May 31, 1993

SOCIAL SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Mr. Nick Careen,

M.H.A. (Placentia) substitutes for Mr. Glenn Tobin, M.H.A. (Burin - Placentia

West).

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m. in the Legislative

Chamber of the Colonial Building.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Gilbert): Gentlemen, it is 7:00

p.m. so we will start. I should get a few things straightened away again before

we start. I will ask the members to introduce themselves and then I will ask the

minister to introduce his staff. We will use the same procedure as used in the

last meeting. The minister will open with a fifteen minute remark. Now who is

going to be the official responder from your side tonight? Lynn are you doing

that?

MS. VERGE: Well, we have two committee members

here, Nick Careen, the Member for Placentia, is replacing Glen Tobin. I have a

letter here to satisfy the formal requirements.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please give that to the clerk.

MS. VERGE: There will be just a slight

hesitation while I fill in the blanks here. Harvey Hodder, the Member for

Waterford - Kenmount, who is the official opposition education critic, is here

as well. Now, we understand that -

MR. CHAIRMAN: He does not vote.

MS. VERGE: - he cannot vote but as a Member of

the House of Assembly he is entitled to participate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: He has a perfect right to

question. Before we start, will I recognize Mr. Hodder as the spokesman after

the minister is finished?

MS. VERGE: I will do that and Mr. Hodder will

join in later.

MR. CHAIRMAN: As long as he realizes that he

can be recognized as everything goes along. As the members want to speak, if

they will indicate that they want to speak, I will keep a list of them here so

that the thing will flow a little freer. You have ten minutes to speak

afterwards. You can take that ten minutes to make a statement or you can ask a

question to the minister and then give and take for ten minutes, back and forth,

then your time is up and I will recognize somebody else. That is sort of the

ground rules. Again, it is a three hour meeting. We hope to get the heads passed

within those three hours. But in the last meeting at 10:00 p.m. there was

consensus that we could finish within a reasonable length of time so we carried

on past 10:00 p.m. So, if that is alright with the committee we will follow that

procedure again tonight and then see what happens at 10:00 p.m. when we make the

decision. Is everybody in agreement on that?

So, now we have confirmed that Mr. Careen is a

voting member of this committee. I will ask the members to introduce themselves

and we can then start.

MS. YOUNG: Kay Young, Member for Terra Nova

district.

MR. SMITH: Gerald Smith, Member for Port au

Port.

MR. CAREEN: Nick Careen, Member for Placentia.

MR. HODDER: Harvey Hodder, Member for Waterford

- Kenmount.

MR. HARRIS: Jack Harris, Member for St. John's

East.

MS. VERGE: Lynn Verge, Member for Humber East.

MR. CHAIRMAN: David Gilbert, Member for Burgeo

- Bay d'Espoir.

Now, I will ask the Minister to introduce his

people and make his opening remarks. When the officials are speaking, for the

sake of our Clerks and the people who are going to type this, please identify

yourselves. There are some new members here who the stenographers cannot

recognize yet. So, at this time I would like to welcome everybody, welcome you,

Mr. Minister, and now I turn it over to you for your opening remarks.

MR. DECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I do not

intend to take fifteen minutes unless you insist that I do it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, Sir, you do not have to.

MR. DECKER: I want to introduce on my immediate

right, Dr. Frank Marsh, who is the acting deputy minister. As you are probably

aware the previous deputy minister resigned. He resigned actually early in April

but he stayed until just before the first of May and Dr. Marsh is acting until

such time as we appoint a new deputy. He is the assistant deputy minister

responsible for post graduate studies and post secondary education, colleges

come under him of course and the university and all of the other post secondary

stuff.

On his right is Dr. Edna Turpin-Downey, who is

responsible for the K-12 and of course Dr. Turpin-Downey to date, has been

involved to a considerable degree in the Royal Commission. As you know, we have

two committee's; the committee of principles made up of church leaders and

government members, the politicians, the members of the PMP committee and we

have a committee of officials with Dr. Turpin-Downey that heads up the

governments committee of officials which meets with the officials from the

churches. The deputy minister of course, also attends all of these meetings as

well.

On my left we have Florence Delaney. Florence is

responsible for the financial administration and that part of the department.

We have Jack Thompson, who is a director and Aubrey

Halfyard. I cannot go into the detail of what you gentlemen do but I know when

calling on you every now and again, when meeting with various people, I use your

expertise. Jack would you explain just what you do in the department for the

benefit of the people?

MR. THOMPSON: My position with the Department

of Education is titled, Director of External Financial Relations. Very briefly

it deals with the funding to various agencies basically operating under the

Department of Education. For example, it deals with post secondary institutions

as well as school boards, a typical example is teacher's payroll and school bus

transportation. That is the main thrust of my area of responsibility.

MR. HALFYARD: I am Director of Financial

Services and Operations for the department. My main task is being responsible

for the financial management overall for the department, responsible for the

accounts unit of the department, the co-ordination of the preparation of the

estimates, and the operational side of the House for the department's physical

plant, as it were.

MR. DECKER: That is the introduction of the

officials and I do not care to make any further speech. I would rather make the

time available to the members for their questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge you have fifteen

minutes to make a statement.

MS. VERGE: I will use my fifteen by making some

comments and then asking question about a series of topics, then pausing after

each for the minister's response.

The first topic is the question of the way our

primary, elementary, and high school education system - the minister is asking

me to speak up and I will try to project a little better, but let me know if you

are having difficulty as we go along.

I am going to deal with a series of topics one by

one, pausing after comments and questions about each for your reaction. The

first topic is the all important issue of the way children's education is

administered and governed, the timely question of the division of powers among

the provincial government and the churches. We have before us the William's

report, the William's Royal Commission Report which calls for major change in

the way children's education is governed with different roles for the players.

The William's Commission consulted the public extensively through hearings and

they also commissioned public opinion surveys. They amassed a considerable

amount of evidence, number one, pointing to the need for massive change, and

number two, indicating that there is widespread public support for change along

the lines of having the church's role in education confined to developing

religious education programs and providing pastoral care but leaving

administration and allocation of public funds to elected authorities and having

major integration of the denominational groups and boards so that we will lower

our administrative spending and concentrate more available resources on

instructing children.

It has been a year now since we have had the report

and while people's hopes were raised initially it seems as though there has been

a significant retreat. The whole matter seems to have been handed over to the

church leaders, clergy specifically, and a few cabinet ministers, so similar to

the Meech Lake process we have boys meeting in the back room making significant

decisions that are going to affect the lives of virtually every person in this

Province. I am wondering how the minister can defend the process?

MR. DECKER: It has been almost a year since the

Royal Commission report was presented as hon. members know. Government never

took an official position until sometime last Fall. I think it was October or

November before government finally, publicly said what our position was, which

was, generally that we accept the general thrust of the Royal Commission.

There are 211 recommendations in the Royal

Commission report, about anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five depending on who

you are, who is speaking, about eighteen to twenty-five of these recommendations

have a direct impact on the traditional rights of the churches in this Province.

In order to do away with these rights, if anyone ever wish to do so, you would

either have to have consensus or you would have to change the Constitution

without the consent of the churches. To get their consensus you would have to

change the Constitution voluntarily, if not you could do it without their

consent. I am not sure that government could change the Constitution without the

consent of the churches. We have had legal advice, we have had legal people

working on it within the Department of Justice.

In 1949, in Confederation, the rights of the

churches were entrenched even further than ever they were I suppose, prior to

Confederation, so they are there, there is no doubt about that. If we could

reach consensus with the churches for these twenty-five, we would have no

problem. I should say though, 153, is it, Dr. Turpin-Downey, have been acted on?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: 153 of the recommendations, already

some action has been taken on them and it is ongoing. For example, at the

university, there have been some changes for the -

MS. VERGE: If I might interject, I only have a

short time and I am interested particularly in the way the system is governed,

the respective roles of the provincial government, elected school boards,

churches, so I will leave until later a discussion of other recommendations of

the Williams Report. I would like the minister to give us his

interpretation of

the rights of the churches. In the view of the minister, what are the rights of

the churches?

MR. DECKER: In this Province, the churches have

the sole right for governance in the system.

MS. VERGE: Where is their authority for that?

MR. DECKER: It is in the Terms of Union.

MS. VERGE: That is not what the Terms of Union

say.

MR. DECKER: Madam Chairperson, you were

Minister of Education yourself and you know darn well where the rights are.

MS. VERGE: I would like to know what this

minister understands to be the rights of the churches -

MR. DECKER: I understand them exactly -

MS. VERGE: - because I am hearing this minister

attribute to the churches all kinds of rights and powers which are not given to

them in law.

MR. DECKER: Well, if that is correct, I would

love for you to give me the legal advice which you have, because the legal

advice that I got, is that we have to reach consensus of the churches,

governance, they have a role in government to play -

MS. VERGE: A role.

MR. DECKER: - the non-discriminatory

distribution of funds, we have no choice we have to distribute money based on

whether you are Roman Catholic or whether you are one of the integrating

churches.

MS. VERGE: Capital funds only.

MR. DECKER: Capital funding. Over the period of

time we are not distributing the operational money based on non-discriminatory

distribution, but if you were to follow the letter of the law, I would suspect

that could well be challenged and we could have to give the operational monies

as well. This past year we attempted to change the way the grant structure was

awarded and we had to get all kinds of legal advice before we could even do

that, it was delayed by about six months before we finally (inaudible). So the

churches do have a very solid list of rights in governance, and I suppose that

is where one of our biggest problems could be, if we ever wanted to get the

church to let it go, but as you know, the two committees have met, and we are

reaching a fair level of consensus with the churches, they have not accepted

everything yet.

They have come forward to government with a

suggestion as to how we should govern education. We have not accepted or

rejected it, it is still being worked on by the committee of officials, but

there is no doubt in anybody's mind that the churches do have rights and up to

twenty-five of the recommendations of the Royal Commission would be impacted

upon, if we were to do it without their consent.

MS. VERGE: Would the minister make public the

legal advice he has, because I am hearing the minister attribute to the churches

powers and rights which in my opinion they do not have. The minister seems to be

trying to expand the constitutional role of the churches.

MR. DECKER: In due course all things will be

made public, but at this moment the rights belong to the classes of people.

MS. VERGE: Don't the rights belong to the

citizens of the Province, who elect -

MR. DECKER: The rights belong to the Province

and the people.

MS. VERGE: - members of the House of Assembly

and who comprise the membership of the churches?

MR. DECKER: The rights belong to the classes of

people. That is the way it is worded.

MS. VERGE: And who are the people? Isn't this

whole business of reforming the way schools are governed in the public property

- does this not belong to the people? How can the minister justify having a few

of the elite, the planning and priorities committee of Cabinet and the head

clergy, meeting behind closed doors, making big decisions that are going to

affect the future of education in this Province?

MR. DECKER: Well I am not sure the people of

this Province would consider the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, and

Pastor King of the Pentecostal to be the elite who are somehow in behind closed

doors. I am not sure the hon. member would want to call it that.

The rights, according to the Constitution, belong

to the classes of people. Now I suppose in theory we should go out and sit down

and talk with 570,000 people - however many people are in this Province - and

who knows?... it might have to come to that. But you have to talk to someone. At

the moment we are talking with the heads of churches.

MS. VERGE: Would the minister entertain the

possibility of having a referendum?

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, you will have to try

to restrain the hon. member long enough for me to answer my questions. There is

lots of time. If we do not do it tonight, we will come back tomorrow night and

the night after. If you want an answer, the least you can do is be a little bit

patient and I will try to get to it.

There are other groups who have been saying that

they want to have some input into the discussion, and I totally agree with that

- the trustees, for example. In theory though, we do not have to talk to the

trustees. All we have to talk to again are the classes of people - whoever the

classes of people are. At the moment we are using the heads of churches to

represent the classes of people.

If the number of petitions which hon. members - I

guess you brought them in, too, did you not, Ms. Verge?

MS. VERGE: No.

MR. DECKER: You are probably the only one who

did not, but most members in the House did bring an awful lot of petitions into

the House before it closed the last time, expressing the great desire of our

people to maintain a denominational system, and if you were to interpret that

you would think they would want the status quo to remain.

The trustees that met with me - I guess it was the

same committee that you had when you were there - the general advisory committee

to the minister, that makes up the School Trustees Association, that makes up

the parent/teachers, that makes up the -

MS. VERGE: The NTA.

MR. LUSH: The Newfoundland Teachers Association

and several others.

At our last meeting it was agreed by all present

that we would use that as a forum so that other groups can have some input into

exactly what is going on. We even agreed that we would add to that general

advisory committee so that we could make sure that everybody gets an opportunity

to have some input.

We certainly do expect, as a department, over the

next two or three weeks, I think, you will see some moves which will be

suggesting just how serious we are about following through on the Royal

Commission.

MS. VERGE: Would the minister consider having a

referendum to go to all the voters in the Province, all the people who make up

the -what is the phrase he is using - the classes of persons, all the people who

elect members of the House of Assembly, all of the people who make up the

membership of the churches?

MR. DECKER: How would you suggest we do that?

MS. VERGE: I get to ask the questions tonight.

Would the minister consider going to all the

people, through a referendum -

MR. DECKER: You are talking about a referendum?

MS. VERGE: - to determine the will of all the

people about how the education system in this Province should be governed in the

future?

MR. DECKER: That was what the Royal Commission

did - exactly that. I know with your remarks you said that it was clear that the

people of the Province were not totally satisfied with the system, and I believe

you suggested that they were ready for a secular system.

MS. VERGE: No, I did not use those words. I did

refer to the Williams Commission having held public hearings and also having

commissioned polls, but public hearings and polls are quite a bit different from

having a referendum and actually allowing every single eligible voter to,

through secret ballot, indicate a preference about how the system is to be

governed.

MR. DECKER: We do not have any intention right

now to go with a referendum. Of course I would not rule it out. You do not know

what the future holds, but at the moment we are having discussions with the

heads of churches.

MS. VERGE: How do you intend to let the people

know what discussions are going on, what options are being looked at?

MR. DECKER: Well I do not think it would be

proper, right in the middle of discussions - we are discussing rights that

people have entrenched in the Constitution.

MS. VERGE: But who has the rights?

MR. DECKER: I suppose -

MS. VERGE: Whose rights are they?

MR. DECKER: Pardon?

MS. VERGE: Whose rights are they?

MR. DECKER: They belong to the classes of

people. Now I don't see where it makes much sense to bring 570,000 people into a

building - it would have to be an open air meeting to begin with.

MS. VERGE: What about the constituent assembly

model that the Premier keeps talking about for constitutional change?

MR. DECKER: I think it can be done much more

expeditiously. I think we can reach a consensus. One of the things which the

poll showed in the Royal Commission was not that the people want a secular

system. The poll showed that a considerable number of our people want basically

one system of education. They want denominational education. I think

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians want that. They have problems with the

duplication, they have problems where money is being wasted, as they expressed.

But there is a very clear desire on the part of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians

to have a denominational system of education.

MS. VERGE: Shouldn't people be involved in a

determination of what kind of denominational education system they have? Since

the ordinary taxpayers and laity may have different values from the clergy and

church officials who have vested interests in maintaining power and jobs.

MR. DECKER: Surely you're not suggesting that

we totally ignore the heads of the churches?

MS. VERGE: I'm asking the minister if he

wouldn't broaden the discussion to involve the people.

MR. DECKER: I've already told you that we are

broadening the discussions. The general advisory committee, we've made provision

there for other people to come in.

MS. VERGE: Would you make provision for the

media to attend meetings of the general advisory committee so that through the

news media everyone can find out what's being talked about?

MR. DECKER: No, as a general rule we won't do

that. You see, that's not very practical.

MS. VERGE: Why?

MR. DECKER: Would you want the media to attend

Cabinet meetings? How far do you push this? It sounds like a great ideal and

that sort of thing, but we're talking about entrenched rights. We're talking

about -

MS. VERGE: Whose rights are they?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time is up for this exchange

now. There's no one else who has indicated they want to speak. So if you want to

carry on again please indicate.

MS. VERGE: No, I'll yield and let one of my

colleagues have a turn. I'll come back to this later.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Chair. Just on another

tack. I may have some questions on that issue a little later. I want to talk

about one issue that I raised with you, Minister, last year in connection with a

particular problem in my own district. That's to do with school bus

transportation in the City of St. John's. I want to raise it on a more general

level.

As you may know I had a private member's resolution

on the Order Paper until the last session was terminated having to do with

school bus transportation. Now new members may not know, and perhaps the Member

for Waterford - Kenmount would be interested in knowing, that all of the people

in Mount Pearl who have children going to school in the schools of Mount Pearl

who live more than a mile away from their school get bus transportation provided

free at the taxpayers' expense. Free, in other words, to the parents and to the

students, at the taxpayers' expense, regardless of the income of the parents or

the families.

Whereas in my district, and in most districts inside the City of

St. John's parents have to pay for their children to travel to school on the St.

John's Transportation Commission buses.

We had a situation in St. John's East, in Quidi

Vidi, where up until last June there was a school bus provided. The St. John's

Transportation Commission in its wisdom decided that it was going to route one

of its buses down into Quidi Vidi Village and advised the RC School Board for

St. John's that they must cease and desist providing school bus transportation

to the parents. The result of that was that the children and the parents

couldn't afford to use the St. John's Transportation buses, and of course the

Department of Education, or the School Board, was unable to provide the

transportation because the system didn't allow it.

Now, through various representations and through

some efforts on your part, for which I think I expressed my appreciation and I

know the people in Quidi Vidi who are affected by it also appreciate it, the

thing was restored basically when the St. John's Transportation Commission

decided that it was no longer economically feasible for them to do it because

they were not getting the ridership. All of this of course is background to my

question, and the question is - and I am not picking on Mount Pearl but I only

use it as a contrast, the same is true for every town, every city and every

rural community in Newfoundland and Labrador. School bus transportation is

provided throughout the Province with the exception of St. John's, and I would

like to know, Mr. Minister, why is it that a constituent of mine, who lives in

the Battery and goes to Gonzaga High School for example, has to either pay for

school bus transportation himself or walk more than a mile to school, where that

same situation does not apply in Mount Pearl, in Corner Brook or in Bonavista?

MR. DECKER: You are making some good points,

Mr. Harris, and we discussed a lot of this privately before and I agree with

you. It would be a simple thing to say that the St. John's Transportation

Commission is a problem but that is a copout. In order to run a school bus in

this city we do have to have approval of the St. John's Transportation

Commission but the fact still remains that people in Corner Brook get bused in

for nothing, people in Mount Pearl get bused in for nothing; Grand Falls,

Gander, all the more urban areas of the Province, that happens. It is one of the

areas that has caused me some concern over the years and it is one of the things

that we will be looking at in the not too distant future. We have to deal with

it. We have a busing problem all over the Province. What are we spending on

busing, Ms. Turpin-Downey, $20 million?

AN HON. MEMBER: It is slightly less than $30

million.

MR. DECKER: Around $30 million - I was going to

say around $30 million spent on busing. We also have buses meeting buses as you

know, going from one school to the other. It is one of the areas in the

department which we are going to have to look at and see what can be done about

it. If you are going to be fair, you either provide free transportation to the

people in St. John's or you charge people outside of St. John's. There is an

unfairness there in the system which I inherited, which my predecessor inherited

but we certainly do have to deal with it and I take your criticism, I am sure,

in the spirit in which it is offered. We certainly do have to deal with it.

MR. HARRIS: I am surprised. I only became aware

of this issue of course, after it was brought to my attention by constituents

and two types of constituents, one was the problem of the Quidi Vidi group with

St. Joseph's School, but another was the problem with individuals who lived a

significant distance from school and who were missing classes because they could

not get to school and did not have the means to afford a bus and in bad weather

were unable to get to school.

We had one or two cases where the Department of

Social Assistance, which does not ordinarily do this, did in fact provide a bus

pass for an individual but it was an extraordinary expense to have to establish

that this person was missing considerable school and it was - you had to go to

great extremes to make an exception for an individual. I know you say that you

have a problem, you cannot provide buses where the St. John's Transportation

exists but that is a legislative requirement that of course is within the power

of government to change.

There are two ways of doing it I suppose, one that

you could take away that legislative requirement or on the other hand, a program

could be developed to provide assistance to the cost of transportation for

individuals either through a bus pass system or some other way, and I would like

to know what solutions the minister has in mind? If, as you say, you want to

address it, what solutions do you have in mind? What solutions are under

consideration, and is there a committee established to look into this? Is there

some timetable, what can we expect to see?

MR. DECKER: Before I address that I should also

tell you that even within the system itself there are some unique problems. We

are still busing from East Meadows even though it is part of the city. We are

still bussing from the Goulds. It is also part of the city. So there are

problems there.

No, Mr. Chairman, I am not prepared right now to

say exactly what I intend to do. I am in the process of putting a mechanism in

place to at least try to deal with the problem, but it is not going to be an

easy problem to find solutions to, but it will be dealt with in due course.

MR. HARRIS: Well you say in due course. I know

that is the diplomatic thing to say. Can you be more specific? Do you have a

committee of officials, or have you asked anybody to address it or to come up

with a recommendation? Or is there a review process that you have commenced? If

you have not, when do you intend to undertake that?

MR. DECKER: Due course is a very specific -

MR. HARRIS: In due course could be in 1998, in

the third term of office, like the NDP government getting out of NATO, in our

third term of office or something.

MR. DECKER: I think due course is very

specific. We certainly will be dealing with it in due course and it will be

dealt with. I would not want to get the member's hopes all excited that we are

going to do it tomorrow morning, but it will not be left on the back burner

forever. It will be addressed.

MR. HARRIS: In due course, with due respect,

Mr. Minister, is very unspecific. It could mean anything, and in fact it means

nothing. Again with respect, and I would ask if you are serious about this

issue, and I take you at your word that you are, that you provide me and the

members of the Committee with some undertaking as to when a review of this

procedure might be undertaken.

MR. DECKER: In due course we will deal with it,

and at the appropriate time the hon. member will be made aware of what we are

doing.

MR. HARRIS: Well neither of those phrases mean

anything other than what the minister - it is like Alice in Wonderland - these

words mean what the speaker wants them to mean. I think that to make, and to

continue to make these kinds of meaningless responses is to say there is no

response at all. I say that I am continuing to suggest that the minister is

being sincere in his response, but if he is he will tell me when he is going to

either appoint a committee to review it, or ask for recommendations from his

officials, or do something concrete. If the minister is able to do that I would

appreciate you telling me whether you are really serious about this and you do

have a definite plan.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris, your time is up. I

now recognize Ms. Young.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you.

I would like to say that I have looked through the

budget for the Department of Education and I am relatively pleased that there

have not been too many slashes. It looks very good considering the financial

restraints.

There are a couple of things that do concern me,

however, and that is due to the NCARP seats being taken up at the colleges.

There have been a number of young people very concerned that they are not able

to get into the courses they want to take. What is going to happen there?

MR. DECKER: My understanding - and I will ask

Dr. Marsh to assist me because Dr. Marsh is looking after the NCARP for the

department - is that most of the NCARP is over and above what is normally the

classes which are available to teach the students. I understand that is correct,

Dr. Marsh?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: The bulk of the NCARP is contracted

out to the private schools and what have you. Our own schools are tendering and

getting a lot of it, but Dr. Marsh you could probably go into a little more

detail on that.

DR. MARSH: All NCARP funding for training is

incremental to other costs to the Province, so it does not impact on what we

would call the grant need purchases proceeds that would occur in the Province,

or the grant need provision, so it should not impact on regular applicants who

are going through the regular process for obtaining training.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you.

I am concerned, too, about the number of young

people who are leaving - either dropping out of high school, or completing high

school but not going on for secondary education. As I travelled throughout the

district these are the people, I was finding, who are availing of the social

services funds because they have no skills. I am just wondering if there has

been any consideration given to bringing in courses, say at Level 1, in the

trades so that there is an incentive for young people to stay in school where

they have already begun their training?

MR. DECKER: I see you have Profile 92 there.

There has been a slight improvement in the dropout rate as Profile 92 shows. Dr.

Marsh can you bring the trades back to the high school level? We have the

Bonavista experiment there I notice but I do not know how much more of that is

going on in the Province.

MR. MARSH: Dr. Turpin-Downey can speak to it

more clearly than I can. There is a program of technological education in the

high school program which students can take, and as well there are linkages now

occurring between the colleges and the school system. Bonavista in particular is

a case where the school and the college is linked for students to be able to

take

part in those type of courses. In other areas in terms of the general

adjustment, if you wish, for people who have left school there is both on the

national basis through a study between the Ministers of Social Services, the

Ministers of Education, and the Ministers responsible for Labour, who are

looking at the whole area of educational adjustment and social adjustment.

Initiatives under the SARA agreement, the Social Assistance Recipient Agreement,

in this Province are also addressing those same types of adjustment problems for

people. Finally, a youth strategy program exists.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

DR. MARSH: Essentially what I have indicated is

that there are a number of both federal and provincial agreements that are in

place to assist youth who have dropped out of school and there are also programs

in place through the school system and the colleges for addressing students, and

linkages there to assist them to continue education. There are programs

available under the reorganized high school program in the technology areas.

MS. YOUNG: I have a couple of questions. Do I

have time, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MS. YOUNG: One of the concerns by some of the

younger parents is the fact that there are no seat belts on school buses. That

is something, I guess, of great concern. I worked with the school bus monitors

and we found that when we were doing practice, leaving through the emergency

door at the rear, it was sort of dangerous getting out there, especially if one

kid happens to fall. You could have somebody crushed there. We were thinking it

would be great if we had something like steps from the rear of the bus that

would alleviate some of the problem.

MR. DECKER: How come there are no seat belts? I

know when the seat belt legislation came into effect years ago there was no

provision for school buses. It is something we should take under advisement and

look at though, and just see how practical it would be to do it.

MS. YOUNG: That is right, and as well leaving

from the rear if there is an emergency could be quite hazardous to the students.

MR. DECKER: I will take that under advisement

and try to get some background as to what is the reason why they are not there.

MS. YOUNG: I am just delighted to know that

there is around $1.2 million allocated for the skills training program through

the cost shared Canada/Newfoundland Offshore Development Fund. There are a lot

of positive things in there but my time is up and I can come back with some more

questions that I have later.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: I have a series of questions, Mr.

Chairman. I will ask some of them now and I am sure there will be another

opportunity. In the early 80s we witnessed the reorganization of the senior high

school curriculum and the introduction of Grade X11, the addition of many, many

new courses, and of course through that being able to offer a broader education

to our young people. In the mid and late 80s we saw a great restructuring of the

primary and elementary divisions in the school system. In the mid 80s as well we

had a lot of work being done to reorganize the junior high school program. A

report was completed in 1986 but it has never, ever been implemented. We seem to

have gone from both ends, and when we got towards the middle we got bogged down

in the reorganizational structure. I am wondering what measures are being taken

by the government to address the need to reorganize the junior high school part

of the curriculum.

MR. DECKER: Dr. Turpin-Downey is working on

that area. Do you wish to...?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: I am quite familiar with the

report to which you are referring. It goes back to some time ago, and I think

the cost estimate at that time to implement that report would probably be

between $70 million and $80 million. The most important thing, I felt, regarding

that report that we really should not overlook was the whole business of

interacting with adolescents. I guess the most we have been able to do is

encourage school boards to have as much in-service as they could in dealing with

adolescents.

With regard to curriculum initiatives, I do not

have a listing with me but we try to keep up-to-date with the curriculum, and

most areas of the curriculum - like I said, I do not have a specific listing of

the changes that have been made in junior high, but certainly a number of

changes have been made. There are still some that need to be made, but a fair

number of changes - now again we had different reactions to that report. Large

numbers of people felt that it should be implemented full-scale. There are

others who had varying degrees of support for it, but as far as the actual

curriculum changes are concerned, we have been trying to do what we can within

the means available, and we have allowed for the local development of

curriculum, which I think has expanded quite a lot over the last two years where

locally school boards will offer courses and just send them in for approval in

the area of junior high.

We are making changes in curriculum - maybe not

necessarily as fast as we would like to, or people would like for us to, but

certainly the junior high area has not been overlooked; but to have implemented

that report at that time, and even a few years later, there is no question that

the cost is between $70 million and $80 million, and I think a lot of people at

the time felt, well maybe it is not necessary, I suppose, to implement the

report fully as it was recommended.

Certainly I think in-servicing of teachers, in

dealing with adolescents, was a critical factor and one which I think we

probably could be doing more of, to be honest with you, but school boards are

cognizant that a very serious area is the interaction between teacher and

adolescent, particularly with the growing numbers of behaviour problems and

severely disturbed children at that age, because then children who have learning

problems become behaviour problems at that age - junior high.

MR. HODDER: But this is where we find the

greatest -

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Concentration.

MR. HODDER: Concentration right now. Many

children are being promoted through the primary/elementary system, and they move

on a normal age/grade relationship, you might say. When they get to the junior

high school this is where we find our biggest class sizes, where we find the

children who cannot cope with the expectations of curriculum. We find that there

is a severe problem of disruptive behaviour. With the transition from elementary

to junior high, with the nature of the adolescent, the changing from children

who were learning in the concrete to the expectation of going to the abstract,

all of these things are all coming about, and within the school board system

itself there is the appearance of a lack of recognition. There is a lack of,

shall we say, understanding of the nature of the junior high school child, and

many junior high school teachers within their own boards and within their own

schools feel that they are somewhat abandoned and they sense a lack of

commitment.

My question is: Given the nature of this particular

problem, which is very pressing, what is the department going to do to try to

address this? Are we going to make different allocations? I find it

disconcerting that if you have a program let's say in senior high school, let us

say chemistry, you want to offer chemistry you find that if you have twelve

students you can offer the chemistry course, but if you have a particular need

in junior high school, you cannot find the same level of commitment by your

school board or for that matter through the allocation of teachers, and this is

where we have our biggest problems.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: I think quite frankly, that

the area of junior high has not been an area of emphasis or an area of concern

on the part of school boards up to the last couple of years, and I think quite

frankly, that school boards are recognizing now that any additional supports and

resources ought to go to the junior high, but more importantly, teachers have

really not been trained to deal with junior high students. You either have

elementary teachers in the junior high or you have senior high teachers in the

junior high.

We cannot really control that necessarily, but I

think when school boards become totally in sync with the type of individuals who

should be placed in the junior high school - the most we have been able to do is

through the stay-in-school funding, and other areas of funding is to recommend

that most of the resources go in the junior high area, but there is no question,

we are cognizant of it and we are trying to get the superintendents, the

assistant superintendents of programs, the program co-ordinators, all of whom

are staff who are assigned to the board office and are to be responsible for the

direct implementation of in-service, and I think quite frankly they are becoming

more and more cognizant of it, but there is no question that most of the people

dealing with junior high, have not really been trained or qualify because it is

an extremely difficult area to deal with.

MR. HODDER: Has the department approached

Memorial University faculty to ask them to change the teacher training -

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Yes, we have.

MR. HODDER: - to put on specific training

programs that address junior high school children.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: It takes years to get

something changed at the university, and I mean years; but with the new

vice-president of academic, we have laid out all our concerns fully to him re:

the training of teachers period. He is very cognizant of it and I think if you

hear Dr. May, they are going to be making changes over there in the faculty.

There is no question about that.

MR. HODDER: A final supplementary on that

particular angle.

We have had a lot of emphasis recently on the

changes in what used to be called industrial arts education, you know,

technology education. We have a whole group of teachers out there now doing a

lot of in-service; what is the commitment of the government to making the

transition from the training that is taking place into practical implementation

strategies at the classroom level? What monies are going to be made available to

permit the new technology education to be implemented at a reasonable time, and

with reasonable resources?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: I feel the industrial arts

courses to which you are referring have been changed into more design technology

kinds of courses. We made some changes last year, we are making some more this

year; again, it has to be phased over a period of time for two reasons: I

suppose financial reasons for one but the ability of the school board to

implement a new course or a new program by the time they have to get the teacher

in-service, they feel as well that they do not want things coming too much too

soon, too fast. On the one hand we get told we are doing things at a glacial

pace and on the other hand we are being told by the board you are requesting us

to do too much, so the design technology courses have in fact been moving fairly

quickly because of interest and enthusiasm, and yes, we have given a percentage

of dollars to those areas, but again to the extent that we can. But I would say

that the changes in those areas will probably be finalized within the next two

years, where you will in fact have most of the old, say industrial arts moved

into the area of design technology, and students are very enthused so they are

already clamouring to register for the new courses that they hear about.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: There was a brief exchange between

Ms. Young and the minister about the participation rate or the converse of that,

the dropout rate. I am looking at page 17 of Profile 92, which is a bar graph

showing percent of sixteen-year-olds, seventeen-year-olds and eighteen-year-olds

in school from 1986-1987 to 1992-1993. I was startled to see that there's been a

drop in the participation rate - presumably that means a rise in the drop out

rate - from 1991 to 1992. I'm wondering if the minister has any explanation for

this.

MR. DECKER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: It's page 17. While the minister is

waiting to have a look at this I'd like to praise the department for publishing

this document. It was started when Loyola Hearn was minister in the late

'eighties and it's come out each year since then, I believe. It's very valuable

and it's good to see that the news media have given extensive coverage of the

latest publication, Profile '92. I think the information in this document can

give parents and other members of the public more power than they do now, if you

believe that with information comes power. I think by better informing the

people, the people who make up the classes of people with the rights, we might

have better participation and get improvements to our education system.

If the minister's had a chance to look at the graph

perhaps he would comment.

MR. DECKER: Yes, I can't explain why this

happened. The graph is there and it shows that there is a slight decrease. I

could only speculate. As to making the classes of people aware, this document is

a public document and -

MS. VERGE: That's my point.

MR. DECKER: - I've been sending out dozens of

them to people.

MS. VERGE: I just praised the minister and the

department for this publication.

MR. DECKER: But I'll have to take that question

under advisement. I can only give you a speculation I would suspect as to why

that happened. Are you aware of any logical explanation for this, why it

happened?

DR. MARSH: We did note it in the report.

MR. DECKER: Oh, it's noted in the report.

DR. MARSH: And in the briefing, and indicated

that it was an area that we would be looking into (inaudible).

MS. VERGE: I'm sorry, I can't hear Dr. Marsh.

DR. MARSH: I'm just explaining to the minister

that it's an area that we'd be looking into as part of our research this year.

MR. DECKER: Yes, okay. You heard that?

MS. VERGE: Thank you. Next topic. Last week a

Human Rights Commission board of enquiry made a decision saying basically that

the Human Rights Code of this Province provides no redress for a teacher by the

name of Judy Collins Kearley, who was employed by the Pentecostal Assemblies

Board of Education in a fully publicly funded school system, in a publicly

funded job, in a situation where her employer, the school board, pressured her

to leave because she was divorced and remarried. How does the minister react to

this? Does the minister accept this? Is he prepared to defend it, or is he

willing to look at some kind of changes that will provide human rights

protection to teachers?

MR. DECKER: I look at it the same, I suppose,

as any other individual would look at it. But the reality is the Human Rights

Commission was correct. We have a unique system of education in this Province

and that right of the church to hire and fire people on morality grounds is

there and they have it. Whether I think that's a wonderful thing or whether I

think it's terrible doesn't mean a row of beans. That is the law of the land.

Had that woman got to the courts I would venture to guess that she would have

lost her case.

MS. VERGE: But this is the minister responsible

for making education laws, and this is the minister in charge of spending the

public funds that operate that school system and that used to pay that teacher.

MR. DECKER: With all respect though, Lynn, that

hasn't -

MR. LANGDON: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Point of order, Mr. Langdon.

MR. LANGDON: I think, and I would stand to be

corrected, but I think I'm correct in saying that when the Member for Humber

East was Minister of Education the same thing happened when a Roman Catholic

teacher married a Salvation Army girl. He was teaching on Bell Island. He lost

his job in the RC Board because he had married outside of the church. This is

not the only case that has happened. It has happened from time to time. So that

minister or this minister, whatever the case might be, I think it goes back to

show the powers that the churches do have. So I think if you look it up you'll

probably find the same thing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member's on a point of order

which is not a point of order.

MS. VERGE: Regardless of how many teachers have

been fired or forced out of their jobs because of their personal lives, is this

minister in 1993 going to acquiesce, or is this minister, with the support of

the people who make up the classes of people, going to do something to change

the law?

MR. DECKER: I can only, I suppose, do the same

thing that the member herself did when she was there. I can have my personal

feeling about it. But until the law is changed there's not a whole lot I can do

about it. It's the law of the land and the Commission was absolutely right when

they made that decision.

MS. VERGE: Is the minister interested in

changing the law?

MR. DECKER: I don't want to get into

hypothetical or speculative cases. We can only discuss what is. What will be or

what we'd like it to be is a totally different matter and we'll deal with that

in due course. I don't think it's -

MS. VERGE: That's the question. Are you going

to deal with it?

MR. DECKER: - a question of how I feel about

things, I don't think that's a proper question.

MS. VERGE: Are you as Minister of Education

going to initiate a change in the law that would govern this type of situation?

MR. DECKER: You know, to hear that kind of a

question from a person who sat in exactly the same chair sounds a little bit

hypocritical. You were there for two or three years when you were minister and

you know the problems and you know how difficult it is to do it. I'm not going

to jeopardize any chance of making reforms on education by entering into a

discussion which will tomorrow be blasted across the headlines, probably taken

out of context.

We have some problems in the education system in

this Province. I believe over the next few years we're going to see changes the

like of which you have never seen before in the history of this Province. But

I'm not going to get into any details and tell the hon. member what I'm going to

do. We have a system which we have to work through. There are other departments

of education in this Province which have to be tuned into what we're doing and

it's got to be a give and take.

MS. VERGE: I'd like to ask about another part

of Profile '93. It has to do with student achievement levels by area of

residence, rural versus urban.

MR. DECKER: That's on the Canadian Test of

Basic Skills you're talking about.

MS. VERGE: Yes. Once again this report shows

that students in rural areas have lower achievement levels or lower scores on

these tests than students in urban areas, with urban being defined as 5,000 or

over. We have a higher percentage of our provincial population in rural areas

than any other province of Canada so this has a greater significance for us. I

understand there's a similar imbalance by urban-rural in other provinces. When

you consider that we have more of our people in rural areas, the fact that

students in rural areas generally achieve lower levels, have lower scores, is a

bigger issue for us than it would be for a province such as Manitoba. I'm

wondering what strategy - `strategy' seems to be a current buzzword - the

minister has for trying to improve rural students' achievement.

MR. DECKER: You want to go for that?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: I think we've been cognizant

for centuries about the urban-rural problems. I think various school boards in

these areas are using a multiplicity of things. Probably the most recent have

been through the stay-in-school initiatives where there's been additional

resources put in place. Additional types of programs, where we get into peer

tutoring, additional remedial help for students, and more importantly, I think,

methods of teaching.

Instructional strategies have been recognized as

being critically important when it comes to achievement. In some cases there is

multi-grading, and I think again teachers have been in these situations without

necessarily being taught to deal with that situation. We have things like

co-operative learning. I could go into a whole litany of different kinds of

things that are being used in different areas with different students. If you go

to the Port au Port Peninsula, for example - and I think there are people here

who can speak to that even more so than I can, you will see what we call reading

recovery programs where they are actually initiated in primary classrooms,

particularly in small schools for children whom they feel have probably never

seen a book, or have not been exposed to reading prior to going to school.

I think you will see certain local school boards

particularly, and principals of schools bringing into play different kinds of

initiatives. Again, some of them you are already familiar with but there are a

whole multitude of different kinds of strategies and there is no question that

it is being focused on. The small schools allocation is another one where

additional supports have been given to -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired.

Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, first of all I have a few remarks

with regards to the Williams Royal Commission Report. I think in some circles it

has been assumed and accepted that the recommendations of the report, especially

as it pertains directly with the denominational education system, does have a

strong endorsement among the people of the Province. Having appeared myself

before the commission and having been present at the hearings where forty briefs

were presented, that night, of the forty that were presented there was just

about one brief that was presented that supported doing away with denominational

education, and subsequent to the release of the report in terms of the response

of the churches in particular in going out to the people in the various

parishes, I think, people are indicating that there is some concern about the

loss of denominational education.

People are concerned that it would go into a purely

secular system so in that sense I am pleased that government has decided to make

haste slowly on this. I think it is important that we make sure that we are

covered with this in what we do have. I think people recognize that at a time

with limited resources we have to make better use of our resources and do more

sharing, but I certainly do not sense from my experience, and I am speaking as a

person who has been in education for twenty-seven years, that there is a strong

support out there right now to do away, people are not ready, in my opinion, to

go totally to a secular system of education.

However, there are a number of concerns that I

would just like to touch on and have you react to if you could. Reference was

just made to the achievement levels in the Province and in particular the

variance in the urban versus the rural. Having worked all of my life in

education in a rural area I know some of the contributing factors to that. One

of the things that is currently being debated and is certainly of some concern

in rural areas is with regards to the 2 per cent savings clause. In my area of

the Province the argument is that if the 2 per cent savings clause were lost, in

the school board I work for, we would see a significant decrease in the number

of teaching personnel that would be available to the schools, and subsequent I

think one could argue on the basis of that, that would probably add further to

the problem of achievement. I know that is something that is being reviewed,

especially at a time when government is obviously committed to making cuts. I

wonder if you would be prepared to say this evening what the situation is with

regard to the 2 per cent savings clause?

MR. DECKER: My problem with the 2 per cent

savings clause is that it has nothing to do with the need of teachers in the

small schools. They are two different things. It is the role and responsibility

of management, in this case management being government, to deal with the

problems in small schools. If that means extra teachers or that means distance

education it is the responsibility of government to see that it is done, but at

this moment the only way these problems are being dealt with is because there

happens to be a 2 per cent clause. Just supposing, for example, that at the next

round of negotiations the 2 per cent clause was negotiated away, we would

immediately lose 300 teachers out of the system. Now I am saying that we should

not be dependent upon a union contract. It should be government policy to deal

with the problems in the small schools, and this is what I want to get down

with, but to deal with that policy now I would be stuck with 300 teachers plus

the problems of dealing with the small school, so I cannot put the formula in

place because I would be doubled. I would be dealing with it doubly.

My concern with the 2 per cent clause, and I made

it public on several occasions - sure, we need extra teachers in the small

schools. There are many schools which you just cannot close - Harbour Deep, for

example, with twenty-five or thirty students. As long as there is a Harbour Deep

there is no logical way in the world to move them to another school. In the

higher grades some do come out on bursaries, but it is not really sensible. Red

Bay in Labrador; Croque, up in my own district; places in Oliver's district -

where it is just not reasonable to close schools and bus people out. It is not

practical, and we have no desire of doing that.

I want a formula which is applied equally

throughout the Province. Under what conditions would you make extra teachers

available to a school? One of the first, I think, would be if it is

inappropriate to bus them to a bigger school. Then it would depend on whether

you are talking about a gravel road or a paved road. The age of the child would

be taken into consideration. Once you establish that it is just impossible to do

it, then you have to try to address the children in that particular school. I

want to see a formula - and it has nothing to do with a union contract at all -

but I want to see it as part of the government policy.

Now I know you are going to tell me that we have

small schools allocation, but that is not addressing the problem well enough to

my liking anyway.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

I am just carrying on, just piggybacking, on

something that my colleague Ms. Young mentioned earlier. Again, it kind of ties

in with the achievement level insofar as achievement, or lack of it, is a

contributing factor to the dropout problem. One of the factors that contributes

to students dropping out of school is that they do not achieve in school for a

myriad of reasons, but obviously - and again Dr. Turpin-Downey referenced some

of the work that has been done in the district that I represent, Port au Port.

The school board there, I must say - and not

because I worked with them for a good many years - they are a very progressive

board, as you are well aware, and have done some very innovative things there in

trying to come to grips with that, and probably because we were faced with a

very severe problem there, more so than in most other areas of the Province,

maybe that kind of forced us to focus on it. We were looking at the dropout

problem in my area - the area where I lived - back in the late seventies and

early eighties, and subsequent to that did make representation to government.

One of the things that we identified in the area

where I lived, in Lourdes on the Port au Port Peninsula, was that - like a lot

of our children starting school were disadvantaged in that they were coming from

homes where there was not a lot of stimulation. As a result, these children were

not entering school. When they entered school they were not on a level playing

field with children who were coming from the better homes where they had lots of

stimulation, where the parents were educated, primarily because what we were

finding was that a lot of our parents themselves were dropouts. As a result, the

environment that they were providing for their children, through no fault of

their own, certainly was not comparable to the children coming from the homes of

a teacher or the local doctor or whatever.

So what we undertook in that area was universal

preschool. Right now we do have, in that area of the Province, all of the

children, for the past five years at the school where I worked, we have

basically what amounts to a junior kindergarten. The children - next year's

kindergarten class - would have been in attendance at the school where I was

principal until just a month or so ago, would have been in attendance this year

in a preschool program.

We have done that for five years and we have been

kind of monitoring it to see what kind of impact it will have. Certainly just

from the empirical evidence that we have would certainly seem to indicate that

it is a process that is working - it is an experiment that is working - and

although we know it is going to take a lot longer than the amount of time that

the thing has run at this point in time, I do know the implications of this for

the Province.

Obviously if you talk about - when I say universal

preschool in Port au Port and we are talking four or five schools, that is one

thing, and we can manage it, in finding the resources through the Department of

Social Services or wherever, but in terms of the provincial picture, I just

throw it out from the point of view, in terms of that aspect in this Province,

and it is an area of education that we have had reference here this evening to

the reorganized high school and I think at that level, the preschool level, the

really early childhood is certainly a very, very crucial area, and I am just

wondering in terms of the department's thinking, is this an area that is being

actively looked at as to making plans for the future?

MR. DECKER: Dr. Marsh, who were the two people

with whom I met, was it Dr. Riggs?

DR. MARSH: Dr. Riggs and Dr. Steve Norris.

MR. DECKER: Yes, Norris and Riggs, a couple of

researchers at the university, and they discussed some of these issues. At the

moment they are running an experiment out in the Conception Bay South area. They

have taken two kindergarten classes and have been going on now for the last -

how many years ? Up to Grade IV now. They took one group and made available to

them one reading, one text, was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, one-half hour per week.

MR. DECKER: One-half hour per week in class A

of kindergartners and in class B they did not make this available. Now, the ones

who did not have the half-hour per week reading, in Grade IV, they are about

where the mainland people are in September, is it not? Our Grade IVs in May, are

where the mainland's are in September. The ones who read are up to - I think it

is in April, is it not, or somewhere thereabouts - just one-half hour a week

added, so it is accepted that if we could get some reading and some skills in

there at an earlier age, they will indeed pay off; that is after they come to

the school, I am talking about there, we have seen clearer evidence in this

particular experiment, and we are pursuing that very strongly.

I do not know, Dr. Turpin-Downer, if you want to

add to that because it is definitely an area but the cost of a universal

preschool program is not in the cards at this fiscal climate, but is something

which I am sure would make a difference if we could do it.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Well I guess we have given a

lot of thought to early childhood education and preschool for a number of years

and it has really had a lot of discussion. I mean you are talking to the

converted when you talk to any of us re preschool education and everybody in

this room, but when we looked at it, I guess we figured well, even if we could

have a full day kindergarten right now, that in itself would help, but the cost

of implementing that has been just prohibitive, not to speak of a junior

kindergarten or to look at the preschool, but nobody, philosophically, and when

the reorganized high school was happening, I looked to say: why is government

reorganizing the high school at this point in time? For goodness sake, let us

look at primary, preschool and primary, so again, it is more fiscal restraint I

suppose in the last number of years that has prevented us from really getting

into it. Quite frankly, I am very familiar with the preschool situation and I

would hate to see it having to be stopped, but to apply it on a provincial basis

would be extremely costly.

MR. SMITH: I think the thing -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time is up Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: There is just one point I want to

make and I will be finished with that, if that is okay?

The one point I want to make and I think it is

important and I would not want to leave it now, is that, while I recognize the

fiscal reality that we are facing in this Province, I do not think we should

allow ourselves to not have a vision with regards to that sort of thing and

allow ourselves to consider what we should be aspiring to for this Province, and

not automatically, at the very beginning say: no way, we could never afford this

so we will not even consider it, because, I think, as long as we allow ourselves

to think about it, then at some point in time, maybe, we will be able to find

the resources to do something with it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. DECKER: One of the recommendations of the

Royal Commission was that we go to a full day of kindergarten right away and

that is one which we are actively considering.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize Mr. Langdon.

MR. LANGDON: I just want to follow along with a

couple of things that Gerald did, and I am talking about the 2 per cent clause.

I represent an area of the Province on the South Coast which has a fewer number

I guess of students in any school board and also with some of the smaller

schools if not the smallest schools, probably outside of the coastal Labrador

communities.

The school board in the area that I represent, the

Bay d'Espoir, Fortune Bay, Hermitage board, for example, if the 2 per cent

clause were to be totally eliminated today they would lose three teachers,

whereas if you eliminate the 2 per cent clause in the Exploits Valley integrated

school board which is Grand Falls and the urban areas they would lost

thirty-eight teachers, so that 2 per cent clause as such has not really

addressed the problem that is in the smaller outlying schools.

That is why, for example, you are going to have

people like Gerald where there are a number of students in the 2 per cent

category and in the school board where I taught for three years, the Exploits

Valley, who want to keep their teachers. It does not really address the problem.

Harbour West area where not only do the rural areas, sparsely populated as they

are, find themselves with fewer dollars but they also find themselves - now, I

think this is important and I do not think we realize it, they are further from

the seat of government and because they are small and do not have the dollars to

do the lobbying there are many, many instances where in the larger urban areas

through the IECs and so on, the denominational educational committees as well,

there are certain areas, certain larger towns that get preference in school

construction over many of the smaller towns and that in itself also is an

adverse learning disability to the people in the small urban areas.

I agree with Lynn in what she was saying, that in

some instances in the rural areas statistics will show that the scores that

students receive in standardized tests and so on are lower than what you would

find in the urban areas, but all things being equal, given the same references,

given the same materials, everything being equal, many of the students who come

from the smaller schools can do just as well.

I would like to use an example what happened in

David's district, in Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir last year, in the small town of

Franois where there are about 200 people. Through distance education they

introduced physics to that school. There were two students who did the physics

3000 level course from that small school. The provincial average last year on

the public exams was 55 but these two students did the course through the FAX

machines and everything else and both of them scored more than 80 in the public

exam. The thing is that the students out there can do it and it is with

technology like distance education and so on. I believe that is an answer to

many of the inequities and problems that we have facing the schools.

Let me just give you one more example. Some people

Harbour students bypass Grand Le Pierre and go into Terrenceville to go to the

Catholic school. They bypass the school in Grand Le Pierre but the people from

is like a cow path, to go to school in Terrenceville. You take kids even at

Grade V11 or Grade V111, get them up at 6:30 in the morning, give them their

breakfast and put them on the bus for twenty-six miles and expect them to learn

as well as the students do in Mount Pearl, it cannot be done. I think this is

where the minister was coming from when he made that particular point earlier.

There has to be some mechanism in place that has to

technology, and so on, so that these kids will be able to study at home rather

than taking them by bus and sending them somewhere else. Their needs are not

addressed. They are losing a teacher this year and the board has said to these

people: we cannot very well do it because if we do we will cut our music program

or our industrial arts program in one of the larger schools. These are real

problems that have to be addressed and I am sure that the minister and the

people in his department will be looking at that to see if there are some

changes that can be made.

There is one more point, if I may, in talking about

something Lynn spoke of earlier, the classes of people having their say in

education. I was fortunate enough a few years ago to take a student exchange -

take forty kids from Leading Tickles and Point Leamington area, and they were

mostly from social services families, from low income families. We brought them

into Port Colborne which is right at the mouth of the Welland Canal. They had a

beautiful school three. There was around 400 to 500 students attending the

school and they had everything in it that you'd name - the shops and so on -

they could build a small house really in the industrial arts place there, and

the theatres and so on. Because of decreasing enrollment the public school

system had to close this school. But previous to that, through the courts in

Ontario, the government was forced to give full, equal funding to the Catholic

system. They weren't fully funded up to a few years ago. The court said that

they had to be fully funded. So therefore when the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. LANGDON: Pardon? Anyhow, they were. So what

happened was that school that was closed under the public system was re-opened

as a Catholic school and today it still has around 400 or 500 students in that

separate system.

In our situation, in Newfoundland, I can think of

Gerald's point, in so many of our other communities we can do a lot to eliminate

duplication by sharing. In a community in Badger, where a few years ago the

Integrated Board put $250,000 into a school called the Terry Fox Academy. When

Terry went across they named the school in that area. Within three years it was

all closed and all the kids now go to the RC system of Voker Collegiate. You

have $250,000 that has been put into a building that can't be used any more.

It's these types of things that I think have to be

addressed and if we look at the number of dollars through the sharing, we can

save them. We can probably put some extra dollars into every universal

pre-kindergarten class or whatever. I think we have to come to grips with that.

I think I share Gerald's comment that I don't think the majority of people in

the Province want to have a secular system and to do away with the

denominational system as such. That's how I see it. I'll leave it at that for

now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Young.

MS. YOUNG: Yes. I want to carry on, Mr.

Minister, with the full day kindergarten. Coming from rural Newfoundland, if

that were the case, a full day kindergarten class, we would have children

leaving home at about 7:50 a.m. and arriving home at 4:00 p.m. That's a

man-sized day or adult-sized day. I think that is really heavy. A lot of these

kids are less than five years old. I have seen them come in for about two and a

half hours, and by the time the morning session is over they are exhausted. They

are actually cantankerous and very hard to deal with in a lot of cases, because

they are really tired and not all of them get to bed early. That would be one of

my big concerns.

On the other hand, I would like the idea of a

universal kindergarten. I think that it would give a lot of kids a kick start

that they need. It would also probably save the government money down the road,

if these children did complete their high school education. I believe the

foundation for a good education all begins the first day the child comes to

school. As a kindergarten teacher for about twenty years I have found that if I

check with a teacher when a child comes in this year, and if I check with the

teacher six years down the road, and that's Grave V, that child is still having

the same problems.

Somewhere along the way these problems should have

been addressed. I look at myself as a GP. I see there's a problem. Quite often I

send them to what I consider is a specialist hoping that a prescription will be

given to me. Quite often there's no prescription. So the child continues to

flounder along, ending up in total frustration at some point I guess, probably

about fourteen, if it hasn't hit before that. Therefore we lose a lot of our

children. They just drop out.

I am wondering, on Page 217 of the Budget, I have a

question on the curriculum development, at the bottom of the page there. Can you

explain to me why there is about a $500,000 decrease for salaries?

DR. MARSH: The answer to this question is that

this is essentially a financial adjustment that was made which required the

department to enact savings in the area of program consultant and educational

consultant areas, and it was registered in a particular area and does not

recognize a cut solely in this division, but I guess for presentation figures

purposes it does register here. So the actual result will not be the same as is

printed in this estimate - in this category.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you.

We looked at the chart there - I guess the number

of children who are not completing high school. Is there a further breakdown

showing the percentage for rural and the percentage for urban? This just turned

up on my desk today, so I have not had a chance to go through it thoroughly.

MR. DECKER: I thought all the districts were

broken out. Are they not? The districts are all broken out there somewhere.

MS. YOUNG: Are they? Okay, thank you. I will

look that up myself.

The other thing too is that we were finding that in

communities and towns where there are fish plants there were a lot of children

leaving school. They would get summer jobs and see they were making a lot of

money, and of course they would drop out. I guess that we will be seeing just

how accurate that assumption is - that they were dropping out. Now, with the

closure of a lot of fish plants we will be able to do some comparisons between

towns and communities that still have fish plants operating as compared to those

who do not.

MR. DECKER: As I said earlier, there seems to

be a little bit of improvement in the dropout rate, and there has been some

speculation as to what is causing it, and that is one of the speculations. Now I

do not think there has been a definitive study done to say, yes, that is the

reason. I do not know if it is just coincidence, but it does seem that maybe in

some of the areas where the fish plants are now the children are staying in

school a little bit longer, but it might just be coincidence. I would not want

to speculate on it yet because it has not been around long enough. The trend is

too short for us to make a definitive answer on it.

MS. YOUNG: If I have another minute?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. YOUNG: I would like to know the number of

seats that we have guaranteed for Newfoundland and Labrador students at the

Atlantic Veterinary College. Are these seats filled each year?

MR. DECKER: Is it ten?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes it is.

MR. DECKER: It costs a fortune. I know that

much.

MS. YOUNG: Yes.

MR. DECKER: Ten. What do they cost? Forty -

DR. MARSH: Our contribution to the Veterinary

College is $559,000. It is registered here, in fact, in the estimates, and for

ten seats. We pay 4 per cent of the cost of the operation of the Veterinary

College under the Atlantic Provinces agreement.

MS. YOUNG: Do we fill these ten seats each

year?

DR. MARSH: Yes.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you.

MR. DECKER: I believe it is the most expensive

per seat that we deal with? I think, if I am not mistaken, it is the most

expensive one.

MS. YOUNG: How many of these students then

would return to Newfoundland to work as veterinarians?

MR. DECKER: Has any tracking been done on that?

I am not sure. They are not required to return, are they?

DR. MARSH: There is no return of service

agreement at this point.

MS. YOUNG: There is another thing that bothers

me as well. That is, children whose parents are receiving social assistance get

their books free. I do not think there is any commitment on behalf of the

parents to return these books or anything, is there?

MR. DECKER: No.

MS. YOUNG: Do you not think that there should

be -

AN HON. MEMBER: Should they not be given to the

schools?

MS. YOUNG: Yes, some way that these books can

be passed back to the schools so that -

MR. DECKER: No, I do not think so.

MS. YOUNG: No?

MR. DECKER: It is one of the things we looked

at during the budgetary process, and society cannot cause any stigma. What

process would you put in place so that when this person who, through no fault of

his own, goes in to get his books and stands in a different place in line where

we are going to look after the people on social services, or we are going to

make them return the books? What are you going to do with them when they return

them? You going to give them to the social services people next year, so they're

the only ones who have the second-hand books, sort of thing?

It's a very difficult - when you think it through -

there is no way that I know, and there are a lot of people looking at it with

me, that we can avoid the stigma on the human being. The program costs two

hundred and some odd thousand dollars, I believe. In an $800 million budget I

don't think it would be proper to inflict that kind of stigma on the person. We

did look at it but we....

MS. YOUNG: I'd like to add that there's some

concern among parents that quite often it is the social services children who do

get the new books, because the other families can't afford to buy new books.

They have to look for the second-hand ones. So then what happens is that they

end up making money off them, because the child from the working family actually

winds up buying second-hand books from the social service recipients.

MR. DECKER: I've heard that criticism made,

but....

MS. YOUNG: I realise it is....

MR. DECKER: We couldn't see any way of doing

it. The school lunch program, for example. In St. John's they have some school

lunch programs where a child will put some money in an envelope. It might be two

dollars, it might be nothing, or it might be two cents, to pay for the lunch, no

matter what, we have to avoid embarrassing a child who through no fault of his

or her own can't afford to buy his books. I've heard a lot of public criticism

about that. We looked at it and we said no. It just wasn't worth it. With our

liberal conscience, our concern for the individual, it would be contrary to our

philosophy. So we decided not to do it.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think maybe your time is about

up now, Ms. Young. So I think maybe would be a time now that we could have a

break. We'll could come back again at 8:45 p.m. It'd be a good time to have a

coffee and to stretch your legs. We'll be back at 8:45 and Mr. Hodder will

enlighten us then when we come back.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

We're back in session. I'll ask Mr. Hodder to start

off.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, we've heard a lot about

the junior high school, the problems of motivation. I don't apologize for

zeroing in on that area. I've been in central high schools and junior high

school for thirty years.

I wanted particularly to focus attention on the

illiteracy rate that we have in the Province. It's a problem of motivation in

junior high school and what rationale the minister can give for the dropping of

the reading novel program in the junior high school. It seems to be terribly

inconsistent, a step backwards, and regressive in its utmost sense that we would

drop in many schools the only exposure the child has to good, consistent reading

material. Apparently there's a proposal to drop it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: I guess I can only say that

with the limited amount of dollars for curriculum resources it was in fact seen

as one that - not necessarily - I mean, it was extremely difficult to

prioritize. But that would have been -

MR. DECKER: There still should be novels in the

schools just not new ones.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: They've been buying novels for

years and years. The program coordinators responsible, through the consultant

and the people on the advisory committee, said: yes, there are certainly copies

out there, there's always a need for more. But people have accumulated a lot of

novels over time. There are always new ones that people want to buy. But it's

just for this year, we hope. It's not cancelled completely, entirely. No, we

intend to get it back into the budget process next year.

MR. HODDER: I do want to re-emphasize the fact

that when you are talking about twelve and thirteen-year-olds and you are

talking about keeping them on track, keeping them interested, providing them

with new materials every year to try to get them to stay reading, we try to get

children reading in primary and through elementary and in many of our schools

particularly - well in all schools regardless of whether they are rural or

urban, we have to try to keep materials there for them and in my opinion it is a

regressive step. It is regrettable that the department would focus on that

particular area because of the tremendous message we are sending to junior high

school children, that their novels and their reading materials have been cut. I

would like to ask the minister if he could possibly look at that because it is

an area that I think sends a very wrong message.

MR. DECKER: We have looked at it, you know,

ideally, you do everything; ideally, you take the whole $3.2 billion and spend

it all on education and you do it all, but somewhere along the line you have to

make value judgements. You have to decide whether or not you are going to open

up fifteen or sixteen new distance education sites which we did this year. You

have to decide what you are going to do, as you only have so much money to go

around, and at the end of the day you have to make a judgement. Now how much did

that program cost us?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: It was a very small amount, I

don't have the exact figure, but a very minimal amount.

MR. DECKER: Anyway, we recognize that, as Dr.

Turpin-Downey pointed out, that the novels that were in the school would not

disappear because of what we did. We will interrupt the program for one year and

hopefully bring it back on stream next year, it was an either or situation, and

at the end of the day we thought that we would do less damage here - we wanted

to add on more distance education, I just take that one but I could give you a

dozen different instances.

MR. HODDER: I would like to commend the department

on distance education and the sixty-four sites that have been selected,

something like that?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Yes.

MR. HODDER: I think that is a tremendous program.

I am familiar with the program from my days when I sat on the Board of Regents

with the university and how it is set up, so I am very familiar with it, but I

would like to think that we are not advancing in one direction at the expense of

the grass roots.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: The choice came down to the

soft ware versus the novels and the boards prefer to have the new soft ware to

go with the new technology courses, so again, it came down to choices.

MR. HODDER: Yes, along that line as well. Just

glancing through there, I noticed something and today I went and I picked up the

price list for the senior high school text books from last year to this year. I

found that in September parents are going to be paying in some cases, 46 to 45

per cent more for certain books. Now part of that I assume is because of the

increase in the cost of the books themselves from the publishers, but is there

not a $700,000 drop in the subsidy in total within the department for

subsidizing text books?

MR. DECKER: We used to subsidize the books to 50

percent.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: It increased 10 per cent, it

went from 50 per cent to 60 per cent.

MR. DECKER: Government bought the books as you

know for say, ten bucks and we sold it for five bucks. This year, we will buy it

for ten and sell it for six bucks, so you are quite correct, the cost has gone

from 50 per cent subsidy to 60 percent.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: But not at 40 per cent. Instead

of us supporting the program 50/50, it is 40/60.

MR. HODDER: That 10 per cent and then the

increasing costs from the publishers, the net effect, having taken an actual

Grade IX, Grade X or Level I, Level II, Level III student today and just quickly

calculated, the average increase for textbooks in September in Newfoundland will

vary from about 20 percent to 24 percent. There is a substantial increase and

part of it is because of the drop in the subsidy and 10 per cent of it will be

from the department itself.

I have a couple of other questions. I wanted to talk

about the CTBS scores in Grade 8, and the fact that we are very pleased to see

that females are really doing quite well, as they have consistently. On all

sub-tests females are outperforming males but this is not consistent with the

all Canadian experience. Is there any intent on the department's part to try to

address why Newfoundland males are not performing on CTBS scores at the same

level as females in Newfoundland, or the same consistent level as males in other

parts of Canada?

MR. DECKER: This has been brought to my attention

but I have not heard it said publicly. There are also more females involved in

Math and Science I think in this Province.

MR. HODDER: Yes, and that is wonderful.

MR. DECKER: Dr. Turpin-Downey or Dr. Marsh do you

want to elaborate on what we are going to do with this report now that we have

it? We are not just going to let it sit.

DR. MARSH: The intent of Profile 92 is to report

to the people the general results that have occurred. This is then gone through

with the school boards as part of their strategic planning process which

essentially says, here are the results of your students in your district. Now,

take these results, interpret them, and put in place actions to correct any of

the deficiencies or to address any of the anomalies that might occur. The

question of the member would be viewed in Canada as a very positive achievement

in this Province, one which other provinces would strive towards, which is to

increase both the achievement and the enrolment of females in both mathematics

and science. The second aspect of that from a follow-up point of view within the

department is that we do follow up on the results and over a period of time,

through what we call the indicators approach, we will be looking at ways where

we can generally improve the system and have in fact acquired monies through the

Human Resource Development Agreement to look at both school improvement,

development of indicator systems, and then follow-up in what we would call

capacity building, which is really increasing the abilities of teachers to

address problems in those areas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. Marsh.

Your time has expired, Mr. Hodder, and I now recognize

Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you.

I was quite interested in listening to the comments of

Mr. Smith, the Member for Port au Port, about the pre-kindergarten program in

Lourdes, or in that area.

MR. HARRIS: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I do not want to interrupt you, Ms. Verge, but the

Member for Placentia, the newest MHA has not been heard from. I do not know if

he is on the list.

MR. CHAIRMAN: He is on the list after you, Sir.

MR. HARRIS: Oh, he is on the list, is he?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, yes. Do you think I would ignore

the new Member for Placentia? I would like to hear him enlighten us.

Carry on, Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: I was saying that I know of a similar

pre-kindergarten program at the school in Cox's Cove in the Bay of Islands and I

have know of a variety of other in-school and community preschool day care head

start programs which have been done on an ad hoc basis in other parts of the

Province. Does the department have an inventory of these pre-kindergarten

programs? Is the department keeping track of pre-kindergarten programing? I know

there was an early childhood education consultant in the department.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: As far as preschool is

concerned the Department of Social Services has the mandate but we have a

consultant. We do not have the full-time early childhood education consultant

but we have that person basically half-time who works closely with the

Department of Social Services, who does keep a listing. We are supposed to be

responsible for overseeing the actual program.

MS. VERGE: One of my frustrations as minister -

and it sounds like nothing has improved - is that there is insufficient

co-ordination among the Departments of Education, Social Services and Health,

and those three departments have joint responsibility for the social and

intellectual development of young children.

You mentioned Dr. Riggs and Dr. Norris doing some

research about the significance of extra reading in the kindergarten program.

From my own reading - and this is not my field - I know lots and lots of

research done in the US as well as Canada that shows clearly the value of good

early childhood education or play programs to supplement parental care.

Mr. Smith and I were talking during the break about

the obvious benefits of early childhood education programs, and it seems to me

the Department of Education, in co-operation with Social Services and Health,

should be keeping track of what is being done in the Province and trying to

foster and reward people - school boards, teachers, parents, social workers -

who are uniting to provide pre kindergarten programs. What happened to the

full-time early childhood education consultant position in the Department of

Education?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Full-time early childhood education

consultant position.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Yes, we basically assigned one

person for kindergarten and primary education in the whole area, and hopefully

that person will be able to give some time to the Department of Social Services

to continue to monitor the programs in preschool, but where we did not have the

direct mandate - a direct mandate is basically kindergarten and primary.

MS. VERGE: Well when I was minister I expanded the

mandate to early childhood education. That was a long time ago now.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: We still are responsible -

MS. VERGE: We were working co-operatively with

Social Services and Health back then.

MR. DECKER: Notwithstanding your opinion, there is

still a lot of co-operation among the three departments, and the whole social

policy committee is one way we mesh - work - with all the departments, the

social departments together. I do not share your opinion on that.

The preschool or the pre kindergarten: essentially

what you are talking about is lowering the age that children start school -

start their educational process, their formal educational process. When I

started you had to be six, going on seven.

MS. VERGE: That is not what I am advocating. I am

talking about a variety of models tailored to the needs of communities and

families.

MR. DECKER: Well are you suggesting that we make

it compulsory or not?

MS. VERGE: I am talking about expanding on what is

being done in communities such as Lourdes and Cox's Cove and St. John's. We have

a variety of positive models. We have Daybreak in St. John's, that many of us

talked about in the House of Assembly before the election call. We have the

program in Cox's Cove, which has been talked about in the House of Assembly

before, years ago. There was a program in Gander Bay, and the program that Mr.

Smith talked about here tonight.

Now each of those has been initiated at the local

level, and I am talking about - well first of all I was asking if the department

is monitoring what is happening, and trying to identify positive developments

and devise polices or strategies to foster the good programs, to reward people

like Mr. Smith in his former job as principal of the school in Lourdes, or Mr.

Oxford, principal of the school in Cox's Cove, and to try to help people in

other communities emulate those positive models.

MR. DECKER: I can just reiterate what I have said.

We have no intention at this time of lowering the age that we force people into

a formal education.

MS. VERGE: Nobody is talking about that.

MR. DECKER: But when we do that, we will make it

available to all our people. In the meantime, it is probably haphazard, as the

member rightfully points out.

MS. VERGE: But haphazard is better than nothing.

It is like the debate we had over Daybreak. You do not discourage or close

Daybreak because other communities in the Province do not have it. What we have

to try to do is nurture the good programs and try to help people in other areas

copy or innovate -

MR. DECKER: As I said, if government were to

decide to drop the age for formal education then we would do it, but when

government gets involved we cannot say to a group of people in Cox's Cove -

unless there are some special circumstances, as Daybreak was one case in point -

you cannot say to one group of people: We are going to tick you off now and here

is what you are getting. You are going to be treated with preferential treatment

- unless there are some extenuating circumstances. The policy would have to be

made right across the board. At this moment we have not made a conscious

decision to do it, and I do not see us doing that - certainly not in the near

future. There are so many other things in education that we have to deal with.

At the moment there has been no plan to deal specifically with that one.

MS. VERGE: That is too bad.

During the election campaign I heard a news report

that the Department of Education was going to reinstate funding for artists

visiting schools, and theatre in the schools. Was that a correct report?

MR. DECKER: I did not hear that news report. I do

not know (inaudible).

MS. VERGE: You are the news maker. Are you going

to reinstate funding for -

MR. DECKER: I never heard it and I can only take

it as rumour at this moment.

MS. VERGE: Well forget about what was on the news.

Are you, as Minister of Education, and your department, going to reinstate

funding for the visiting artists program?

MR. DECKER: No.

MS. VERGE: No?

MR. DECKER: Not that I am aware of.

MS. VERGE: Why?

MR. DECKER: I do not know why. During the

budgetary process we made a lot of cuts, and I suppose you can pick anything

that we cut and say `why'? It is a value judgement, and we had to trade off one

against the other, and this is one of the ones which we are not going to

reinstate.

MS. VERGE: Are you going to reinstate funding for

theatre in the schools?

AN HON. MEMBER: Funding has not been reinstated

(inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Has any of the Department of Education

funding to third party organizations been reinstated?

MR. DECKER: No, have they? We are considering a

couple.

AN HON. MEMBER: Some are being considered.

MR. DECKER: We are considering a couple, and do

not ask me - you can beat it over my head all night and I will not tell what

they are, but we are considering a couple, and when we make the decision then I

will let you know.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. What else do I have here?

There was a discussion a little earlier, initiated by

Ms. Young, about the department's policy of providing text books to primary and

elementary school children. Ms. Young was asking about the wisdom of continuing

the policy of having the government pay for books for children of social

assistance recipients. Has there been any thought to changing the arrangement

for all children such that all children simply rent books and all of them have

to turn them in at the end of the year so that they can be recycled?

MR. DECKER: There has been no decision made to do

that at this time.

MS. VERGE: Are you considering it?

MR. DECKER: The policy which has been in place for

the last number of years is still in place. There is no change.

MS. VERGE: The minister disagreed with Ms. Young's

idea because he did not want different treatment for children at the end of the

school year in terms of some having to return the books and others getting to

keep them. What about a change that would require all children to return the

books so that they can be recycled?

MR. DECKER: It has not been considered.

MS. VERGE: But it might be in the future?

Post-secondary education, what is our current

participation rate in post-secondary education, both university and

non-university post-secondary education, and how does it compare to the

participation rate of people in other provinces?

MR. DECKER: I've dealt with the university one

today in the House, as you know. The University one is the second-highest in

Canada the next one to PEI. But the total, including the colleges and that, I

don't have that off the top of my head.

DR. MARSH: In general we are slightly below the

participation rate in the non-university sector of the rest of Canada.

MS. VERGE: Isolating non-university, we are

slightly below?

DR. MARSH: Yes.

MS. VERGE: In university, we're slightly ahead? Is

it slightly or significantly?

MR. DECKER: More than slightly.

DR. MARSH: More than slightly. We are second -

MR. DECKER: Light-years ahead. Except for PEI.

MS. VERGE: The government cut in funding to

Memorial University, which is a whopping decrease, according to the university

president is going to lead to a smaller university. Obviously it's also going to

result in whopping increases in tuition fees. Is the minister aiming at lowering

our participation rate in university education to the national average?

MR. DECKER: I'm sorry, I never heard the question.

MS. VERGE: I asked about the large cut in funding

to Memorial University.

MR. DECKER: Okay. How much was the cut? Where is

that? Where are we?

MS. VERGE: The budget doesn't give accurate

figures. What's printed in the budget, what you see is not what you get.-

MR. DECKER: The University was cut as all other

boards -

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. DECKER: - they have to take their cut like

everybody else, yes. So there was a cut, yes.

MS. VERGE: The university president and the

president of the Faculty Association are both saying that the university will be

down $11 million compared to what would be required to carry on the present

level of operations when you look at the absolute cut as well as the inflation

factor.

MR. DECKER: There's not a whole lot of inflation,

as you know, this year. What's inflation? Less than 1 per cent or something?

Whatever the rate is. What was the amount of the cut? Is it there in the budget?

MS. VERGE: What's in the budget is not for real

because you didn't put in the budget the $71 million reduction in public sector

compensation.

MR. DECKER: What we did with the university, we

could have said: you have to have a wage freeze, or you have to deal with the

pension option, or what. We want to let them have as much autonomy, surely

goodness, as a university should have. So we said: here's your budget, you deal

with it.

MS. VERGE: Sure. You do the dirty work.

MR. CHAIRMAN: With that your time has expired, Ms.

Verge, and now I'll recognize Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: I would like to go back to the

pre-school issue and not talk about the lowering of compulsory education age, or

the moving of a kindergarten program to a full day program. I want to talk about

something that Ms. Young brought up in terms of her experience as a teacher

seeing kids come to kindergarten and then seeing the same children six years

later.

A lot of school teachers and school principals tell me

that when the kids walk in the door at the beginning of kindergarten a

significant number of students, as opposed to large, can be identified from the

very beginning as... I wouldn't call it programmed for failure, but identified

as kids who are going to have serious problems in completing and doing well in

school. They're going to be contributing to the drop out rate later on. School

is not going to be a positive experience for them because they're starting off,

for various social and economic reasons, sometimes nutrition reasons, far behind

the others.

This is the kind of pre-school program that might be a

place that the Department of Education would want to start. I.e., not wait until

we can afford to have all over the Province full kindergarten program, or all

over the Province full program for every three- or four-year old. We do have

some programs. I'm aware of one on Bell Island that was started a number of

years ago. The Daybreak deals with particular types of special needs and some of

the other ones we've mentioned.

I guess the first question is: to what extent is the

department spending money at all on preschool programs? I know the programs

exist. I am not looking in the Budget for a head but can you tell us, or perhaps

Dr. Turpin-Downey tell us what level of expenditure there is in your department

on preschool education programs as opposed to policy development?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Other departments of government

do, and some federal. We sometimes are part of a federal proposal.

MR. HARRIS: That is a demonstration project?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: Yes, and through the community

development programs for the most part there is access either through other

departments of the provincial government, Social Services particularly, or

through federal programs. Again, it is the initiative of the individual school

board. The school board usually takes the initiative or the school takes the

initiative.

MR. HARRIS: So, am I to assume that the Department

of Education does not accept any responsibility in that area and treats it as

either a social problem or somebody else's problem?

MR. DECKER: It is not part of the department's

mandate.

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: We work very closely with the

Department of Social Services in monitoring the program. We have to approve the

actual program, the academic side of the program, and we do that. We help with

in-service as well.

MR. DECKER: I understand what you are saying Mr.

Harris and it would probably make sense but at this moment it is outside our

mandate. It is picked up as a mandate of Social Services, so it would be just as

logical to ask the Department of Education why it does not pave roads. As

desirable as it would be for us to pave roads it is outside our mandate but

government picks up the thing by giving that mandate to Social services.

MR. HARRIS: I am just looking at the departmental

mission statement and commitments. It says the mission of the Department of

Education is to enable and encourage every individual to acquire through

lifelong learning the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for personal

growth in the development of society. One of the commitments down below is to

foster the aims of public education providing for each person's intellectual,

moral, social, and physical development. Mr. Minster, if the people in the

education field see on day one someone coming to an educational setting, an

individual whose personal development is so outside the norm that that person is

not going to be able to take advantage of the school system and in fact have

serious problems throughout, that that would be part of your mandate.

I am just wondering if it is part of your mandate, it

is part of your mission, why it is that no program money at all, even

developmental program, why does the department not have its own demonstration

projects if that be a way of getting started and start dealing with some of

those individuals who have recognized serious problems on day one so that they

can achieve better results? We have seen success, and I have been told that the

program on Bell Island for those students who are involved in it is providing a

chance for kids who, through whatever reasons, do not have the same exposure or

access, whether it be books, whether it be reading or vocabulary, or any social

experience, that would allow them to participate in the educational setting,

that in fact makes a difference. I think the other speakers who talked about

this know the same thing. Why does your department not start trying to fulfil

this mission even in difficult times by commencing a program of that nature?

MR. DECKER: I do not know how many more times I

have to say this. In the first instance I am not sure of your premise. I have

heard it myself, that when the little student walks in the teacher can say he is

going to be a failure or he is going to do this or do that. I would be very

careful in putting any stock in that kind of a statement, because I am sure

there might be a few case where that is the case but I would be extremely

disappointed if I thought that children are being prejudged when they come into

the system. I do recognize though, that there seems to be different people in

society who for some reason, whatever, is not at the starting line when the shot

is fired, they are probably behind the starting line.

Now, government is responsible for that, and

government has chosen to put that responsibility not into the Department of

Works, Services and Transportation, not into the Department of Environment and

Lands but into the Department of Social Services. If any formal learning program

is being used by programs like Daybreak or any other example you may wish to

use, then we have a process whereby the Department of Education approves the

program and has some input into the program, but a lot of the preschool is more

than an academic program, as the hon. member knows.

There are an awful lot of other things involved in

preschool than just teaching, but it is not our mandate to set that up - when it

becomes the mandate of the Department of Education to drop the age of entrance

to formal education, then we will do it and we will put a program in place which

applies to everybody, but for the exception, the way government has chosen to

deal with that over the years, is to have a Department of Social Services,

which, in co-operation with Education where the academic portion is concerned,

is fulfilling that mandate by and large. I am sure you could probably give me

exceptions where so and so's child who lives on such and such a street is not

getting it. By and large, there is a considerable number of preschool programs

which are dealing with some extreme cases right down to cases which are not so

extreme, but in the wisdom of government, it is the mandate of a different

department to fulfill that need.

MR. HARRIS: I fail to see how it does not fit in

within this mission and these commitments that are listed here. Can you explain

that to me?

MR. DECKER: I do not see the need because that is

quite obvious, I just told you, the educational aspect of it - the department

has to approve the component of their program which is educational based.

MR. HARRIS: It provides no financial support.

MR. DECKER: No, but government provides financial

support through a different department.

MR. CHAIRMAN: At that point, Mr. Harris, you time

has expired. I will now give Mr. Careen a chance to make his maiden speech.

MR. CAREEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Earlier tonight, Ms. Young was talking about NCARP and

I want to elaborate on it a little bit. I have been around a good many years and

have been on that Avalon Community College Board and that was revamped and

whatever and before that (inaudible) -

MR. DECKER: Did we appoint you to that board? Boy

how we miss everything.

MR. CAREEN: No, you lost a good person, Mr.

Minister. Over the years you hear people talk about illiteracy and some people

make out these brochures; now they all talk about brochures and I know the poor

illiterate is not reading them, but we have this NCARP program and there are

problems with it and everything else, but getting back to our area and I will

just use where we live, the Avalon West Community Futures, takes in parts of

Trinity Bay, the Chance Cove area down to Norman's Cove, Southern Harbour in

Placentia Bay eastern shores sweeping up through all the areas, Long Harbour

right on through Dunville area, Placentia, out to Cape Shore, then over into St.

Mary's taking in St. Mary's Bay north.

There was a five-year plan a number of years ago and

it outdid the area, the provincial average in literacy, there are certain

different standards of literacy. Now we all know that different types of people

use different standards of literacy, whether you can read a paper or you are not

computer literate, and all this, but these people, a number of these, will use

the exercise on the newspaper.

The thing I am looking forward to in this NCARP is

building up the standards, done in a certain way. Now I know of certain schools,

we have public schools and we have the private institutions and some of these

coming on, and I am not interfering with private enterprise because there is an

opportunity there for other Newfoundlanders to be at work, but, there has to be

an element in this A, B, E stuff, the coach, the pep talk, the one for the

Gipper, all these ones that are important because if the parents and the

grandparents of these are raising their standards, to hold on to the money -

that's part of it - by going to school, it's a great initiative, getting paid

for going to school. They in turn will be encouraging their offspring or their

godchildren or their nieces or whoever. I think in all our system there has to

be a certain way of encouragement.

Lots of time there's no money on encouragement. It

doesn't cost a cent. I don't know if it's fair or not, and I'll leave it to you

people, but I think, in our tourism we have a point system. We know that there's

a great

article in the newspaper the week before last about a Mr. Tobin in a

certain other district - I'm not looking for his vote - he's in another

district. Who could never read. He didn't read. He went to the store and he

signed. She said: you can mark your X here, Mr. Tobin. After a few weeks he

wrote out his name. Then for badness he signed it "X" underneath it. He's hoping

by September to be able to read a newspaper.

I think that kind of stuff is great and it builds up a

standard. I don't know if we should be putting in - and I'll just throw it out

here - a point system for some of these. Whether it's the public schools or

what, one can be better than another, because it goes only on the human element

that's there - or the private schools which are teaching the A,B,Es, they should

be based on a point system of which is the best one to go to. There should be

some kind of a standard, I figure that should be in there. Because there are

some of them out there I know of, and I'm not in the business of advertising for

any of them, that there are those who are a cut above. I think it's an

opportunity. Do you have any response to that, sir?

MR. DECKER: I think you're making some excellent

points. There are schools and there are schools. No doubt about that. The

department, though, is ultimately responsible for the program. From what I

gather, generally speaking, the program passes. I had an illustration given me

the other day of a school in this Province which has a group of people under the

NCARP, and they were supposed to have had a class a week which they spent on

'show and tell', to a group of people who were in their forties and fifties, and

probably sixties, or forties and fifties at least. I'm having that checked out

to see if that exactly did happen.

The theory is the department is supposed to make sure

that the program is up to a standard. I've had private school operators come to

me and telling me that government is treating them unfairly. The standard that

we require for their labs is higher than the standard that the department would

require in the public system. The public system has (inaudible) contractor

saying to provide some NCARP when they're not, sort of thing. But you're making

some excellent points. I'm sure there are exceptions. Unfortunately, the

department is really to blame, because we have to approve their courses. I can

take you to some private schools in this Province which are as good as any in

the country.

MR. CAREEN: I'm not pointing fingers of blame, I'm

just thinking of the golden opportunity that we all have.

MR. DECKER: Yes, you're right.

MR. CAREEN: Last fiscal year there was trouble all

around and we find this - I'm a believer, sometimes my heart rules my head, that

everybody should have an access to the classroom. There was trouble last year

with the teachers' aides in places, monetary troubles.

MR. DECKER: Yes.

MR. CAREEN: The money projections are at the same

level as last year. Do you foresee many problems yourself? The same problems

chasing you around as did last year about parents -?

MR. DECKER: The big problem we had was Labrador

West, as you're probably aware.

MR. CAREEN: Yes, but there were other places as

well.

MR. DECKER: There are other places as well. I

spent a lot of time examining this program which we're offering. I'm going to

let Dr. Turpin-Downey explain it to you in a little while. After hearing all the

sides of the story, I'm satisfied that we have in this Province one of the best

programs in the country for the... what's the word? The physically challenged,

is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: The challenging need.

MR. DECKER: The challenging need students in the

country. That's just recently been verified. For the longest time we were being

pointed to New Brunswick. New Brunswick was supposed to be the be-all, end-all.

We brought in one of the experts from New Brunswick. That person has told us:

your system is better than the New Brunswick system. But now, it's probably

never good enough. Is our Grade XII good enough? Dr. Turpin-Downey, do you want

to elaborate on that a little bit?

DR. TURPIN-DOWNEY: As far as the provincial

situation is concerned, we did a survey which showed that there were sufficient

numbers of student assistants for the total number of challenging needs kids,

but there are some boards that had too many and some that had too little. So

we've been trying to bring up and level down, which has been difficult. For the

most part we haven't to date had too many concerns expressed from the school

boards. New dollars have been allocated via the grant system this year, so the

boards will be given the option. If they do in fact need some additional dollars

they can take it from their grant allocations because most boards will be

receiving additional dollars through that. For the most part, I don't think

we'll have the problems that we had last year. But you never know. Because new

kids seem to come out of the woodwork when it comes to June, July and August.

MR. DECKER: It's got to be dealt with on a

professional basis as well, you know. The parent is involved there and has a big

say and a big concern. But the whole idea of helping the challenging needs

person is to hopefully, if it is at all possible, make that person a productive

member of society. If you take that child and you meet all his or her needs the

child is never going to learn - at some time the child has to learn to crawl and

to walk and to run. I'm speaking figuratively, of course. So you have to strike

the balance there between encouraging that person to become a contributing

member of society, as opposed to being totally dependent on a person.

I can tell you, there are examples in the system too

where we try to integrate the children, but there are examples where the

children are not being integrated. Where they're in the same room but the

segregation is stronger than it would ever be if they were in different rooms,

in some cases, where they're up in one little corner there and the assistant is

there, sort of thing.

So these are all matters which you have to deal with.

There's no simple answer but -

MR. CAREEN: But there's an undercurrent there with

it all. Because those people, even the worst of them, whatever their

afflictions, have an affect on the best of the students.

MR. CHAIRMAN: With that, Mr. Careen, your time is

up.

MR. CAREEN: Can I have one little statement made,

sir?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. By leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: Thank you. They do make a contribution

because they're mixing with the others, and the others are the so-called

normals. I've seen them taken and made pets of - and that's a wrong term to use,

sir. But they do take the responsibility of the other, and we've all seen it.

It's nice to see a