COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

(Concurrent Sections)

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Gerry McAlpine): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply, meeting in Room 255, will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.

When the committee last sat it had been considering item 2.(e)(1) on page 36 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask the minister about an article in the Sun today which suggested that Seine River School Division believes that the new curriculum proposals will diminish the possibilities for having high school work experience credit courses. I wonder if the minister would like to give us some information on that. Is this indeed the case? Is this one school division which is the only one that believes this? Did the minister see the article, and what response is she making to it?

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Just before I begin my answer, I had indicated on Friday that I would table information on the Access programs, on BUNTEP and the Winnipeg Education Centre. I have that information here today, three copies for tabling, as requested.

If the article had said that we were cutting, then that is not correct. We are not diminishing the capability of school divisions to have work education.

There are two ways, and the member may be familiar with this, either through school-initiated courses or student-initiated programs. What we are doing is we are saying that both the SIC and the SIP, as they are called, must now have outcomes as well so that they cannot just have a school-initiated course with no outcomes that are being sought or measured.

The way it will work is that the school-initiated courses and the SIPs will identify what outcomes they are looking to achieve. They can still for graduation purposes have SICs and SIPs counted. They can have four SICs and two SIPs for a total of six that they can use for graduation. The opportunity is there for students to have up to 25 percent of their graduation credits achieved under student-initiated or school-initiated courses. So any indication that such courses are going to be cut and that there be no opportunity to have them is not a correct indication because that is there for them. As I say, however, we will be asking for outcomes along with the work that is being given.

Another opportunity that we have discussed with the field for a work experience is the introduction of two new policy guidelines which will be called locally developed, department-approved and the other one will be called externally developed, department-approved curriculum, and those two are underway. This thrust will provide schools the opportunity to use the expertise of the globe through the Internet and access excellent externally developed content; for example, curriculum that might be developed by a corporation or by scientific authorities or by an academically rich organization, entities of that sort.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, this section of the department also deals with increased use of technology. I wondered if the minister could tell me about the progress, if any, that Manitoba schools have made in being hooked up to the Internet. How many schools are hooked up and does the minister have information on that, and does she have a plan for the coming year on the expansion of Internet activities in Manitoba schools?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, that particular detail would come under 16.5(g) with MERLIN. In this one, with the programming, we can talk about the kinds of curricula, that type of thing, but the technical part in terms of the hook-ups, et cetera, would come under the MERLIN designation. We could, if the member wishes, go through some of the programming work in terms of technology, but the numbers of schools hooked up in that come under that other section. We do not have the MERLIN people here.

Ms. Friesen: Can the minister tell us how many schools are using, in distance education, courses in Manitoba, and by that I do not mean correspondence courses, although I know that is part of the definition, how many are using distance education through other technologies other than correspondence courses?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, on a daily basis, I could indicate that Midland, Elm Creek, Carman, the Evergreen-Interlake School Divisions, Gimli, Riverton, Ashern, Fisher Branch, the Swan Valley area, they have teleteaching.

In terms of program implementation, the northern regional team is active in this area. They have seconded a consultant to provide a linkage between departmental initiatives and technology in northern school divisions and to enhance teachers' teaching strategies in the area of technology. That consultant provides practical hands-on demonstrations in the implementation of various computer technologies, regularly visits schools to discuss initiatives and to assess and assist with the implementation of technology in the classroom, also providing in-service for teachers on the effective use of technology in the classroom and assisting divisions in developing plans for the integration of technology into the classroom.

We have a total of 23 Distance Education pilot projects underway. Thirteen projects and their evaluations have been completed, 10 are ongoing, and the final evaluations will be completed in the fall of '97. Forty-eight school divisions and seven school districts have received grants for professional development in Distance Education and Technology totalling 1,742 educators to be impacted by these grants. We have about 650 schools on the Internet via the MINET. We have 15 workshops having been delivered related to technology integration to educators. Twenty-five schools have been selected as sites for technology and resource centres for the '96-97 school year and we have had a series of workshops organized by Manitoba Education and Training delivered by suppliers just held recently, January and February of this year.

For bilingual education, we have technology in bilingual education. We held a workshop on that, a two-day in-service on technology in Ukrainian language education held in Selkirk last year, and there will be a follow-up to that this year which will include teachers from Ukrainian, German and Hebrew bilingual education.

On the topic of languages, while I am talking about it, there was also an in-service for Ukrainian language teachers on the invitation of New Directions in the Ukrainian bilingual schools. We are working to develop a series of computer assisted language learning resources that have been made available to all teachers of German in Manitoba. That was developed through the department in collaboration with the University of Manitoba, the department of Germanic studies and the Republic of Germany. A series of workshops were held on that from October '95 to March '96 with over 100 participants in that.

I do not know if I am on the right track in terms of what you are looking for. I just conclude, and I will wait for the next question by indicating that 80 percent of the public schools have toll free access to Internet, and MERLIN manages about 12,400 educational users of the Internet.

Ms. Friesen: My original question was how many schools are involved in the Internet, and the minister, I think, said in her response 650 schools, but then later on she said 80 percent of public schools are connected to the Internet. I am not sure how those two figures mesh.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, 650 are actually on the Internet. Eighty percent have toll-free access to the Internet.

Ms. Friesen: Are those 80 percent distributed throughout Manitoba, or is it predominantly the metropolitan schools?

Mrs. McIntosh: Again, we really should have Dan Kerr here to provide some of the detail from MERLIN, but it is a safe statement I think to make that the majority of that 80 percent would be in the areas of the province that have a fairly decent sized population in terms of numbers, which would mean primarily the southern part of the province as opposed to the North, particularly some of the remote areas.

Ms. Friesen: This part of the department is also involved in the piloting of various programs, and during the course of Question Period, I think in the fall, I raised with the minister the problems encountered in Lord Selkirk School Division with the math curriculum. I wondered if the minister had done any follow-up on that, if there had been any evaluation of the problems that Lord Selkirk had encountered and the reasons for their withdrawal from the testing of the high school level new mathematics programs. At the time they indicated there was not enough support in terms of professional development and that the resource materials and textbooks were not available. Did the minister evaluate that, and are there any reports available?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, this is an area where we had 28 school divisions taking part in a pilot. Twenty-seven of them are humming right along. One of them, Lord Selkirk, felt that their students were not going to do as well on these exams as they had on the other types of testing they had done. It was too rigorous, they felt, so they pulled out. As I say, the other 27 are humming along.

Lord Selkirk made this decision early in the process and that is their choice. Nobody is forced to be on a pilot if they think that they philosophically do not approve of the approach or feel they are not quite up to the task. Nobody forces them to participate in a pilot, but looking at their concerns, it appeared that is what their concern boiled down to. The new examination has a focus on problem-solving. They did not feel that they had their students prepared to the level where they could do well on a problem-solving, focus-based exam, but in looking into their concerns they were not found to have the degree of concern that the superintendent there expressed.

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The Math 20-S, which focuses on a theoretical mathematics, complements Applied Math 20-S, which is also being piloted during the '95-96 year. Both courses are based on the western framework for 10 to 12 mathematics.

Math 20-S has an increased emphasis on problem solving, as I said, and a corresponding decrease in the more traditional, rote, repetitive exercises that characterized its predecessor, Math 20-G. So students who had been just simply memorizing and going through, of course, would not have had a lot of, over time, experience in problem solving. This move towards problem solving makes a big change in the mathematics curriculum.

But just to indicate what we found out when we looked into it, in looking at some of the allegations that were in that letter, we noted that in fact teachers involved in the Math 20-S pilot received a Mathematics 20-S pilot document and a two-day orientation and training session in the summer. Subsequently, since that time, pilot teachers met three times to discuss their progress in field validation. They have also received additional support materials, both commercially and teacher developed. The pilot teachers indicate that students who participate in the '94-95 Senior 1 math pilot, which has a similar focus, are much better equipped to handle the more challenging Math 20-S.

The mathematics kindergarten to Grade 12 steering committee at its December 11, 1995, meeting discussed the whole issue of Senior 2 math courses. That committee affirmed the department's approach to senior year courses. I think that probably is the most valid vindication of all. Lord Selkirk, of course, had already withdrawn from the Math 20-S pilot project and, to date, all pilots, with the exception of that one, are continuing on with their Math 20-S for the second year. The senior years math pilot projects are being established for a two-year period to the end of 1998, which will allow adequate time for commercial print resources to match those available in the western framework and Manitoba's mathematics programs.

The steering committee, which affirmed that the department's approach to senior year courses was the correct one, consisted of Linda Burnell from Brandon--these are all teachers, by the way--Cheryl Collins from Transcona-Springfield--the first was an early-years teacher, the second is a middle-years teacher--Brent Corrigan from St. James-Assiniboia, who is with the Manitoba Association of Mathematics Teachers; Jim Ferguson from St. Paul's High School, which is an independent school; Jack Fraser from St. Vital School Division from the Manitoba Teachers' Society; Lenna Glade from Transcona-Springfield, Manitoba Association of Principals; Lars Jansson from the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Education, representing the universities; Gene Karlik, Red River Community College, representing the community colleges; Joanne Peters, Winnipeg School Division No. 1, a teacher-librarian; Norbert Philippe, St. Vital School Division, representing the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents; Roy Schellenberg from St. Boniface School Division, representing the Manitoba Association of School Trustees; Martin Simmons from the band-operated schools, representing the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils; Grant Woods from the University of Manitoba, faculty of discipline, representing the universities; Joseph Combiadakis, Education and Training, Bureau de l'education francaise division; and Wayne Watt, Education and Training, School Programs Division. Those people, in looking at the way the pilot was going, felt that we were on the right track, and while Ms. Bagnall from Lord Selkirk did not--as I say, she has a smaller group of companions, shall I say, than those who hold the opposite perspective.

(Mr. Ben Sveinson, Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair)

Ms. Friesen: I think this was a decision of the Lord Selkirk trustees, and I think the concerns that were expressed dealt with professional development and with materials available. Those were the two specific issues I was discussing, and I wondered if there had been a specific evaluation by the groups that the minister made reference to on those particular issues, and since it is continuing to be piloted this coming year, what provision has been made for the provision of a textbook, for example? Is that available yet? I believe that was not available at the time.

The minister also made reference to certain kinds of materials; she said commercially developed and teacher developed. I wonder if perhaps we could look at what the difference is between those, which teachers developed it, for what levels, and how were they distributed.

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Mrs. McIntosh: As I indicated earlier, the teachers had received the pilot orientation, and during that orientation which took place in the summer before the pilot began, they were taken through over a few days the pilot document which was provided to them. That pilot document outlined the goals and outcomes that were sought in the pilot. We can give you that hundred-page document. As I said we went through it with them so that they could become familiar with it before they began teaching. They have met several times since then to go over the progress. They have the additional support materials as I indicated, and those materials, as they work with them, are being identified via Western Protocol. In the next three or four months, there will be a call for actual textbooks. Right now they do not have a textbook per se, they are working from the pilot document and suggesting others, but the pilot document outlines all of the outcomes expected in the work that is being done in that particular mathematics course.

We have not received complaints similar to those from Lord Selkirk from the other pilot projects. When the first concerns came forward from Lord Selkirk, our consultant offered to meet parents and teachers to discuss the views, explain the scope, the focus, to offer assistance, et cetera, but the division decided not to avail itself of that opportunity for whatever reason. They did not proceed to accept the department's offer to have the consultant meet with, as I say, parents, teachers, whomever, to go through all of the information that they had indicated they needed. I do not know why they chose not to follow up on that; that was their choice because they are not obliged to participate in a pilot. If they did not want the additional information or if they chose not to have others concerned receive that information, there is no desire on the part of the Education department to force ourselves on people who do not wish to avail themselves of opportunities. That is what local autonomy is about.

The same schools this fall will be piloting a second year to provide more feedback before the course is finalized. As I say, we have had no similar letter of concern come from any of the other 27 as came forward from Lord Selkirk.

Ms. Friesen: The minister said that the call for actual textbooks was going out soon. When would that textbook be produced and does the minister anticipate that this final year of piloting will in fact be done without a textbook? If so, what is the validity of a pilot if you do not have the textbook there?

Mrs. McIntosh: I indicate to the member that the question indicates part of the dependence the system has had for years on textbooks, rote learning, repetition, et cetera. The schools have the curriculum; they have the outcomes, the pilot document, the in-servicing, the shared feedback and communications, the input and assistance from the department. The textbook will reflect the curriculum and how it has worked in the schools, the outcomes and how they have been done. The textbook is not the curriculum. The curriculum dictates what should be learned; the textbook is a tool, one of many and oftentimes a very valuable tool. But it is not the textbook that determines what learning will be. It is the curriculum, the outcomes, and the pilot document that the teachers were provided with. Of course, we supplied that for them.

The pilot teachers were also building together, fully implementing the notion of resource- based learning. The pilot teachers also do a unit of building together so that they can implement that notion of resource-based learning. I would hope that, while we appreciate the value of a good text to augment the curriculum, we would not get it backwards; we know which should come first.

We expect that text to be completed and available probably sometime in the middle of the next school year.

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Ms. Friesen: My concern was dealing with evaluation of a pilot project. Evaluation to me includes all the resources that are being used. The textbook is one standard, comparable element of a course which can be evaluated, and my concern is that a proper pilot project evaluation should include the evaluation of the usefulness of a textbook. You can get lousy textbooks; you can have very good textbooks. You have to evaluate those as part of the course that you are piloting. If it is not going to be available until the middle of next term or the middle of next academic year, I am concerned about the level of evaluation that may be possible as a result of that, and I wondered what the delay has been and why such a delay.

We were looking at a Western Consortium textbook. I understand that much of the math curriculum, in any case, has come from Manitoba with a Manitoba leadership. I am puzzled as to why the textbook should be in a sense coming in at the end of this process.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, perhaps it might be of some benefit if I indicated how these textbooks are being put together. Unlike the past, when we would sort of go to a publisher and buy a book off the shelf, so to speak, these are custom-designed textbooks. We are having these textbooks produced for us based upon our experience with the curriculum.

Maybe understanding the why and the process here might help indicate the way things are being done now versus how they used to be done in the old days. In the old days, you would buy a textbook off the shelf and then you would try to sort of bend your curriculum around it. What we are doing now is, through the Western Protocol, the teachers are called together to review textual material and electronic software. First, we identify the outcomes and the curriculum and the pilot document. Those are taught in the classroom. The draft product then for a text that accompanies this is gleaned from the curriculum work in the classroom, and the draft product from the publisher is then custom designed to fit what the teachers of the pilot indicate they want, and distribution will then occur.

The beauty of this system is that you end up with a textbook that is designed specifically for your curricula based upon feedback from teachers, and the cost becomes far less, as well, because when you have several jurisdictions purchasing together, of course, you have the volume which enables the cost to come down. So I have to indicate again that there are a lot of materials in terms of what is being taught in the classroom to assist with the curricula and the outcomes and the pilot which are all there in the classroom with the teachers working together with in-servicing, et cetera.

The first interjurisdictional learning resource project occurred in March of this year with the K to 9 mathematics resources, and a bilingual Manitoba learning resource team comprised of 15 teachers and three departmental consultants participated in the review which was in Edmonton. Over 2,000 print and multimedia learning resources were evaluated for listing as curriculum-matched key resources for the K to 9 mathematics, and Manitoba, of course, has access to the resulting key learning resource database and evaluation reports which will be updated regularly. This information will assist in identifying materials for inclusion in the Manitoba Textbook Bureau catalogue and the department's library.

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So it is a different way that we are teaching. It is different material that we are teaching. It is a different way of developing that material that is being taught, and the old habits and the old ways of developing these things are slightly modified. I am not saying that they have been thrown out. We do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water, because we do recognize the benefit of good textbooks and how helpful they can be. There will be a chance to evaluate the text once it is out in the latter portion of next year, but that text, when it comes, will mirror the curricula that is being taught, and that curriculum already has material identifying it within the classroom and with the teachers teaching the pilot.

Ms. Friesen: The process of teacher-led instructions for the drafting of textbooks and its tailoring to the curriculum sounds to me very similar to the process I understood was there for the Grade 11 senior history textbook many years ago, so I am not quite clear on what the difference is other than the connections with the Western Canadian Consortium.

I wanted to ask the minister, for the math textbook, if she could tell me: Is there an author identified for that, is there a publisher identified, and does she know yet of the cost of that book?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the difference between this way and the old way is that this way, when the call for a proposal goes out, it goes out with very specific outcomes identified. They are not general or vague or broadly based; they are very detailed, very specific outcomes. As regards the textual material, both print and nonprint, that is the other difference that we will see with this: it is not just print textual material; it will also be nonprint.

That called-for proposal will go out and the responses will come in. We do not know at this point who will be the successful, or group of successful, people to put together both the print and the nonprint material, but we do know that whoever does it, the outcomes detailed will be so specific that what will come back will be very tightly aligned to what the teachers who are working with the curriculum in the classroom right now will be identifying. So, in that sense, it is different from the old way where the parameters were much more generic and general.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, is that an international call for proposals or is that western provinces based? What specifications are there for publication in terms of printing, distribution and the national bases for that?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, each bidding publisher will in effect submit a print and nonprint set of materials, and we will then pick the one that best matches the outcomes, best matches the philosophy of the curriculum, best matches the philosophy of the instructional approach and assessment. It must address issues such as resource-based learning. It must address issues of gender-biased stereotyping, et cetera. It must fall within a reasonable price range, and it will go out to both Canadian and United States of America based companies.

Once the publishers submit their final materials, Mr. Chairman, the western provinces together will do the review and will identify those resources that will be listed as western key resources, so that we will have the Western Protocol reflected in the materials that are being brought forward for the classroom. That joint assessment, the joint development of outcomes, frameworks, et cetera, the joint request for proposals and the joint review of the material will, I think, ensure that we have something that really fits for western Manitoba. Since the published documents are matched to our curriculum outcomes, the schools will have access to documents that have a very close match to the outcomes.

Ms. Friesen: I think the minister said western Manitoba and she meant western Canada.

Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, the member is correct, I meant western Canada. Much and all as I love western Manitoba, I would hate to leave the eastern part of Manitoba out, and I thank her for that correction.

Ms. Friesen: So the decision on the text is then made by a committee and it is based upon submissions from across North America. What I am not clear at this stage, what is being used in the other western provinces, in Alberta in particular since their process for the teaching of mathematics has been quite different I think from other people's?

Mrs. McIntosh: There will be 50 teachers from the western provinces along with the consultants who will assess that material. I should indicate that while in the past there may have been some fairly wide divergence in terms of philosophies, et cetera, in the last year or two there has been a remarkable coming together, and we have seen more and more an emerging of truly common frameworks, outcomes and curriculum, and I think you will start to notice that before long in the classrooms. It is still maybe not as evident at these early stages as it will be as time goes on, but the short answer to the question is that there are 50 teachers. They do come from across the West. They work with the consultants. I believe Manitoba sends 15 of the teachers, and we have two consultants I believe that go from Manitoba.

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The framework of outcomes articulates the agreement between the provinces with respect to the what I call big ideas, the philosophy of the strands, the general outcomes and the specific outcomes as well as the integrated elements that are involved. So you will see many people speaking with one voice although, undoubtedly, when they are doing the assessment there will be many voices maybe speaking simultaneously as they weigh the pros and cons of the various materials put before them.

I should indicate for clarification that the 50 was for the kindergarten to Senior 1 review, and the 10 to 12 review, the Senior 3, Senior 4 review, will be done in the fall when the call for the 10 to 12 component is complete.

Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): I would like to ask the minister some questions in regard to the Public Schools Finance Board. I understand that in this section there is a reference to developing standards for facilities, equipment and technology. In particular, can the minister elaborate for us as to what types of standards you are talking about? We will start out there, because the whole area of capital investment through the Public Schools Finance Board is of particular concern to many school boards.

Mrs. McIntosh: I should just indicate--but it is also true. We work collaboratively with the Public Schools Finance Board, and we give them information regarding programming. We might say, for example, if the music room is being renovated, that it requires soundproofing, so we give them the program requirements, but the BSFB itself has the responsibility to make the decision and allocate the funds. They will put them in order of priority every year. They may go so far as to say, well, here are about 25 projects that all need to be done. We can only afford to do 20 of them this year, and five will go on the list for the following year as priorities. But the list keeps getting bigger and bigger, so they are always having to make decisions as to which items to proceed with, period. Then, once that decision is made as to in what order they intend to proceed with them and how far down the road will it be before the project gets underway, the program consultants from the department will provide the program information. They make the decision, but, aside for the building of a brand-new school, they could make safety issues, ask us for information on safety issues on technology requirements, which is becoming more and more important. In doing the renovations for the Manitoba School for the Deaf, for example, some of the technologies going in there are uniquely suited to--now that is a government building, so it does not follow in the same category as PSFB.

However, it still does require information about the programming and the needs of the people in the building for those making decisions on the renovations. We might give information about gymnasium programs, et cetera. The equipment and the facilities recommended for curriculum implementation, special needs students, distance delivery and computer applications will be consistent with department standards and guidelines. .

Technology and science resource centres are a particular focus for up to 25 schools in the coming year. That is because of some pilot work we have got going. The PSFB is appointed by government but then, once appointed, is an independent decision-making body. They will give a report, generally on an annual basis, once they have made their decisions. I do not know whether it is formal or informal. They will notify the minister as to which projects are slated for proceeding, which ones have been put on hold and which ones have been rejected or modified.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister elaborate on the relationship between the PSFB and the Department of Education? The minister mentioned that after the appointments are done, basically they are an independent body that makes decisions, yet there needs to be a relationship between the department and, as the minister was discussing, certain standards or expectations that we consider a favourable environment for the operation of learning in whatever it may be, music room, the gymnasium, standard classroom sizes now different than it was previously. I would be very interested to get more information as to that length. The department makes the guidelines, and the PSFB implements.

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Is there a time when the department would consider perhaps reviewing that ever-increasing project list, as it seems that public schools are falling behind the times, or many of them are. We have the research to indicate what a positive learning environment is, and that can happen anywhere. We all know that to have a wonderful learning environment can happen anywhere, but it does help if we have lighting and heat and some cooling systems when it becomes extremely hot.

We do know that there are certain environments that will enhance learning overall, and we are seeing many school divisions having to wait and postpone projects. The list is getting longer and longer; the minister is right. My concern is for those students who are in environments which are not optimal for learning. What is the role of the Department of Education to highlight the serious dichotomy between what we would like to see in our schools and what is really there?

Mrs. McIntosh: The Public Schools Finance Board, we are not at that line yet, so when we get there we can probably give you more detail, but I am quite happy to provide what I can now. As I say, we can probably give you a better sense of the criteria and so on that they operate under.

The executive director of the PUB--I think I am back in Consumer and Corporate Affairs--of the Public Schools Finance Board does meet on a fairly regular basis with the senior staff of the department when they have the departmental senior staff meetings, he is part of those meetings by and large. They meet about every two or three weeks as a team of people. Although technically he reports to the minister, he is there as part of the team, and that of course is headed by the deputy, that team of directors. They are subject to rules at the PSFB. They are subject to decisions of government and the Treasury Board. For example, the Treasury Board will designate the amount of money that will be permitted to flow to the Public Schools Finance Board.

The Public Schools Finance Board will submit a request--forgive me, my senior staff and I are all suffering from various forms of ailments. We just keep making each other sick. Sort of going around the office, so if I keep losing my voice it comes back eventually. A few words just do not seem to come out.

The PSFB is subject to rules and decisions of government and the Treasury Board through those vehicles of approving a requested budget. Also, it may be from time to time that those in authority in government would say: we notice that you are still using this archaic roofing technique, and there is a new more modern method that we suggest you take a look at. Those type of things might from time to time occur.

On some issues, the PSFB might work in conjunction with the Department of Government Services. It reports, as I indicated, directly to the minister. It operates under a set of criteria that guides it. Government sets those parameters, and I have an example of how the process kind of works in that there is the process of prioritizing funding and constructing roofing work, to use that for an example.

Beginning in 1992-93, in the roofing program that year, a new process of assessing school division requests for roof replacement work was begun by the Public Schools Finance Board.

That process includes the following fundamental procedures. First of all, questionnaires are sent to school divisions to obtain information on their roof replacement requests. The roofs are then considered for inspection using the questionnaire information. Roofing consultants are selected to inspect the roofs using a proposal-call document containing a list of school roofs in different regions. Roof reports are then prepared by the consultants and submitted to the Public Schools Finance Board, and those reports then are analyzed and summarized by the PSFB. The three basic report recommendations include: roof replacement; deferred replacement; and repair. Priorities for replacement are established for the entire province. Discussions with school divisions about their priorities will lead to final recommendations.

Approvals are given for the roof replacement projects in order of priority. School divisions are informed in writing. Plans and specifications for the approved roof replacement projects are then sent by the PSFB to school divisions, except for the Winnipeg School Division, which prepares its own. The member may have some recollection of that but, Winnipeg School Division aside, the rest all submit to this process.

Tendering is handled by the school division and the results are forwarded to the PSFB. The funding support is determined by the PSFB and construction of the roof replacement project is then authorized. The goal of the PSFB is to have school division questionnaires submitted in the summer preceding the budget year during which the work is required.

To establish priorities for roof replacement work, the Public Schools Finance Board relies on communication with school divisions and on the roof reports that are prepared in response to school division requests.

That communication, of course, is very important because the requests often exceed the funding available. In fact, the requests usually exceed the funding available. Sometimes divisions will put in requests thinking, no harm in asking, if they have something they would like to have done and sometimes, if there is room on the priority list, they are able to get a project that would be nice to have done but in a normal year might not make it to the priority list because it is of lesser importance than some of the other projects.

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You see the same kind of decision process for systems replacement program. With systems becoming so essential, they have a protocol for that, and I will not go through it necessarily. It is not identical, of course, to the roof replacement, but it does involve a similar type of protocol. In that one, the Public Schools Finance Board authorized the support of the low bid. This new system was implemented after that. So there are these protocols, there are these processes,and the Public Schools Finance Board spends a lot of time trying to find from the field what the state of the stock is. That is of great assistance to it in trying to project what they feel might be hot ticket items coming down the road.

If you have a suburb where all of the schools were built in around the same year, you can kind of predict that within a few years of each other you are going to see a lot of major repairs in similar areas, furnaces, all sort of going on at the same time. So they can try to make those sort of projections in terms of their own planning and budgeting into the future.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Is it the will of the committee to take a five-minute break? Agreed? [agreed]

The committee recessed at 4:02 p.m.

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After Recess

The committee resumed at 4:10 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.

Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairperson, I am going to continue on my questions on facilities and standards, and the reason is because I do believe that the Department of Education has a significant influence and impact in terms of developing policy. It was a matter, of course, that every new school that was constructed also included a daycare, for example, and we have a number of schools that I know were constructed with daycares--I am not sure if it is every facility or in the city itself. A policy decision was then apparently made to discontinue that program. Was the decision to not include a daycare facility, which provides those services to the children intricately linked between school and daycare, a decision of the Department of Education?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, these kinds of issues are issues that do not pertain to the School Programs Division per se. They do pertain to PSFB, but the daycare policy issue is something that is government-wide. It would be a governmental policy decision which would include, obviously, Family Services. PSFB, when it is in, may be able to provide more specific answers to specific issues such as that, but that was not a decision of the Department of Education or the School Programs Division.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister clarify, she indicated that it was not a decision of the Department of Education, would the Public Schools Finance Board have the ability to make such a decision on its own?

Mrs. McIntosh: No.

Ms. Mihychuk: Issues such as that I raise here with the minister because it is really matters of policy that I am discussing rather than specific funding projects of the Public Schools Finance Board. There are numerous projects that are awaiting approval and funding, and I know that the PSFB, if only they had more money, would be investing more into schools. There is a large number of building projects that are on the list needing attention; some urgent. Is it the will or interest of the Department of Education to review this list and lobby or urge for a larger share of funding for the Public Schools Finance Board?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we place about $25 million annually into the PSFB for school construction and renovation, so it is a sizable sum; it is not a small amount of money.

Regarding the daycare space that might be available within schools, the whole policy on daycare in schools is one that is sort of under ongoing review with the government. I know many schools do have daycares and a lot of unused school space owned by the division has been utilized for the renting of space to daycares. Many of the existing schools have space within them that could be used for that purpose and, in fact, is being used for that purpose.

The Public Schools Finance Board has not recently been putting money into the actual creation of daycare facilities in the schools. It is something that government is reviewing as to where are the best possible monies for daycare spaces being made available. At the same time, of course, they are trying to meet the priority needs in education. The daycare issue is a good example of that which we talked about earlier when we said that government will determine policy and the PSFB then will manage the division requests keeping the government policies in mind, and it does so by involving the school divisions in priority setting.

The reason that we have the five-year priority planning process in place is so that local divisions can present their priorities to the PSFB. In the planning process, this is of great value to divisions and to the resource allocations available to support capital projects. As I indicated, in the last few years that has not included building in things that are not directly educational delivery things or required for the direct delivery of education, but as I indicated that is something that is being looked at and many schools do have daycares.

I quite like seeing the daycares in the schools because I think there is a lot of merit in having the ability to keep siblings together, for example, and I have always liked it particularly for schools where there is empty space. I think it is a good utilization of that empty space, and the question then becomes can we afford again to use educational dollars for noneducational purposes. That whole arena is one that we have been in for a few years, trying to make those determinations of directed dollars.

Ms. Mihychuk: I appreciate the minister's remarks that she sees the value and encouraging a more community approach to schools and daycares is an integral part of that. It is unfortunate that when we look at funding programs such as the inclusion of a daycare into a new facility, that had to be halted because of Education dollars going into constructing a daycare, and we are, again, talking about jurisdictions. In the long run, is that community losing out because of that type of bureaucracy or those certain limits on portfolios or mandates of certain departments?

The issue here is also one that links back to another discussion we had with the Youth Secretariat. We are talking about schools serving children, and we see facilities that house many of the health care facilities that we had in the past in hospitals. Now we have personal care centres that bathe and feed and provide the medical facilities that are needed for a lot of our children in schools, and the daycare is another component.

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Has the department considered expanding its liaison or its work with, for example, Family Services, and when looking at projects like that, perhaps linking those needs and making schools a true community resource for our children? I agree with the minister, the funding for that daycare should come out of Family Services; that type of co-operation is something now people expect. I would ask the minister to respond.

Mrs. McIntosh: I think the member has raised some very valid points. I know that, when the policy was first announced that daycares would be included in new school construction, immediately there were 22 new centres created, and that was good. The downside of it was the cost of doing that was equivalent to the cost of building a new school, and that meant that in turn that a request for a new school would have to be turned down. Just in terms of the use of the dollars for trying to do something for Education, we find we cannot build a new school because we have already spent the equivalent of the cost of a new school putting daycares into other schools; then the Education dollars were not being used properly in terms of their mandate. But, as I indicate, this is something that is being looked at and reviewed by the government for the very points that she identified in that we are trying to look at making maximum use of facilities and also having communities working well in all their components.

I think that she and I together could probably identify a fairly good-sized list of things that are good about having daycares housed in schools. The question that I think needs to be determined is, the government money that goes to daycare facilities, from what original source should it come? Should government money go to daycare facilities by the PSFB or through another department? Should daycares be attached to schools, regardless of the source of money, or should they be in another community setting? Should another department responsible for daycare redirect some of its dollars to the PSFB so that this purpose could be attained?

So there are all those kinds of questions circulating around. They have not been resolved at this point, but the member's comments will be shared because I think they are rooted in some practical considerations that are worth examining.

Ms. Mihychuk: Could the minister provide to the committee the standards for facilities that are being developed and will there be minimum standards identified, where if a school does not meet those minimum facilities, that will be recognized and perhaps prioritized in terms of project approval under Public Schools Finance Board? Can the minister table those standards that we expect in our schools?

Mrs. McIntosh: We do have, Mr. Chairman, standards set. Staff has just indicated to me that they do not have the level of detail here that the director for the PSFB might have, but I can indicate in a generic sense that we have standards that we set, we have standards that are set by others, electrical standards, building code standards, et cetera, and the school division itself will indicate their priority needs to the PSFB. It in turn then will determine which ones are critical, must proceed right away, which need to be done but can be delayed, and which really they cannot do.

From their whole basket of requests, they will put in priority order the variety of items that are there, and they will take into account both their own standards and the standards set by regulation on construction. I can table those. I do not have them here, but I can table them for you tomorrow or the next day when I can get them from the PSFB, but they do have an assessment and approval of major capital construction projects. They have a process, and I have indicated the submitting by the school divisions, et cetera.

Sometimes the PSFB will have to meet with division administration and trustees to get a clearer handle on exactly why a request is being made or some specific detail. The divisions are advised in writing of the projects accepted for in-depth assessment. A project accepted for assessment should not be interpreted as a project that will be given approval, because sometimes they come out and do the assessment and, at the end of the assessment, say, no, we really do not feel that it is warranted here but they may have had enough cause to feel that it did require an examination with a potential action to follow.

So, to enable this assessment, the division must provide substantial evidence and documentation warranting the provision of additional facilities. The data shall address but not be limited to the following aspects: student enrollments and preschoolers in the area; neighbouring schools including capacities, enrollments and five-year projected enrollments; residential expansion; housing completed; construction industry projects of planned housing starts by year into the future; student ratio per household based on housing completion; utilization of school facilities within the region and area; and review of alternatives to new construction.

That would be for new construction, obviously, and they have prioritization criteria for capital requests conducted in accordance with the following criteria. In submitting requests, divisions and districts will assess their proposals carefully and assign a category number to each major project submitted under the capital plan. Now, there are five categories here. Category 1 is the replacement of school buildings, and that deals with requests for the replacement of active school buildings. There are two components there. One is where the continued occupancy is certified by the provincial authority to constitute a serious hazard to the health and safety of its occupants and where no other acceptable form of accommodation is feasible. The other is where the cost of upgrading an older school building is deemed by the Public Schools Finance Board to exceed 50 percent of replacement costs.

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The second category is new classroom space, and this category deals with requests for the construction of new regular classroom space resulting usually from enrollment increases that cannot be adequately accommodated within existing buildings or if there is no other form of accommodation feasible. The other in this category is the conversion of existing space to provide for classroom type instructional facilities where they do not exist under established criteria--kindergarten, science rooms, closing up of open areas, special education, portable units, libraries, that type of thing.

Category 3 is the modernization of school facilities. This category deals with requests for the complete modernization of older school buildings certified structurally sound and deemed to have a remaining useful life of at least 20 years following the modernization program. The other under this category is the reorganization of existing space in a school where instructional areas are deficient and/or nonexistent. Subject to enrollment data, such projects may also require the construction of new space to supplement areas lost through space reorganization.

Category 4 is the instructional facilities other than classroom space. This category deals with requests for the construction of new space to provide instructional facilities other than regular classroom space referred to in category 2 where such cannot be adequately housed within existing space, et cetera. The other here is the conversion of existing space to provide nonexistent instructional facilities other than those listed in category 2.

The final category, category 5, is other facilities. This category deals with requests for the construction or the conversion of space considered ancillary to instructional areas and includes administrative areas, storage rooms, shower rooms, staff rooms, coat rooms, et cetera, that type of thing.

Those are some pieces of information that I have here today, and I can table the rest of the information as soon as I get it. The member may wish to ask further detail of the PSFB staff when they are here.

Ms. Mihychuk: In conclusion, I would ask the minister to, if possible, have the minimum standards, if such exist, for certain areas, including the size of a classroom. Is there a number, a square footage, per pupil? Privacy, is it important to have a private place for guidance or counselling or resource? Programming, having the proper facilities for sinks, et cetera, for science; heating, ventilation, lighting and water quality, the physical ambiance of the school, do we have minimum standards?

I understand, I can hear from the staff, that there is that available. What is the situation in schools now? Do we have situations that are below what we would consider the minimum standard, and what are we going go do about those situations?

Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, staff has indicated there are minimum standards for all of those areas. Again, we do not have the specific detail here on the conditions of the buildings in Manitoba. We do place the onus on divisions to draw to our attention where they have concerns about required renovations or perceived required renovations. The prioritization that goes on when those requests or identifications are made to the board is a large part of their role, trying to accurately assess the validity of the request. Once the request has been validated, trying to determine if they can afford all those requests in any given year and then, once that is determined, in what order do they need to be done. Clearly, anything that is in the category of hazardous will automatically go right to the top of the list. You have to have safe buildings; that is rule No. 1.

I will look to obtain detail the day that we have the director in. He will probably know without having to look up some of the detail on the current status of the condition of buildings. Substandard? I would hope that we do not have any that are substandard. I know we have many that require repairs, and those repairs are tended to, as I say, on a priority basis. What one division might consider a necessary repair another division might consider just part of the normal look of buildings. I think that school boards have to be really cognizant of the state of their buildings, because regular maintenance can prevent fairly costly major renovation down the road. We do see some buildings that have required major renovations, foundations shifting, et cetera, that can be extremely costly to effect.

The capital support program has a formula. The formula has been revised and expanded to recognize and address the cost impact of complex design features of program areas, the size and location of the project, modern construction standards, mechanical systems, et cetera.

There is a control of the new school design at the Public Schools Finance Board level, and that is exercised primarily in terms of ensuring that the proposed structure and systems components are of sufficient quality and that the minister's approved award of specific program facilities in size and design are met so that capital funding support is limited to established criteria. They cannot make exceptions from that on their own but require government change in policy or direction to do so.

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Again, as well, they do respect the local autonomy in school divisions with contracted architects, et cetera, with flexibility in building design. I know there are some new schools now being designed in such a way that the classrooms can become portable so that you might have a central hub that would have the office, gymnasium, library, staff room, washrooms, et cetera, and the classrooms plugged in around it in such a way that they could be moved from that location to another. In theory, if we were on a big building boom and building new schools all over Manitoba, you could build a lot of these core and hub of the school facilities and just move the classrooms around as populations shrink and grow, or replace a classroom once it becomes run down.

Manitoba's population has not demanded the requirement that a whole series of new schools be built in that way, so that kind of thinking, which is, I believe, good thinking, may not be totally applicable in a province with a fairly stable student population because, unless there are tremendous shifts in where those students live, they are generally making use of facilities that, as they age and require repairs, do not have that central core so you can plug classrooms in and out.

Nonetheless, when architects get together and they start designing schools, if they bear in mind the ability to have relocatable classrooms easily added or removed, they could help in the long term reduce the costs of school renovations or even new school construction. The vast majority of major projects can be accomplished within the PSFB board funding criteria and still reflect a degree of flexibility in terms of design and choices of materials and systems and products.

School divisions pursuing a complicated design and materials implicating costs substantially beyond the funding criteria have some choices they have to make. They have to decide whether to moderate the design or the materials, the products, et cetera, to reduce the costs or to assume the excess costs locally, which they have the ability to do in terms of accountability, maybe not in terms of money, but, if they have the money and they choose to do that, they can. They can undertake reductions or alternative choices at tenders or any combination of those various approaches.

The aspect of local autonomy is well served in that school divisions enjoy a degree of flexibility in design within funding criteria and the opportunity to exceed funding support at the local costs should they so choose. So they are not limited with the end result if they are willing to provide the funding, as they say, from within or from the ratepayers in the area who may wish to put together a school that would become a community centre, for example. So they have the ability to enter into joint-use facilities, to strike shared services agreements with communities and have a school that would be a community club-daycare-school-type thing, provided the extra money comes from those other sources.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 2. School Programs (e) Program Development (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,481,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $2,251,500--pass.

2.(f) Program Implementation (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $4,776,700.

Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask about special needs planning on this particular line. It is one of the areas, I think, of emphasis in this section of the department. I wanted to ask about the ADAP reports that have been, I believe, regularly filed with the department by every school division since 1990.

I will just continue with that. These are the reports from the school divisions dealing with their annual reports of special needs. I know that they are submitted, I believe, on an annual basis to the regional co-ordinators, and I am wondering what happens to them after that? Does the department prepare an annual summary of these reports, and are they available to the Legislature?

Mrs. McIntosh: As of February this year, 1996, all school divisions and districts have participated in the ADAP process and have submitted board-approved plans. The school divisions and districts all so far have reviewed their philosophy and policy statements governing the provision of programs and services for students with special needs. They have also established processes to systemically survey the special needs of their population. School divisions are encouraged to put in place and refine a flexible continuum of education programming to meet the unique learning needs of individual children.

An update of the comprehensive service delivery systems, divisional resources and community-based service agencies is included in each plan. The ADAP is a public document, as the member knows, and provides meaningful information to parents, and the process of reviewing and updating encourages divisions and districts to utilize best practices for the benefit of their students.

Ms. Friesen: I am aware that at the divisional level substantial proportions of each ADAP document are public information. What I am concerned about and the question I asked the minister was, what happens to those ADAP reports after they have been submitted to the regional officers of the department? Does the department as a whole then summarize essentially what is happening, where the needs are, where the successes are in special needs education across the province? First of all, what happens to it? My second question is, if there is such a summary that has been made on an annual basis, can it be tabled?

(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the staff meets regularly with the special education co-ordinators and they, together, review the ADAP and provide verbal and written feedback. Staff are just checking to see if there is a written summary that could be tabled. Most of the review that is done is done in a consultative type way through dialogue, letters and so on, but they are just checking now and if we have something there that we could table--[interjection] Apparently, staff advises me that there is a summary that they could table, a summary that was done in '94-95. We do not have it here, but we will get it and make it available to her.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I think the ADAP process began in 1990, and I need to be corrected on that. I think it was either '90 or '91. What I would be looking for is an annual summary since then. The minister has been for the past year at least, although from the records it seems considerably longer, looking at a special education review. It would seem to me that this is one of the first places you would begin. This is basically your management information system on special needs education across the province, and it gives you in a systematic form a longitudinal perspective. So I am looking for the same kind of information I assume that the minister's Special Education Review committee would be and I am looking for that kind of base-line material for the public.

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member is correct that the role of ADAP will be very much part of the relation to the school plan. In relation to the school plans, it will be very much a part of the upcoming review of special education, and she is correct in her observations about its potential role there.

We can make available for each of those years a summary and we will put them all together then. I had indicated I would do the '94-95 one. We will obtain the others, as well, and we will table them as a group.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I would appreciate that.

I wanted to ask the minister about something in Answering the Challenge, which was the document of an earlier Minister of Education but still this government. Strategy 41suggested that the department would translate guidelines, and this is guidelines in special education, into regulations that outline expectations of appropriate program planning. I am wondering what has happened since. I guess this would be about '89-90. What has happened in that area in the development of regulations for special education?

Mrs. McIntosh: I think, Mr. Chairman, there are a variety of things that play. First of all, this whole area of special needs is evolving, over the last generation has begun to evolve. It seems to be picking up speed, and the evolution is becoming more and more rapid. We knew that we were looking at a Special Ed Review coming forward. The member is quite correct. It has been close to two years now since they first began to have discussions about the Special Ed Review and the types of things that we might be looking at in that.

The use of the ADAP plus FRAME and the rapidly changing circumstances that enable students who can now survive technologically dependent upon equipment for survival or mobility, we felt that, as this evolved, it first was difficult to get regulations in place, and then, secondly, it was felt that perhaps it might be actually inappropriate to draft regulations prior to the Special Ed Review doing its work and making suggestions and recommendations. So it is sort of a whole variety of things that led to, I guess, a decision made by not making a decision in that the regulations never seemed to be an appropriate time in which to develop then. There will, of course, be an appropriate time that I think would be the very best appropriate time, and that would be, once recommendations have been received and approved and are ready to go, then regulations could be drafted to fit specific guides.

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

The green book that the deputy had here, Special Education in Manitoba--and I think the member has seen it, as well--was the August '89 book. Strategy 41 there translates guidelines into regulations for program planning for Special Ed. The compliance in the green book is so high that there may be no need for regulations. That is another factor that needs to be looked at. Many provinces, by the way, across the country are using guidelines similar to the ones that we use here in Manitoba. So all of those are the reasons that regulations have not been developed. It does not indicate that regulations are not going to ultimately be required, but it does indicate that circumstances changed somewhat as the evolution of this particular area of education has come into being.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the minister is arguing two things. One is that there is a special education review in process and hence regulations may be premature although we have been looking at them for a number of years, and the second argument was that compliance is so high with the green book or the green policy that they may not be necessary. I am not familiar with the second argument, and I wondered how the minister knew that compliance was so high or knows that compliance is so high. What is the evidence for that?

Mrs. McIntosh: I should indicate that we do receive the annual school action plans. Those school action plans give us a very good picture of what is going on in the field. Also, interestingly enough, we do have an appeal process which has never had to be used by any person or body, and I think that is a pretty good indication that there have been none who have felt the need to have a formal appeal, even though a process is there to request it. Where compliance does not exist and an appeal process does, the appeal process is normally very well utilized to ensure compliance, so those two factors, I believe, have given us the feedback that indicates compliance is not just satisfactory but more than satisfactory, indeed high.

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Ms. Friesen: A number of people have spoken to me about--and I am sure they have to the minister as well--the difficulties that they are having and anticipating with the standard exams and the designation of modified programs, the very limited interpretation of M programs or modified programs or students who can take programs with that label.

One element of criticism has been that this seems to be moving away from the kinds of policies that the minister has talked about and that have received such wide support in what is called the green book, the Special Education in Manitoba Policy and Procedural Guidelines. The implication and even the specifics of that green book seem to indicate individualized education programs. The direction of New Directions seems to be going the other way. It seems to be saying most students, the vast majority of students, are going to meet this particular standard. Particularly when students with behavioural and learning disabilities are excluded from that M designation specifically in the minister's handbook on this, I think it is an area that people have pointed out to me as one of great concern. I am sure it has been brought to the minister's attention, and I wondered what kind of response she is giving. What is the connection between the standards and practices that Manitoba Education has had for a number of years now in individualizing and modifying programs and what appears to be a new and quite different purpose in the standard exams and the absence of M qualifiers?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member had some concerns regarding the M designation, asking essentially if it was moving away from the cascade model of the green book. The answer to that is, no, it is not moving away from that. Neither is it moving away from the individualized education plans. In all classes we support differentiated instruction. In the early years teachers use this technique all day long, every day. It has not been used very much in the senior years where the teachers have more of a lecture method. I am not saying that they give lectures, but it is closer to a speech followed by a Q and A--and I am not meaning that as a rigid example. I am just saying compared to the type of differentiated teaching that takes place in the early year of school, you will see the differing approaches. We are going to be asking all teachers to move to differentiated teaching, which many have the skills and the ability and the desire to do at all levels of education. Special needs students with clinical difficulties will have the individualized education or the M designation. You may have students, as well, who are at English as a Second Language program. None of those students will write the standards exams. So the risk of them writing it and not achieving success is gone because they would not be writing it in the first instance. We believe, as well, that students who are not in an M designation but who are not in the more sophisticated course selections benefiting from differentiated teaching and a number of other venues will have greater potential and ability to achieve success in assessments testing, which would be of ultimate benefit to them rather than lowering standards to meet the measurement.

I do not know if that specifically addresses the member's concern or if it needs to have more clarity put around it.

Ms. Friesen: I think what I am hearing from educators, both superintendents, special needs supervisors and clinicians, is that the M designation is so narrow that it excludes children with significant learning disabilities, not cognitive disabilities but learning disabilities. I mean, it specifically does. If I read from the minister's handbook, the M-course designation is not intended for students without significant cognitive disabilities, including those who have emotional or behavioural disorders or have learning disabilities. I think those are the areas where the difficulties are going to arise, and people are anticipating difficulties. It is not the issue of teaching. It is not the issue of differentiated instruction. Obviously, all teachers who have had special needs children in their classroom have been doing that now for a number of years.

The issue is now adding a standard exam which will eventually have a 50 percent value, and that may be completely unrealistic for many of these children. Some of them, for example, may not be able to sit still that long to take the exam. So it is not the instruction. It is not the teaching. It is the stepping stone. It is the laddering. Do we anticipate, for example, seeing students with no M-course designation but a significant emotional and behavioural disorder who are now going to continue not to meet the standard year after year when that exam is a 50 percent exam? What is going to happen to those students? Do they then stay in school year after year until they are 21? What happens after they are 21? What are the funding processes for that? What are the requirements in the school for a student who continues to be in that situation? I think this is what people are anticipating. Obviously, it is not going to be something that will be there in every school, but I think it will be there in every school division. So I think the superintendents and others are looking for some planning ahead, some thinking ahead on this as to what kind of flexibility is going to be there for students with emotional and behavioural disorders and learning disabilities.

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For example, one of the problems that is there in a number of divisions and is increasing is what is broadly called fetal alcohol syndrome or what is broadly called attention deficit disorders. Now, these are not in the minister's terms significant cognitive disabilities, but they are great impediments to learning and great impediments to the concentration required to focus upon an exam which is worth 50 percent and which determines one's progress to the next stage.

Mrs. McIntosh: Just as some M-designated students may decide to write the standards tests and would be permitted to even though they are not obliged to, so you might have some students who are taking a regular course be exempt from the exam because, if you look at all of the criteria that are placed down, you see, first of all, the M designation is not given to the student, it is given to the course; the course is an M-designated course.

There may be a student who has a behaviour disorder who is cognitively able to take the regular course but who would be significantly traumatized or have some other problems that might make him exempt from writing the exam, and those guidelines are all there and available to be followed. The school can make the decision that such a student maybe should not write the exam, even though he is not in an M-designated course, or a student in an M-designated course might decide that he or she wishes to write the exam.

Schools can upon documentation exempt a child from writing the exam if the exam would be viewed and categorized as a trauma for the child. It is interesting to note, though, that in surveying the Grade 3 teachers for the Grade 3 math standards tests, the teachers identified that only 5 percent should be exempted. I think that is a rather revealing indication from the Grade 3 teachers.

The cases submitted by the schools for exemptions, and I mentioned that some 5 percent might be exempted, include 419 students, or 2.8 percent, because of learning disability; 41, and that is 0.9 percent, because of language difficulty; 91 students, that is 0.6 percent, because of physical difficulty; 45 students, or 0.3 percent, because of emotional and psychological reasons; 39 students, that is 0.2 percent, because of being multihandicapped; and the remaining 21 students, that is 0.1 percent, because of other reasons, such as behind the program--you know, there could be some unique reason or some anomaly that the school would feel that the student should not write.

Among the students requiring special provisions, 718 students, or 4.5 percent, need reading assistance or the entire test to be read; 214 students, or 1.4 percent, require more time; and 214 students, again, another 1.4 percent, need reading assistance for a math test and more time. The remaining 75 students require a more detailed analysis since we are dealing with accommodation such as large print text or adult support while taking the test. Also, some who will write, as I indicated, you will have exemptions where they do not have to write and some who do write who will have special provisions made for them during the writing of the exam.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, so I understand the minister to say that the school can determine, with the permission of the minister, who does not sit the exams and that a rate of 5 percent overall in the province is not unacceptable or unexpected. Further, I also wanted to ask the minister about--the references she gave me were, of course, to the Grade 3 test, which is a diagnostic text. What happens when this test then becomes the determining factor in progress through a school or graduation? Do the same standards or the same processes apply? That is, the school submits names, the minister agrees or disagrees, and a rate of about 5 percent is not unexpected or unacceptable?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the short answer is yes. Interestingly enough, when the blueprint for excellence came out some years ago the 5 percent figure was used there, and the government was roundly criticized for using that number. But what we found to be of great interest is that the work coming back from the field identifies for us a number of about 5 percent. So the blueprint estimation has in fact been what the field has given back to us as what their expectations would be as well.

Ms. Friesen: I would like to ask the minister what the evidence is for that. What was the evidence from the Grade 12 exam of this January of the number of students who were eligible, and what kind of judgment was the minister asked to make at that point and upon how many students? Are there requests for permission not to sit the exam coming from all across the province, or are they coming, I am interested, for example, in the city of Winnipeg, both Winnipeg No. 1 and other urban school divisions that do have, according to other reports, a much higher concentration of special needs children. Is there a disproportionate--or it is not disproportionate in this way, it is actually proportionate. Is there a proportionate number of requests coming from those school divisions?

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Mrs. McIntosh: We can provide that data. We do not have it with us right now, but we can search it out and provide it for the member. We can table it at committee as soon as we obtain it. It probably will not be today, given the late time, but we will bring it in as we have with others, as quickly as we can.

Ms. Friesen: One of the other strategies, Strategy 42 in Answering the Challenge said that the department will require by September '92 that all teachers applying for teacher certification in Manitoba have a minimum of six credit hours in special education. I wondered what had happened to that particular strategy. I did not notice it specifically in the instructions given to Dr. Shapiro. Is that something that he is looking at? I know that there is quite a division of opinion amongst faculties of education on this, not specifically relating to special needs but as a way of proceeding in teacher education. Do you mandate X number of course hours in x, y and z types of courses, whether it is crosscultural or whether it is special education or whatever?

However, the Department of Education did, in 1989 I think it was or 1990, whenever this came out, suggest that was the way they were going, and they set a specific time on it, so I am wondering what the consequences and conclusions have been of that.

Mrs. McIntosh: Dr. Shapiro is not looking at the specific programming, and the member is correct in not seeing that in his instructions. He is looking more at a number of credit hours, the sites, et cetera. In looking at that whole aspect of review of teacher education, there will be a number of programming things that we will have to look at.

The member is right. There was a division of opinion on when and how some of these things should be taught and Shapiro will make a recommendation to us. We will take a look at that in order of precedence, will determine whether we accept, modify or reject some of the recommendations he comes forward with, and then building upon that base we will take a look at specifically what do we need to ensure teachers have coming out of faculty. We know and we have identified characteristics that we feel are necessary for a person to be a teacher, and the member and I have identified some of them here. I know we had the sense of humour as a fundamental that has caused some humour here at the table. Those kinds of things will be looked at along with do we need to make it mandatory that teachers have a certain amount of training in special needs or technology or one of the other essential components of education or should they be acquiring that in a variety of ways other than us simply saying you shall take so many hours of this at faculty?

Once those determinations have been made, of course, then it would be up to the university to deliver the new expectations, but we have not yet arrived at that. The universities believe that they can accomplish the teaching of a special needs course, but they believe they can do it best by integrating the material and not having separate courses; so there are several different philosophies that can be taken. If we look at differentiated teaching, for example, and you look at an integrated course or it is having it integrated into all courses, you are more likely approximating what would occur in a classroom.

Those discussions are ongoing. They are being examined. There are a number of perspectives at work and we will sift through all of those differing viewpoints, suggestions, ideas, philosophies with the expectation that in the final analysis we will come up with something that is the best of all of those ideas or even a combination of some of those ideas because they are not all contradictory. Most of the people offering this diversity of opinion all have a very strong interest in seeing the student succeed and so many different ways of doing things have merit, even though they are not the same as each other. So it is difficult, but we have not made a final decision there yet.

Ms. Friesen: Would this question, the training of teachers for special needs be part of the mandate of the special education review?

Mrs. McIntosh: The short answer is no, and I will try to keep the rationale short as well. BOTEC has indicated that they believe teachers need the training however it is delivered, and we agree with that. So the decision in that sense as to if--has already been made in the sense that we know they have to have training in the area of teaching special needs--the decision that has not been made is the how will it be delivered kind of question. We may pick up from a special needs review commentary on that, but we do know that they have to, when they enter the classroom at day one, have had the opportunity to acquire knowledge and expertise in handling children with a wide variety of special needs. The only argument now is, what is the best way to ensure that that happens?

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The time being 5:30 p.m., the honourable member for Wolseley with a very short question.

Ms. Friesen: What is the minister's time line for making this kind of decision?

Mrs. McIntosh: Hopefully within two or three months.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The time being 5:30 p.m., committee rise.