NWT - The Department of Education has pledged to step up its early childhood programs after learning that a large portion of the territory’s students are falling behind in school by the time they reach Grade 1.

Dan Daniels, deputy minister of education, said work is ongoing to close that gap through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Program, but that work takes time. - NNSL file photo

Results of the 2010 standardized Alberta Achievement and Functional Grade Level tests, released Jan. 13, show a decrease in the number of Grade 1 students capable of working at their grade level – to 81 per cent in in English language arts in 2010 from 83 per cent in 2009. Most NWT educators agree the problem is largely rooted in low attendance rates – on average, students are missing about a day-and-a-half every two weeks.

As in past years, an educational divide still exists between those students in larger regional centres and those in NWT’s smaller communities. Dan Daniels, deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment (ECE), said work is ongoing to close that gap through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Program, but that work takes time.

“The results are what they are,” he said. “We definitely want to see improvement and we definitely want to see more students achieving at a higher level and we certainly believe that is possible.”

The program, launched in 2009, has hired an aboriginal student co-ordinator to focus on such themes as attendance, literacy, aboriginal languages and the need for parental as well as student support.

“I think this data is really supportive of those key themes,” Daniels said.

Daniels said the department has committed to focusing more on early childhood education, especially as the Early Childhood Development Framework is up for review this spring. The government document lists goals ECE must meet to ensure “programming for student success,” including increasing school program budgets and decreasing kindergarten class sizes. One of the tools the department is planning to introduce, known as an “early development instrument,” would allow teachers to evaluate students as soon as they enter the school system based on physical, cognitive and social development.

“That will give us an indicator of the developmental status of students and from that we can go back and take a look at what kind of programs these children come through, whether they were in a formal early childhood program, for example, or whether they were in more of a home environment, so we can start to see which programs seem to be effective,” Daniels said.

Region-specific results are kept by each regional school board, which is charged with developing its own improvement plan to fit the needs of schools in the community. Students at Yellowknife schools, and particularly those enrolled in French immersion programs, consistently ranked highest in the 2009/2010 Alberta Achievement Tests, followed by those in regional centres and finally those in small community schools.

Attendance rates at schools across NWT, however, didn’t change much from the previous year. For 2009/2010, the average attendance rate for NWT students was 86 per cent, up slightly from 85 per cent in 2008/2009.

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