EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Given that the DEAs have significant responsibilities under the Education Act, what accounts for the decrease in funding?
This is an excellent question; all of them are excellent by the way.
Perhaps my finance director could provide a concise answer on this, if you don’t mind, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Rose.
The decrease in funding to the DEAs is primarily related to a reallocation of $6 million to the Early Childhood Education Division. Also, there is a decrease related NTA casual costs that are no longer funded through the DEAs and they are funded from the department itself.
There is also a small decrease related to enrolment-based funding for the DEAs.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Rose.
Ms. Angnakak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Rose for that answer. It is very clear to understand.
What is the department’s working relationship with the coalition and how are the budget allocations determined?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the question.
The coalition itself set up their own business plans and then they forwarded it to us for the annual approval and we have always met with them every two months in terms of their operations.
That is how we are functioning at the present time.
Ms. Angnakak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you tell me what kind of working relationship does the department have with local DEAs?
Chairman: Minister Quassa.
All of the DEAs have their local boards. We work with them, cooperate with them, and discuss things with them and they always inform us properly and we inform them properly so that we know where everything is at.
We have an excellent working relationship.
Chairman: Qujannamiik, hon. minister. Ms. Angnakak.
I’m just referring to as well a pest. I remember last fall, there was a lot of disagreement between a local DEA in a Nunavut community and the department in regard to social promotion.
I’m wondering if those kinds of challenges have been addressed.
I have stated that we have an excellent working relationship and we discuss things every two months. We listen to them and we discuss issues together.
We will be aware because we work according to what is stated in the Education Act according to all of its requirements of the law.
Sometimes it is not liked. However, that is the only way that we, as a government and the education department, work in terms of our dealings with education.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Quassa. Ms. Angnakak.
Just keeping in line with how the department interacts with the local DEAs, I know that as the minister, you haven’t been a minister for that long.
I would like to ask your DM how many times, as the DM, she meets with local DEAs.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Minister Quassa.
I have been a minister now for about six months, so every time to communities, I always meet with the local education authorities and I have only visited a few communities to date, but I do have meetings with every single one of them in the communities where they do have them or that I do visit.
Ms. Angnakak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How often does your deputy minister meet with DEAs?
Whenever it becomes possible, all of us including my staff, whenever we have the opportunity and we are in the community, we arrange to meet with the district education authorities in the communities.
Pretty much every day, we have a working relationship too via the phone network. We do consult and talk with them pretty much all the time.
Have you reviewed the possibility of providing consistent funding for schools to offer breakfast programs?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Angnakak. Minister Quassa.
To date, in regard to the breakfast programs in the schools, they are set up from money accessed outside the government sources. All of the teachers get their breakfast program funding from agencies other than the Department of Education. All of the hamlets can access Brighter Futures programs and so all the schools are able to access funding through that program and not from the department of Education.
The district education authorities invest their finances, and still do so up to today.
Actually, that’s the reason why I asked the question.
It seems like, from what I understand in talking with some hardworking teachers at the schools, that they care a lot about the children coming in and they don’t want anyone to go hungry.
Over and beyond their own jobs, they’re writing proposals, they’re going out to the stores and buying food, and then they take it back and they prepare the food.
This is all done on top of their jobs.
We all know that we need incentives to bring children to school, and one of that can be to receive a hot meal.
Also we know that children learn a lot better when they have something in their tummies.
I am wondering if, as the minister, you would be willing to sit down with Family Services and the Department of Health and try to find a way that schools can get funding so that they know every year of how much they are going to get so that they could order through sealift, and also maybe enough to hire a half PY who can help prepare the food and alleviate some of the challenges this poses on teachers.
I totally agree with your first comments that the teachers are supposed to be there to teach.
That is supposed to be the number one thing that the teacher does. The program should be run more by the community and be community-based, the breakfast programs for the students.
Parents of the students have a responsibility for their children as well because they are the parents.
I wanted to repeat that.
I agree with you that the program helps a great deal. In Apex we went to visit the school there and I fully understood that students attend more school when there is a breakfast program.
We always support them. If the community can run it on its own, it’s better.
I agree with you that the Department of Family Services and the Department of Health ministers should be involved.
I will meet with them and talk about what else we can do in this area.
I appreciate the fact that you’re willing to have further discussions with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Family Services because I believe this is a really important initiative and we need to invest in our children. I think this is one good way we can do that.
I’d like to ask the minister if he would commit to coming back to the House with, once you’ve had your deliberations with the other two ministers, and tell us what further plans you have in terms of delivering breakfast programs?
Mr. Hickes: I’d like to start off on the business plan under 2013-14 on page 81. About half way down it talks about implementing a revised career planning program for grades 7 through 12.
It says it continues to be a work in progress for the department and that work will continue in this fiscal year with an emphasis on a communications plan for implementation.
I’ve heard numerous stories of students finding their calling or finding an interest of study later on in their academic lives where they’ve already made poor choices in their course selection which really restricts their ability and in some cases dashes dreams.
I really want to emphasize on the importance of assisting our students with their career planning and explaining to teachers and parents to educate the students on how it can open doors and opportunities, Mr. Chairman, for a child’s future so that they take a harder education challenge.
But at the end of the day their options are almost over-abundant and they’re very clear.
Would the minister be able to educate me on the projected time line? It has this over the next couple fiscal years to be working on this. Can the minister let me know how the time line is progressing?
It’s a good question. I thank you for asking it.
If it’s ok with you, Mr. Chairman, I would like my deputy minister Okpik to respond to that so she can clarify.
Ms. Okpik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) We totally agree that that’s one of the most important fundamental pieces of work that both parents and students need to undertake in determining course selections.
Currently, as of right now, the career program plan is very cumbersome. It’s a very long document.
There’s consultation with the parent and identifying where that child would like to go.
We look at it as early grade 6. We really feel that even at grade 6 the students and the parents themselves need to look at where they want their child to be in 4 or 5 years in terms of their course selection.
I don’t have an absolute time frame for you but we commit to getting back to you with respect to the actual development and the work that will be done with the career planning document. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the minister and his deputy minister for those responses and I very much look forward to receiving that information.
I’m just going to jump ahead a bit, but I will revert back to that fiscal year and the priorities, but I’m going to jump ahead to 2014-15 as I feel it’s related to the question that I just asked.
One of the departmental priorities on page 82 of the draft business plan is to ensure consistency in curriculum across Nunavut that will enable student success and measure against any Canadian jurisdiction. What steps are being taken to measure the adequacy of Nunavut’s high school grad standards and compare them to graduation standards across Canada?
Up to now, in our schools for the higher grades we use the departmental exams. But we have to asses the students as to where their learning actually is.
We have to further assess them.
Right now we have to set some benchmarks so that we will be able to track progress.
That is all I can say. I stated earlier, once we find the benchmarks, the assessments will be based on the benchmarks to see where they have progressed to compared to the rest of Canada.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minster.
Along a similar line, I guess, one of the biggest challenges that have been brought to my attention through your deputy minister’s responses at the OAG review was attendance. We discussed it a little bit at that level.
I’d like to get a response from the minister on what type of initiatives that the department has been doing that have seen successes? Is there any way we can improve on them?
Thank you to my colleague for asking that question.
This past year in Iqaluit, at the Aqsarniit Middle School, we worked with the school computer system people and connected with other students in the school. They could learn together with other students online. Once the computers were online, attendance improved.
Once they found that they could share their schoolwork with other students in other places, it really helped attendance. We’re going to try it out in Arviat and other communities as well.
We will keep the communities and students informed. It really enhanced students’ education already.
For the grade 6 to grade 9 students, we’re trying to create different resources where these students can be taught more about informatics and computers and also about traveling to other communities. We’re trying to bring out subjects that kids and people like, such as learning how to sing or how to use musical instruments. We want to bring more things out that the students like.
We’re introducing reading material that shows how textbooks can be made more people-friendly and it will help the students envision as to what they want to do and where they want to go.
We will continue to do that to see how we can improve attendance in our schools.
I thank the minister for that response and I look forward to seeing some headway on that issue.
I just have one, I guess, hopefully final question regarding the mentoring program for new teachers in Nunavut.
It talks about it in their priorities for 2013-14. It’s the third last bullet on page 81. The formal mentoring program is being developed by a group of educators from across the territory.
The goal in here that’s outlined in the status is that it be completed by April of this year so that it will be ready for review and approval.
Has that framework been completed?
I thank the member for his good question because our teachers are very important in our schools.
With that, we have three different mentoring programs for teachers and we have them available through the website to make sure that various pieces of information get out to the new teachers in Nunavut. We have that information or reading material for that. This is going to be implemented in 2014 in the fall time.
Teachers will receive orientation on how the school is operated. Because communities differ from each community, they will also receive orientation when they get to the communities.
At this time, we’re now starting to set up and working on it so that we can have a standardized mentoring program for new teachers coming up to Nunavut.
We expect that the standardized mentoring program is going to be completed by June 2014.
At that time, we will be able to implement and that’s our target date and that’s in our plans. Also, NTEP graduates who will be new teachers and new teachers arriving from outside of Nunavut will use that orientation program.
I’m sure that my colleagues had asked those questions, but on page 80 of your business plan, I’m not sure which MLA asked this question on kindergarten to grade 12 instruction. The funding has been reduced.
Just at the bottom, Support to District Education Authorities, the funding line item has also been reduced and also on the same page regional school operations have increased.
My question is the two programs that are geared towards the communities for regional school operations have increased and the two were reduced. Why is that?
Although I’m sure this question was posed earlier on but perhaps I’ll have to provide a more detailed answer.
I’d like to ask my deputy minister to supplement the response I gave earlier on.
Although you responded to that but if you’d like to supplement the response, Ms. Okpik.
Ms. Okpik (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) The support to district education authorities as mentioned earlier, the decreases of $1.6 million of early child hood monies that rested with the DEA funding has now been moved to the newly created early childhood education division for them to implement that money.
The other piece that was attached to this was our payments to DEAs don’t follow the full fiscal year. We have what we call the fifth payment so when the Department of Education, through the Government of Nunavut, took back the hiring of casuals for DEAs, the fifth payment that the DEA would have received reverted back to the Government of Nunavut because now we hire the casuals on behalf of the DEAs.
That amount was over $300,000 as well. That was the change in funding for DEAs.
With respect to the increase to regional school operations, again this is part of the new money that the Department of Education has received for the new 2 PYs, the Education Act implementation specialists.
Also, why it’s increased in this area is previously we had five American sign language interpreters on contract so we hired them as permanent employees now.
We moved that amount of money from contract services to the compensation and benefits funding. (interpretation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That’s clearer now as to why there was a decrease and why there was an increase. Thank you for the explanation.
I’m not sure if this question was posed earlier but on page 81 under your business plan (interpretation ends) Under priorities, the third bullet, (interpretation) I have a question…
Provide school level support. Can you explain to me what kind of changes there will be?
I’m sorry I did not understand the member stating “third bullet.” Can you explain to me which bullet you meant?
Which third bullet are you talking about, Mr. Mikkungwak?
Mr. Mikkungwak (interpretation): Thank you. (interpretation ends) Under Business Plan, page 81, under priorities 2013-14, third bullet, “provide school level support for implementation of new high school graduation requirements and ensure employers and public understand the changes.”
Are we foreseeing drastic changes?
Is that clearer now?
In regard to the third bullet, I’ll provide a brief answer.
This coming fall, we will be meeting with the principals and at that time, they will be able to make more discussions, but I would like to ask my deputy minister to supplement my response.
Chairman (interpretation): Deputy Minister, Ms. Okpik.
The changes were discussed recently and the minister discussed them through the media. Although there isn’t a huge change, there’s a minor change.
For gymnastics or gymnasium, three credits and five credits. If you have 75 hours of schooling, it’s equal to three credits.
If you’re going to get five credits, you need 125 hours of schooling. One credit equals 25 hours.
For gymnasium, they would give five credits right away and we made changes to that. We changed it from five to three credits.
The mandatory Aulajaaqtut curriculum for grade 12 has been removed. The Aulajaaqtut curriculum for grades 10 and 11 hasn’t changed, but the student can still choose which subject the student needs from the Aulajaaqtut curriculum.
The reason why we made that change is for science and math so that the students can have more discretion as to which subject they would like to choose.
Those were the main changes.
We first met with our staff in regional operations and school services and we sent documents to them. They are to distribute the documents to the schools.
In August or September, when the school principals come for a meeting or gathering, we will inform them of the new changes. I’m sure that there will be new principals.
Our public affairs officer in our department can provide information to the parents of the schools and put the information out in public places before the school year starts.
I thank you very much for your good response.
I would like to move on to another topic on page 82 of your business plan, (interpretation ends) priorities 2014-15, second bullet, “Implementation of Nunavut-wide assessments to assess student literacy in language and numeracy skills.” (interpretation) I have a question in regard to this bullet and I’ll use an example.
As Members of the Legislative Assembly, we have different dialects. If we want to ask questions or start working with numbers, and we do not understand each other, we revert to English.
I would like to know how you are dealing with this issue.
That is a good question. We wanted to make sure that this was done properly because we have a multi-layered approach to assessments.
In the 2014-15 school year, the assessments will be utilized then, and Fountas and Pennel benchmark assessment that we will be using in 2014-15 and these are directed for grade 7 and grade 8, they have the same assessment…we have the same assessment, common assessment for those grades.
For grade 7 and 8, 9 we have as well for kindergarten to grade 12 we will be using the Canadian achievement test version 4 and for all the schools…that’s for all the schools.
Like I stated earlier that this will begin 2014-15 and all the teachers will have to have the knowledge of using these assessment procedures in the schools and we will be notifying the teachers that those are the ones that we will be using for assessing students.
Those are the plans in place that we have for 2014 we will be doing personal development training and in January 2015 we will be supporting the teachers on the assessment or the training plans from May 20.
Last week we…balance we did a training program for these school principals.
And in September 9 to the 12, 2014 we will have education leaders conference in September and then we will be doing assessments too on literacy.
And at the end of September, beginning of October we will also have another training in Kivalliq, Kitikmeot, and in Iqaluit 2014-15.
On that same business plan under priorities 2014-15, implement the safe schools initiative. His department, who did they consult with?
Hon. Paul Quassa (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the member for his question.
I think it was this morning that…
Community and Government Services there was a similar question posed and I can say that we are going to be working with Community and Government Services in that respect for safe schools.
We have safe school committees in the schools. There are two individuals from the government and from the Nunavut Teacher’s Association; there are two members and some people from the school who deal with the safe schools initiatives.
Mr. Mikkungwak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the minister for the long-winded answer.
When we look at the safe schools initiative, I guess we could look at it in two essences; one is the school infrastructure which is looked after by an inspector. The question I was trying to ask was if an angry parent has a problem with a teacher or something and decides to go on a rampage and scares a whole whack of children, this initiative, has your department consulted with anyone regarding this?
Yes, I understand his question perfectly well.
We were just talking about the buildings. On top of that there are also problems that we might encounter such as….
With respect to safe schools we also deal with that in all of the schools to ensure that if there is a problem, such as the member is saying, how the school can deal with that. This is another one that we have to make sure that the schools are safe.
Also with respect to emergencies in the school we are working with the Department of Health and also the Department of Justice, Family Services, and Community and Government Services and the RCMP. Those are the bodies that we work with if there was an emergency in the school.
The schools can be closed as soon as possible, right away, if there’s an outside danger such as fire or other things.
If there was a death inside the school or if there was somebody that got hurt, those are the types of different things that we deal with.
Not just buildings, but things such as the member is describing and we want to make sure that all of the students, the staff and the teachers should not be in any danger.
I thank the minister for the response I wanted to hear. I got the full answer.
Earlier, one of my colleagues had asked if the department will support ongoing initiatives for breakfast programs as an initiative for students to attend school.
As the minister may recall, the other day I did ask the Department of Community and Government Services, and Community and Government Services has also supported initiatives in prize material for computers, whether it be to both elementary and secondary schools.
Has the Department of Education taken a further look at other initiatives for both elementary and secondary schools so that we keep the school attendance high?
What we wanted to do was initiate things including the parents. We would like to have a parental engagement with respect to school attendance and prize giving and we want to work with ITK.
We will be meeting with them to and we want to be able to include the parents as much as possible in the school.
Just to remind the members that we are on page G-7. N-7 in Inuktitut. Branch Summary.
Kindergarten to Grade 12 School Operations.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be voted $154,135,000.
Turning the page. Page G-8. Inuktitut N-8.
Department of Education. Branch Summary.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be voted.
I have a question for the minister. One of your priorities for 2014-15, as indicated on page 85, is to ensure the curriculum emphasizes that the basic of reading, writing, math, and problem-solving.
Can you describe what specific changes will be made to the current curriculum to achieve this objective?
Before I ask the minister to respond to that, if you have any questions on G-8, please put your hand up in advance.
It’s an excellent question.
We have indicated priorities that we have identified and that we wanted to initiate.
There are specific things in there. These guided reading and guided study will be our priorities in the balanced literacy program.
I am sorry that I have been switching back and forth between English and Inuktitut and mixing them.