the member about it. Right now, that’s not an issue in the community, but again, you’re going to have these types of issues come up on a regular basis and from time to time, but at this time, it has been dealt with.
I realize it has been dealt with but I think what most parents and students like is a continuity of programming; they don’t want to be caught up in some regional or community tug-of-war between DEAs and education authorities or regional operations.
How can we, as parents in the communities, be sure that our children aren’t viewed as so much cannon fodder that they’re not caught up in the competing mandates or policies so that they can just go to school, get a good education, graduate, and carry on with further education or get a job maybe after graduation?
I think that’s what most parents want. They don’t want to be caught up in political battles between the government and DEAs in the community.
Can the minister shed some light on that?
The member brings up some fundamental issues when we talk about politics.
At the local DEA level, you might have a new slate of DEA members come in and they want to change from a semestered system to a non-semestered system.
Students that are in a semester, for example, the DEA might say, “Well, this is the reason why we want a semester system,” and they call the principal in and the principal says, “Look, I can’t change in midstream because so many students are in the semestered system and here is the reason why I think a non-semestered system is a better system to be in,” you then have a difference in opinion and a debate.
The same thing happens when you have a DEA in place, and they have some corporate knowledge and have been in a place for a couple of years, and then all of a sudden they hire a new principal who says, “I want the semestered system,” and the DEA says, “No, we have been going with a non-semestered system.”
So who has the final say in the school? The principal may say, “Look, from my experience, the semestered system has been the very best,” and so on and so forth.
You’re always going to have, in any type of political situation, when you have an elected group of people overseeing an institution, whether it’s the Legislative Assembly, whether it’s the hamlet council, or whether it’s the DEA, some of the issues and concerns that they believe and they vote on, the populous out there, meaning the constituents at large may not agree with that process.
Sometimes when they want to do something, like in the House, you can’t do it immediately because of some of the constrictions that are on you. Even though it may appear at the Legislative Assembly level, or at the hamlet level, it also occurs at the local council level, and indeed, at the DEA level.
I’m sure we will hear more debate on DEAs and education in the coming months.
In your business plan, on page G-18, one of your priorities for 2008-09 is to “Implement a second community based teacher education program in the Kitikmeot Region, prioritizing Inuinnaqtun.” Could you provide some clarification of what that initiative is?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Mr. Chairman, thank you.
When we tabled our Qalattuq Report in the Legislative Assembly, it talked about reinvigorating the NTEP program, so we put extra money within this budget to be able to do that. There are several fundamental parts of that program, including starting a campaign called ‘Be a Teacher,’ where we’re trying to get more and more Inuit to enter the NTEP program across Nunavut.
With community basing and funding a program in the Kitikmeot out of base funds, right now, the only base funding program is the one in the college campus in Iqaluit as an example.
We’re base funding the one in Rankin Inlet where we’re running a program right now for four years and extending that type of base funding to Cambridge Bay. That was the idea behind the business plan.
How many NTEP teachers are in the Kitikmeot currently?
Right now, in the Kitikmeot, we have 10 students in the second year of the NTEP program.
And, teaching in the schools, how many NTEP teacher graduates do you have?
I think we have over 300 Inuit teachers right now in our schools across Nunavut. Specifically in the Kitikmeot, we’re just looking to see if we have those numbers.
Can the minister tell me, when he’s looking at those numbers, how many NTEP teachers are currently within two or three years of retirement from teaching?
I’m just going to give the member some numbers.
Right now, we have, in the Qikiqtani region, 142 Inuit teachers on staff; in the Kivalliq, 66; and in the Kitikmeot 38, for a total of 246.
Of that, with their Bachelor of Education, 98; Language Specialist Positions, 70.5; and certified teachers, 67; with a letter of authority and that’s a letter of authority from the minister at 10.5.
So the total number of teachers in the Kitikmeot region is 115 and the number of Inuit teachers in that grouping is 38.
Can the minister indicate how many of those Kitikmeot teachers, who are Inuit NTEP teachers, are nearing retirement in the next couple of years?
I don’t have the number of who is near or at the retirement age with me.
I hope the minister can get me that information. The point I’m driving at hear is: are you going to have enough NTEP teachers graduate in the coming years to allow you to implement some of the goals that you will hope to achieve under the legislation that you’re planning to introduce, particularly in the Kitikmeot schools?
That’s what we have been talking about is how do we get more and that’s why we need the ‘Be a Teacher’ program and campaign. You just can’t put someone in a classroom and say, “Go ahead and teach grade nine, grade 10, grade 11, and grade 12.” It doesn’t work that way.
Right now, we have over 36 people in the NTEP program, we have 17 more in the Aboriginal Language Specialist program in Kugluktuk, and we have five in the foundation program in Rankin Inlet, so the total would be 58 people right now across Nunavut who are training to go into classrooms as teachers and as language specialists all in their foundation program.
Another one of the 2008-09 priorities is to “Implement the Master Apprentice language revitalization model in the Kitikmeot region, at the grade nine levels.”
Could the minister clarify a bit more on what that objective is dealing with?
Part of that is working with the Inuinnaqtun Language Specialist Program, where we have over 17 people involved in the program right now at the Nunavut Arctic College.
It’s also piloting the Master Apprentice program in Kugluktuk with an independent society on the ground there in the community.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for clarifying that a little bit.
I raised this issue in the House the other day: the teacher certification process.
Now that the minister has his deputy minister with him, if the minister could provide some more detail on how they’re going to improve the operations in the teacher certification process, but keeping in mind that maybe we’re already in the recruiting process for teachers for the 2008-09 school year, so we’re going to probably be having to go through all this.
So I’m wondering if you could provide some more details on how that certification process has been improved.
What happens is, the member is correct, now, we’re getting into the spring months of April and May, we will be in the position of knowing when and how many more teachers would be resigning, for example, and how many more teachers we need to hire.
And that begins the teacher recruiting process. Once a teacher goes through the initial screening process that is, you know, the reference checks and so on, and eventually is hired, they’re requested to provide instrumentation that proves that they have a Bachelor of Education for example.
We hire them and we have a registrar’s office which is set up in Arviat, which provides certification services for all teachers in Nunavut. That office is located in Arviat, as I said earlier.
The office was vacant, meaning there was staff turnover in the office for a few months in 2007 and that caused some backlog that the member talked about last week in the House and we appreciated him asking some questions on that to move forward.
All teachers who say that they have a Bachelor of Education have been moved to step four on the pay grid and as soon as the paperwork for the Bachelor of Education can be confirmed, then we look at where they should be then placed and continued on the pay grid so that there is not a financial hardship in place.
Can the minister indicate how many, if he knows, new teachers will have to be recruited for the 2008-09 school year?
By an agreement, you know with the collective agreement that we have in place with the Nunavut Teachers’ Association, all teachers that need to contact us, the Department of Education, to let us know if they’re going to be returning or extending their contract, and so on, and then that gives us a firm number of how many new teachers we need to recruit.
And that’s done in the next six-week period, so I don’t have those numbers yet. The early indication that we have is that we’re not going to have a large turnover this year in new teachers, but we don’t have any firm numbers right now.
Can the minister tell us, on average, what it costs to recruit a teacher for Nunavut?
It depends on what’s entailed. If you’re talking about the relocation as well as the recruiting expenses, I believe it averages between $10,000 and $20,000, depending on the community and on the process involved.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Picco. Mr. Alagalak.
Mr. Alagalak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to ask a question on the same issue. I heard that the Department of Education is going to set up an NTEP program in Rankin Inlet.
That’s our proposal: to set up the NTEP program, as the member mentioned, in Rankin Inlet.
Is this program applicable to all communities or only for the community of Rankin Inlet?
I just want to say very quickly, I was very pleased to be in Arviat for the graduation of our NTEP students. Last year, that was a community-based program and I’m quite pleased with that.
The Rankin Inlet program first would be for students in Rankin Inlet and if there were openings for other people throughout the Kivalliq region who would like to take that program, then that opportunity is there.
I didn’t quite understand him. Is that program open to the outlying communities? I’m talking about the NTEP program that is being proposed for Rankin Inlet.
The answer was yes. As I said, for example, in the NTEP program, if we had 10 seats that are available and only eight people from Rankin Inlet qualify, then we would look to other communities within the region first to see if they would also want to take that program.
If we have 10 applicants that are from Rankin Inlet, then we wouldn’t go outside the community if we’ve got them right there who would like to take this program.
First of all, the people who took the program in Arviat were very thankful and enjoyed the program and now have jobs. People heard about its success and are now clamouring to take the program.
In the Keewatin, did I understand correctly that only Rankin Inlet will be benefiting from this program and there’s nothing for the other communities?
In Nunavut, we have one campus based program for NTEP and that’s based here in Iqaluit. Anyone from anywhere in Nunavut can attend that program, and then we have community-based programs, like we had in Arviat last year and that program was specifically for Arviat students, but if we had extra seats in any given program and other students would like to apply to attend, then we would try to facilitate that.
So in this case, Rankin Inlet is the community of choice and if we don’t have enough students there who can qualify, then we would look at running the program in Rankin Inlet but bringing in other students if needed. So that’s how we said that the program is open for.
The territorial-wide NTEP program is based out at this campus here and we’re also running programs in Arctic Bay, Igloolik, and as I said earlier, Kugaaruk, as well as the foundation program which this year is in Rankin Inlet, we’ve got five students there right now, and we also have the Regional Language Specialist program which has 17 students in that program in Kugluktuk.
If there are still some seats available and if you do get some students from outside of Rankin Inlet, would accommodations be made available for them?
Again, it would be based on accommodations available in the community.
We have a new residence that has been built in the community but it’s not open yet, that will help us provide some extra accommodations.
However, we also have an opportunity to lease on the open market in Rankin Inlet, which we are doing. So it would again depend on the availability of accommodations.
He touched a bit on the residence. (interpretation ends) Are those single dwelling or family units that may be available? (interpretation) Which one is it, or are they both available?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve had a chance to go through the facilities in Rankin Inlet and the new accommodations; they also include a day care for families. In the community itself, in Rankin Inlet, where there’s a need for extra accommodations, we have been able to rent on the open market, like we have done, for example, in Iqaluit, and again, for families.
Single accommodations are usually held through Kivalliq Hall.
We are on Branch Summary.
Mr. Curley: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like the minister to elaborate a bit more on his opening statement. There was a very interesting paragraph on reinvigorating education in Nunavut.
Could you explain that a bit more because it doesn’t appear to be bureaucratic language?
Maybe you could include the second part of my question because I think it begs the question of exactly what you mean by that.
I appreciate the member pointing out that section out in our earlier speech.
I have been saying that since 2004, we’ve had a fundamental shift in the way we deliver education in Nunavut and that’s not just words. As to the way the philosophy, we look at Nunavutizing our curriculum, introducing the Language of Instruction, introducing a Bilingual Education Plan, looking at the Education Act, the NTEP expansion, as well as the Adult Learning Program, so all of that is the reinvigoration of education in Nunavut.
Mr. Curley: This particular statement that he made on the last part of that paragraph is tied in with the $14 million that he promised. Why is it only a promise?
I’m hoping that the member will make this promise come true because the promise is there, if this new Education Act goes through, to implement some of the fundamental shifts that we have just talked about but also some of the other issues within the Education Act itself. The price tag is about $14 million and that would be rolled out over the period of the Act.
So that’s what we mean by that amount and what we mean by that statement.
Mr. Curley: I share the minister’s list of items that he included because there were about four or five of them, many of which are ongoing and are needed to strengthen our education system in Nunavut, which includes the Nunavut Teacher Education Program and the Bilingual Education Program for Inuktitut and English. We already have a bilingual, I believe, French and English program here in Iqaluit.
My question to you is: what was preventing you from continuing on with these very important subject areas that you just outlined with the new current system?
I guess, very quickly, when the Act goes through, there are so many different changes in the Act - the responsibilities and control, and some of that fundamental shift that we have talked about - it means more extra PYs, as an example, and Nunavutizing the curriculum to the point where you’re going to have grade seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, and 12 Nunavut curriculum within Science and Math, and so on, all that costs money.
It costs dollars and dollar values aren’t in the current budgets framework that we have right now in the department, and we can’t implement that type of strategy or plan unless those dollar values are forthcoming.