EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
We all know that some kids aren’t going to school and there are quite a number of students who have a problem with attendance.
Across Nunavut, when we look at the 2011-12 year, we could see that the attendance was at about 71 percent. In 2013-14, there was an increase to 75 percent attendance.
There was an improvement in that year.
Also, if a student is not attending school, they’re missing out on school activities and school curriculum.
If a student is attending 75 percent of the time, they are actually losing three years of schooling by the time they get to grade 12. This is how we can look at it.
I’m trying to be brief, but I can reiterate that learning and pushing kids to go to school falls on the responsibility of parents.
This is the case and as parents, we try our best. There are complications in the home and problems arise.
The way I understand it, from my own experience, there is a gymnasium, for example, in our community and the hours are open until 11:00 p.m. I think sometimes staying out late is a problem because they want to sleep in.
We know nutrition is a factor and that if they don’t eat properly, it becomes a factor in their schooling as well.
We have to go back to what customs and traditions that Inuit had, to take back control of our children, such as nurturing them within our homes and not to be defended improperly by the system.
If we take control back, it will help their education improve. Now as we live under these conditions, we can be found to be criminal under false situations. We have to go back to the way we were to nurture our children, as this will help them and their education.
I bring this up as a question.
He said that was just a comment. If you want to add, Minister Quassa.
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have too much to add.
Back in the old Education Act, there was reference to parents being charged if their children did not go to school, but this was taken out and is no longer being used as we have a newer Education Act.
To reiterate, yes, parents at home have the freedom to nurture their children as they like and to keep improving our situation.
It starts at home.
I ask now: as the old Act was in place, was this useful or did it or did it not improve attendance?
If it was useful, then it could be used. If it didn’t work, we don’t need it too.
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The old Education Act that contained that was not very effective and many did not like that it charged parents for children missing school.
It was not popular and it was not very effective for the department, so it was removed.
This is in response to your question.
The next name on my list, Mr. Hickes.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
I would like to pick up a little bit where my colleague, Ms. Angnakak, left off with regard to the consistency and quality of curriculum, but I would also like link that in with the career and program planning, program for grades 7 through 12. The reason I’m linking these two together is that I feel that they go hand in hand.
Proper career and program planning for our youth enables students to take the programming needed to be able to achieve their educational goals. We have all heard the innuendoes and comments that Nunavut’s education isn’t as good as other jurisdictions. Personally I kind of argue that point.
I think some of the decisions of the courses that are being taken by some students don’t help them achieve real educational success.
I guess I would like to get the department or the minister’s thoughts on how those two are linked together and how are they moving forward together.
Chairman: Thank you. Minister Quassa
I can only say that certainly, I can admit that we can do much better. Like anything else, I think we all strive to do things better and certainly that is part of our role to do.
The other factor, of course, is that we’re all pushing for our students to be at the school on a daily basis and certainly, attendance does play a role in this area.
We are always striving to see what we can do better and I believe that that is something that we can only do to ensure… .
We want the best within our schools and I believe it is our responsibility to always look to see what else we can do.
(interpretation) That’s how I can respond briefly. I hope you understood me.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister and I do agree with you.
I think the onus, like you say, is on the parents to make sure their children are at school, but it’s also on the children and the school system itself to make sure that the options are available to them to achieve success.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think all of our high schools, as an example, have a science lab because probably not enough students are taking the Chemistry 300 or whatever it’s called nowadays to go into the advanced sciences or advanced math to really challenge themselves and to challenge the system to provide the infrastructure that is necessary to be able to achieve pure academic success.
We have all heard great stories of students coming from Nunavut that have gone on to post-secondary careers, medical professions, legal professions, and many other professional activities.
That’s why I stated earlier that I don’t believe the system itself is at fault. I think we need to take further steps to provide our children with the right choices and the direction to make those right choices.
I guess I don’t really have a question in there, Mr. Chairman, I’ll leave that as a comment, but I’ll go on to my next question. In your opening comments on page 5, it talks about the balanced literacy approach and the guided reading resources that have been provided, the levelled literacy intervention resources that have already been provided to schools. How are those resources rolled out to the schools?
Are they through the DEA?
Through teachers? Through the principals’ conference? What type of training was associated with it?
I’ll respond in English, Mr. Chairman.
(interpretation ends) To date, I can say that my department has spent a total of about $831,910 on resources for balanced literacy, just to start it off. Certainly, the school resources go directly to the schools.
Again, the literacy resources were purchased from Scholastic Education. We also purchased from the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System and Pearson Canada. Again, this is to support the balanced literacy initiative.
To make the answer short, yes, we do deliver them directly to the schools.
I believe that is the question. (interpretation) Did I answer the question? (interpretation ends) I don’t know. (interpretation) I probably didn’t answer the question, Mr. Chairman. I’ll just stop there for now.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the information on the material itself, but where I was getting at is: how are they provided to the schools? Was it through the DEA?
Was it through the teachers’ professional development? Was it through the principals? What type of training [is provided] to utilize those resources?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Again, the teachers and the principals did receive training on these resources in September and October of 2014.
The schools have already started implementing the resources in this school year, with full implementation expectations in the 2015-16 school year.
However, the Inuktitut balance literacy resources are still in the works.
So far, we have trained 150 teachers and all the principals in all our schools, the regional staff, and the regional school operations staff.
That is the training we have done so far.
The regional school operations are developing a literacy action plan for their regions.
The CSS and RSO, or regional staff operations, are working together to identify anything that is required for each school to move the literacy initiative forward.
Again I can say that not every school is at the same place or needs the same support. We try and ensure that we are meeting the needs of all our schools.
So far, as I said, we have trained 150 individuals within our schools and yes, they are delivered directly to the schools. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the minister for that information. Just to stay with literacy, in May of last year, the minister announced that there was pilot program in Cape Dorset with the summer literacy camp.
I know the minister and I have spoken about this outside the House a couple of times and the feedback has been very positive on that pilot.
There is curriculum and partnership with ITK, an education group in Cape Dorset, and Frontier College to put on that program. I’m just wondering, with the success that was achieved last year, if the department is looking at expanding that program to other communities.
As a department, we are very proud that it was successful in Aqsarniit School here in Iqaluit and when it went to Cape Dorset, it was also successful. Now we are looking at Arviat to start next.
This is coming from Cisco. The Cisco people are very supportive and we appreciate them very much. They are very proud of this.
Cape Dorset and Arviat are the two communities that have this.
Now, I understand the Education Act is under review right now and we are both a part of that process.
One of the things that I would like to get a little bit more information on is the option for a full-day kindergarten.
It has been brought up a few times recently in the media and I believe a representative from your department had some comments in the paper that there has been some preplanning work on the feasibility of introducing full-day kindergarten to Nunavut.
I understand one of the challenges is the infrastructure and a lack of classroom space for some communities with large classes.
I’m wondering if one of the things that the department is looking at is maybe a phased-in approach where, if it gets approved through the review of the Education Act, there could be more broader wording in the Act to allow for full-day kindergarten where DEAs can provide the infrastructure and if the department would support adding teaching positions as necessary for that.
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is a very good question because we are now considering this. (interpretation ends) I can say that there is certainly going to be a lot of further work that has to be done on this idea.
Certainly, a lot more consultations will be needed before any decisions or timelines or moving onto a full-day kindergarten is considered.
Certainly, as I said, there are a lot more ripple effects if that decision did ever come around.
The Department of Education would have to do, as I said, a more thorough review of the impacts of full-day kindergarten, including looking at other jurisdictions like Ontario.
We have to look at how they operate first before we can even consider it.
Certainly, there would be impacts for our students as well as licensed child care facilities. We would definitely need a lot more kindergarten teachers if we ever considered full-time kindergarten.
Certainly, school classrooms, we would have to relook at the whole structures of our schools because as you know, all of our schools only carry half-time kindergarten. Therefore, classrooms would have to be relooked at.
The Education Act, of course, is another area that we would have to look at.
Certainly, it will have an effect on the education budget and main estimates.
There are a lot of other areas that would have to be considered and looked at prior to actually deciding if we were ever to have full-time kindergarten.
Certainly, that is an ideal situation that we would want to see.
Certainly, we would need more kindergarten teachers.
We would need more classrooms, as I said.
There are a lot of other areas that we would have to look at and review before the idea of full-time kindergarten ever comes around.
Certainly, our curriculum would have to change also.
There are a lot of other factors that we would have to consider. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hickes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for that very detailed response and I acknowledge all of those challenges.
At the same time, there are schools in Nunavut that would be able to transition to full-time kindergarten basically with adding the extra half of a PY. The classroom space may already be available.
The teacher is already there. It’s just a matter of going from a half day to a full day.
I’ll leave it at that. I think the minister knows where I’m going with this. Hopefully, through the review of the Ed. Act, we will be able to really identify some of these needs.
I just have a couple of other quick questions.
A couple of days ago, we were talking about the NCAP program and the funding in Nunavut. One of your responses was mentioning that DEAs, like the CAP, is a society, a legal entity under the Societies Act.
Can the minister confirm that all DEAs across Nunavut are also in good standing with Legal Registries?
That’s a good question. (interpretation ends) Now, the DEAs are government entities. The DEAs are under Schedule A public agencies as determined by the Financial Administration Act and the Education Act.
DEAs are not societies; they are a public agency within the government.
Thanks for that clarification, Minister Quassa.
I must have misunderstood your response when we were talking about that other question.
Along the same lines, though, we’ve got daycare societies across the territory, which are not public agencies from what I understand. Are all the daycares that are operating in Nunavut in good standing as well?
Yes, for the younger children, the program we call (interpretation ends) early childhood education, (interpretation) each organization has to apply for society status and I know some daycare centres that are not operating because their society status is not in good standing.
(interpretation ends) I can say that there are some that are not in operation because of that situation where they’re in bad standing with the Societies Act, but we do encourage them.
These are all run by the individual boards within their communities.
We only do provide to those who have good standing, as the Financial Administration Act implies us to do.
Some issues are again with the CRA.
Tamajjagalaummata.
There are different issues.
Yes, you’re right, there are some that are not operating; some are. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We’re on G-7.
I want to start off with more information to understand the reasoning here. (interpretation ends) For K-12 School Operations, (interpretation) I believe this number will be increased to 53 PYs. I believe that there will be 43 educational assistants. Perhaps the term in English is (interpretation ends) learning coaches. (interpretation) With 43 of them, this includes the six (interpretation ends) regional literacy coordinators. (interpretation) With the additional six positions, that is a total of 49 PYs with four left over.
What are these four other positions?
I thank my colleague for that question. Let me elaborate.
There are 49 new positions and it’s not over that number.
What our colleague just highlighted is absolutely correct and if you break it down, there are six regional literacy coaches.
Out of the 49 new positions, once they get 59, 10 of them will be internal to the department. I can use an example of a breakdown.
If we look at three teachers for Iqaluit, one for Aqsarniit, one in Inuksuk, half a day for Joamie School, and half a day for Nakasuk School, it is based on where the kids are. There are 49 literacy coaches. (interpretation ends) There are five student support assistants. (interpretation) If we use Cambridge Bay as an example, there are 2.0 positions. Kugluktuk has 2.0 positions and there is 1.0 in Gjoa Haven.
That is the breakdown.
The coordinator would be for (interpretation ends) teacher induction and mentoring and team leader. (interpretation) That would be sort of like the coordinator position for the literacy initiative programs.
I hope I answered his question, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman (Mr. Enook)(interpretation): Thank you, Minister.
Do I understand that there are actually 59 new positions all together?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): The simple answer is yes, Mr. Chairman.
His response to your question was simply a yes.
That is clear now.
One of your priorities for 2015-16… .
Where was it again?
It was on page 87 in the English version.
It states, “Strengthen Inuit language comprehension...” They are trying to make sure that they start to use a standardized language. What has the Department of Education done in adopting (interpretation ends) standardization (interpretation) in all the schools in Nunavut?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for asking that question.
I describe it like this: all of our schools, and there are 43 of them in Nunavut, we want to make sure that they have more standardized curriculum in all of Nunavut.
If I say it in English, we want them to be transparently the same.
With regard to your other question, I believe I can describe it like this: we are working with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Nunavut Tunngavik to develop a literacy-based program. I would like everyone to know that I will be announcing it here in the House at a later date.
My department has met with ITK about language and literacy to see if we can use a standardized writing system. With the Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit group, or the Inuit Language Authority, we were able to bring that up.
At the Inuugatta (interpretation ends) conference last week, ITK and NTI representatives were there. This was a major topic of discussion.
Right now, we have been approved to see what exactly we have in the schools and what kind of literacy programs we are lacking.
Will we have adequate personnel that will be able to adopt the newly adopted standardized writing system?
We are looking into all of those at this point in time when it comes to literacy.
The Inuugatta Language Conference you were talking was very interesting to hear as an Inuk and I would really have liked to attend that, but unfortunately, we could not go there because of our session here. I was able to go and watch the minister make a speech about the fact that the language is our strength and that our identity is based on it. It is also our uniqueness and we should be proud of it.
Even though we have different dialects, we can work harder to preserve it. That is my position.
I’m just trying to encourage the minister to keep on doing this, even though it is very challenging to try and set up a standardized language that they have to work on. If I can support this in any way, I want to try and support the minister towards this objective.
I would like to ask a question, if I say it in English, it’s related to the (interpretation ends) safe schools initiative. Resources and materials to implement the safe schools initiative have been under development for some time.
According to the draft business plan, finalized hard copy manuals will be ready in the winter of 2015.
I’m wondering: what is the biggest challenge in ensuring that a safe and inclusive environment is achieved for all students and staff?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Joanasie. Minister Quassa.
Thank you for requesting information on that.
I can say that we have developed manuals and we are starting to send them out to the schools.
It is basically a manual they can use to do what your question is based on.
We have distributed that information out now to all schools.
We consider the (interpretation ends) safe schools initiative (interpretation) very important because schools have to be completely safe for the staff in our schools, which is part of the operations.
In English, it’s the (interpretation ends) emergency preparedness and crisis response manual. (interpretation) We worked in collaboration with the Department of Community and Government Services to develop that manual.
On page 87 of the business plan, the first question I have is with respect to one of the priorities for 2015-16, the third bullet, “Continue implementation of Nunavut-wide bench mark assessments to assess student literacy in language and numeracy skills.”
Have you set this up consistently throughout Nunavut?
We are dealing with three different regions, Kitikmeot, Baffin, and Kivalliq. Have you done this consistently throughout Nunavut, throughout all the regions?
Even though we have three different regions, we try to look at Nunavut as one. All the schools have to use the same standardized material, so we try and make sure they all have the same thing, even though they are in different regions.
Yes, to answer your question, we did it that way.
Mr. Mikkungwak (interpretation): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for that response.
Also on page 87, one of the priorities for 2015-16 in the sixth bullet states, “Strengthen Inuit language comprehension by continuing to adapt and create curricula in Inuktut.”
That looks like a very hard job. Even as an Inuk, we know that our writing systems are different as people from the Kivalliq, Baffin, and Kitikmeot regions.
When you look at all three different regions, what have you done in this regard within the Department of Education?
Anything that has to do with education is difficult; it has to be perfect and has to be able to be used properly in the schools.
In the 2014-15 year, we had a group called the Inuit advisory group and that group is made up of Inuit teachers who have been teachers for a long time in our schools.
They work on Inuktitut curriculum that will be used in the schools. They put that together and they are going to include performance standards in it as well.
It will be used by different grades. They just completed it recently from kindergarten to grade 6. That was the first phase and it mostly has been completed.
Now they are working on performance standards for grades 7 and 8 students. They will be doing the same thing for the English literacy standards, which are very high. The Inuktitut literacy standards will have to be just as high.
To date, we use the Inuktitut syllabics.
We have been talking about slowly changing over to using the Roman orthography and syllabics in some part. For your information, in 2015, we are going to be putting them on our website. We would like to get feedback from the general public about this.
Mr. Mikkungwak (interpretation): I thank the minister very much for that response.
When we’re looking at the usage of Roman orthography and utilizing the Inuit advisory group, my question is: how many Inuit sit on the Inuit advisory group and which community do they come from?
Just for your information, I don’t know who sits on the advisory group or where they come from.
However, as I indicated earlier, they are long-time teachers who know a lot about the education system and they are Inuit.
I apologize if I can’t tell you who they are or which community they come from.
When the information breakdown is available, I would appreciate a copy for my records.
I would like to move to another subject.
Many of my colleagues, including myself, as a parent, are quite passionate about the education system. The question I want to ask now relates to student attendance and initiatives to further that in every school in Nunavut. What is the department studying to increase the numbers of student attendance or does your department know which initiatives for increasing student attendance produce the most results?
I also thank the member for wanting details on that subject and I am proud of him for that curiosity.
There are different types of initiatives related to increasing student attendance we have undertaken, and we have noted with interest that the majority of our students are enamoured with computers and the Internet and they are very adept at using them.
Another initiative we have developed is with (interpretation ends) SMART boards (interpretation) that can be plugged into computers and that is the technology we use now in our schools. These are the SMART boards for our computers and students are eating it up, producing good results.
We are trying to ascertain if we can utilize more of this type of technology. That is part of our deliberations.