SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife students between Grade 1 and Grade 9 miss an average of one day of school every two weeks, according to the Alberta Achievement Test results released last week.

The Department of Education says low attendance rates in schools are part of the reason Yellowknife and the territory have such low scores on the Alberta Achievement Tests. - Nicole Veerman/NNSL photo

The Department of Education is pointing to low attendance rates as one of the reasons 25 per cent of Yellowknife students are below their grade level in English language arts and 23 per cent are below their grade level in mathematics, as is indicated in the Functional Grade Level results that were released alongside the achievement tests.

"That's a significant amount of time that could really impact how a student performs in the education system," said Dan Daniels, deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

"If they're not in school they're not having the opportunity to acquire the knowledge that they need to be successful in school."

Functional Grade Level indicates that a student has mastered the classroom material to a level where they can succeed in subsequent grades.

Eighty-three per cent of Yellowknife students in Grade 1 are able to complete the English language arts assignments set out for them. That is two per cent higher than the average for the NWT and 11 per cent higher than the average for smaller NWT communities outside of regional centres, such as Hay River, Inuvik and Fort Smith.

In mathematics, Yellowknife is on par with the smaller communities with 79 per cent of Grade 1 students achieving their grade level.

Daniels said the department has committed to focusing on early childhood education as a way of dealing with the low numbers. He said a big part of that is determining how to prepare young children for the school system, in turn, improving their chances of academic success.

Yellowknife's lowest numbers are between Grades 5 and 8, where they range from 67 per cent to 73 per cent of students achieving their grade level in mathematics and from 65 per cent to 72 per cent for English language arts.

"The results are what they are," said Daniels. "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."

Along with a focus on early childhood education, Daniels said the department is continuing to work on the Aboriginal Student Achievement Program that launched in 2009.

The program focuses on attendance, literacy, aboriginal languages and the need for parental support.

"While the focus (of the program) is on eliminating the achievement gap between aboriginal students and non-aboriginal students in our education system, the whole intent of the initiative is to make education improvements for all students," said Daniels.

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