Don Kindt, assistant superintendent at the Catholic school board, said that all schools in the West are moving toward using the same material -- and math is the first of four subjects to be implemented.

"We are required by the western consortium (formed by the western provincial and territorial ministers) -- to implement the program," said Kindt.

By starting with Grade 9 students, the program will enable students in the NWT to write the same final exams as those students in Western Canada.

"If we waited, students wouldn't be ready for the exam," Kindt said.

For each of the next four years, a new curriculum will be introduced -- math in 1997/98, with social studies, language arts and science in the following three years.

Kindt said that the new programs will give consistency to students' work across jurisdictions, and will allow for smoother transfers between jurisdictions.

The new math program is said to integrate the classroom of the future.

However, that comes with a price. It's estimated that each new program will cost about $100 per child to implement -- $80 for resources and $20 for teacher training.

Kindt estimated that only about a quarter of this cost will be covered by the territorial department of education, even though it was government that said the programs go ahead. The remaining three-quarters of the funding must be absorbed by the boards.

Teachers from both boards will begin training for the new Grade 9 program immediately before school starts in September.