Overhauls to the Education Act currently being proposed aren’t drawing tremendous confidence from parents or regular MLAs alike.
Parents, grandparents and concerned citizens were on hand to give feedback to the Standing Committee on Social Development at Inuvik’s Midnight Sun Complex June 6. The committee has been travelling the territory collecting feedback on amendments to the Education Act.
“Since October 2019, education has been the biggest pet peeve of mine,” said Deh Cho MLA Ronald Bonnetrouge in his opening remarks. “I have lots of interesting comments regarding education in are small communities.
“I’ve been hammering the Minister of Education since the start. What are we doing to improve the education of our students? It’s important that we address it at this early stage — it should have been done years ago, because we’re building a university. I’m asking who is going to fill the halls of that university?”
Changes to the Education Act being proposed include requiring school boards to provide transportation to and from school, either by way of currently existing services, such as Nihtat Gwich’in Council’s school bus system in Inuvik. In addition, the amendments call for the establishment of an oversight committee to review education bodies’ performance, replacing the current system where a problem has to identified and taken directly to the Minister of Education before an investigation can be launched. Other changes include improving information gathering and sharing, more concrete definitions of powers specific to district education authorities and district education councils as well as a mediation process where those powers overlap and updating language in the act to replace references to “aboriginal” in the act to Indigenous peoples.
This is the first phase of amendments, which if passed by the legislative assembly this fall will inform regulations to come into force by September 2024. A second set of amendments are expected to be prepared for the next legislative assembly following this October’s general election.
However, the amendments did little to comfort the citizens who came out to speak to the committee. Top of mind for the people are the top-down authority stemming from the school boards, ensuring students are actually in school and stopping the practice of moving students forward in grades when they aren’t ready.
Ruby St. Amand told the committee she was aware of several kids who were attending less than a third of their school days and still getting passed forward.
“Now we have kids in Grade 9 with probably a Grade 2 education,” she said. “They can’t keep up and drop out. It’s cruel to tell kids to stay in school when their diploma may not actually be any good.”
She added fining parents for letting their kids skip school doesn’t work either as often times families are low-income, so fining the families ultimately just hurts the kids.
Another area parents identified the NWT education system is woefully inadequate in is helping students with disabilities. Two parents, both of whom asked Inuvik Drum to remain anonymous to protect the identities of their children, told the committee their kids were effectively left to fend for themselves, with the families of children living with a disability often having to leave the territory to get the support they need.
One parent said her child could not keep up in school and has now dropped out. The other said there was a total lack of understanding how to work with students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. However, while she stressed she could tell school staff were doing the best they can, they lacked the resources to help effectively. So to help her child, who was in Grade 7 but reading at a Grade 4 level, she had to find money through Jordan’s Principle to hire a specialist.
“How many students do we lose in Grade 10?” she asked. “I see lots.
“Our children are being left behind.”
Members of the committee were sympathetic to the crowd’s concerns, noting they all are regular sitting MLAs and have had their own share of issues with cabinet. They said would include the concerns expressed in their report to the legislature.
“I hear your frustration,” said deputy chair Katrina Nokleby. “The government has been spinning its wheels for awhile now. Nobody wants to pull the trigger and make a decision.
“I was trying to change that, but they kicked me out of cabinet.”
Written feedback on the proposed changes can be emailed to LA_PAC@ntassembly.ca until June 22.