SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The head of a standing committee reviewing a bill to reduce class time at NWT schools says he hopes the education department is making decisions in the best interest of NWT students and not gambling on their future.

Deputy Education, Culture and Employment minister Sylvia Haener, left, and Education, Culture and Employment Minister Alfred Moses, speak to a committee of MLAs last Friday during a public hearing on Bill 16. -

Last week, education officials promised to have a draft evaluation plan in place by the end of this school year to measure the success of a three-year pilot program to reduce class time at NWT schools.

But the education minister says it will take more than just three years to see results from the pilot.

"We would not expect evaluation tools to look for immediate changes in graduation rates or some equivalent measure," Education, Culture and Employment Minister Alfred Moses said at Yellowknife's public hearing on the bill.

"Though, over the length of the 10-year Education Renewal Framework, these might legitimately be used."

The lack of a ready measurement tool to evaluate the pilot project worries Nahendeh MLA Shane Thompson, chair of the committee meeting with residents across the territory to gauge their thoughts on the possible class-time changes.

"Evaluation is very important to understand what we're trying to do and what kind of impact we have," Thompson said, adding he thinks it's like putting the cart before the horse.

He stressed an evaluation tool should be ready before a program is implemented, not the other way around.

The standing committee has been hitting the road to hear residents' thoughts on Bill 16.

If passed, it would reduce the legislated minimum instruction hours that NWT students are required to receive each year.

The education department is crossing its fingers MLAs will pass it, as it is needed to uphold a collective agreement the GNWT signed with the NWT teachers' association last fall.

That collective agreement includes plans for a pilot project to reduce class time by up to 100 hours a year at NWT schools.

"People are very concerned," Thompson said of the hearings.

"They're not understanding the rationale to it."

He added residents are worried about how the loss of class time will stack up over the years and how it compares to Alberta.

The emergence of the department's work-in-progress evaluation plan comes more than a month after a standing committee of MLAs grilled Moses on the motives behind the pilot project, which is set to kick off this fall.

At the time, they questioned the connection between instructional hours and teacher wellness, and wondered why no evaluation model had yet been designed to measure the project's success before it rolled out. Now, Moses says a committee of superintendents, representatives from the education department and the teachers' association has been created to do just that.

But he's still mum on whether the program could continue after three years' point or be abolished early if unsuccessful.

"The message from the department needs to be clearer," Thompson said.

"Information needs to be shared."

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