LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Monday,
May 17, 1993
The House met at 8 p.m.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY (continued)
COMMITTEE
OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent
Sections)
EDUCATION
AND TRAINING
Mr. Deputy Chairperson
(Marcel Laurendeau): Good evening.
Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. The committee will be resuming consideration
of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.
When the committee last sat, it had been
considering item 1.(c)(1) on page 34.
Shall the item pass?
Ms. Avis Gray
(Crescentwood): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will talk about the
issue of the students in a few moments, but I wanted to go back to something
that we spoke about the other day, the Building a Solid Foundation for our
Future, and I have had a chance to go over it again.
I guess one of my first questions that I
would ask the minister is this appears to be a strategic plan from '91 to '96.
I am wondering within that five‑year time frame if there is any more
specific time frames as to when these objectives are to be accomplished, and is
there any further documentation as an update to this particular document?
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): Mr.
Deputy Chairperson, the document that the member is referring to is our broad
strategic plan. It is a statement of
principle. It is a statement of policy
intent and it is approached by government as government proceeds through its
own budgetary process as well as its own policy development. In terms of the broad principles, I am not
sure that I can give the member more specific dates on that particular issue.
However, I can say that we do have a
number of issues which are ongoing now which flow from that document. I point to legislative reform which flowed
from that document that formed The Public Schools Act. We have spoken during the Estimates process
about a time frame for the legislative reform looking to some reform of The
Public Schools Act in the session 1994, and looking for feedback from the
educational partners within the next few months while we make an analysis
ourselves.
I also look at the Task Force on Distance
Education which has very recently reported and which we will be providing their
report to the field.
The university review is another of the
initiatives which flows from that document, and the time frame for the
university review is that it was set up last June, June of '92, and that we do
look for an interim report in the summer of '93 with a completed report we look
for in the fall of '93.
Then Francophone governance is another
initiative the Supreme Court has required provincial governments across
*
(2005)
Ms. Gray: I would like to ask the minister, it talks in
the strategic plan about evaluation and evaluative mechanisms. Can she tell us or is there anything that she
can table that shows exactly how this strategic plan is going to be
evaluated? Does she have any interim
evaluation for us, as we are about, I would suggest, two years into this
particular plan?
Mrs. Vodrey: In listening to the member's question, I
think she is asking: How do we measure
our success as we go along in that strategic plan? One way that we have looked at measuring our
success is by the initiatives that we now have ongoing which meet the
principles of that particular plan.
I have pointed to some of those
initiatives which are ongoing and which are measurable by the fact that they
are implemented and also by public response.
Then we do have the committee that we have spoken about in the Estimates
process, which is a within‑the‑department committee. That committee also is responsible for
looking at the strategic plans and looking at the initiatives of each of the
areas within the total and then being able to provide continued recommendations
in terms of meeting the obligations of the plan.
Ms. Gray: Let us take perhaps a specific example. On page 10 of the plan under Implementing
Priorities, the plan indicates "quality indicators, which are tangible and
observable." I am quoting. For example, it talks about in regard to the
"Kindergarten through Senior 4 and post‑secondary education,"
and it talks about "increased respect among students and teachers."
How is that going to be evaluated, as an
example?
Mrs. Vodrey: In looking at that particular recommendation,
if the member is looking for a statistical measurement, we do not have a
specific statistical measurement for that.
However, we have looked to achieving that goal, partly through
consultation that we have with the field on a regular basis. Also, when we look at Strategy 1 of Answering
the Challenge, that speaks to providing some assistance for the learning
environment. That is related to the
recommendation that the member has just mentioned in the strategic plan.
We will be releasing to schools, within
the next few months, a document on the learning environment. It will be able to be used by school
divisions and by schools to look at effective kinds of learning
environment. Flowing from that then,
divisions and schools will then submit plans which will allow them to reflect
also on the learning environment and meeting the most effective learning
environment for children.
Somewhat enlarging on the particular
recommendations which the member spoke about, we also collect survey
information. That survey information
will be collected from divisions. That
will be focusing very much on the service element that we provide as a
department to look at how we can support divisions in the most effective way.
Then, as I began my answer, we also do a
number of consultations. We work with
the field on some very specific issues such as task force representation. We also have the field represented on a
number of committees. We make every
effort to also keep the information flowing.
I know we will be talking a little bit
later in the Estimates process about the new management information system
which the Department of Education will be implementing. This is another way that we will be able to
do a much broader in‑scope tracking of information on behalf of students.
In terms of the actual measurement of
achievement, through the Council of Ministers of Education, we have been
discussing the SAIPER, the School Achievement Indicators Project for 13‑
and 16‑year‑olds.
*
(2010)
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I was not necessarily
looking for statistics. When one looks
at that priority, as an example, increased respect among students and teachers,
or another priority, increased public confidence in Education and Training
programs and services, I guess I am wondering what is the methodology. What method are they using to actually
determine if, at the end of a certain time period, they can say that they have
met or partially met that particular goal or objective?
Mrs. Vodrey: Again, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, our efforts
have been in a number of ways. One has
to provide for the field, where possible, a document which would assist them in
focusing on a particular area. One of
the roles of the department is leadership, to provide some leadership in the
area of thinking and planning in these particular areas. I did give an example of the one document on
the learning environment. The learning
environment has been an area where Manitobans have spoken to me a great deal
about the learning environment for young people and how we could be looking at
it.
One, we support through documents. Two, we also look at consultation, and we
look to talk with the field in an ongoing communication. Three, we look to the field to be represented
on a number of committees, where we would be working on a very specific issue in
some cases, and we would be able to address that in more of a working‑group
style to look at how we can measure the effectiveness and also where the issues
are.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, does the department
have any base line data for some of these indicators? If in five years one were to ask the
question, was there an increased respect among students and teachers, I am
assuming the only way one could answer that is to know where we were starting
from, what the starting point was.
What kind of base line data is there? The minister referred to surveys. Are there surveys that are done throughout
the schools? Is there some data
collected that is now there? Right now,
what is the respect among students and teachers? Where does that fit into education
today? What does increased respect
mean? What do we want to achieve? How much?
*
(2015)
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I just had wanted to
make sure I could give the member as broad an answer and as complete an answer
as I can. I would say that we do have
base line information on a number of issues, and we have surveyed every public
school in the province on seven indicators.
Those seven indicators are ones which are being used by the student
support branch and by way of example, issues such as migrancy, academic
difficulty, language skills. Those are
three of the seven. So we do have some
base line data which we have been collecting, and then we will survey again to
see where there have been changes.
In some of the areas, we do not have from
each school a specific statistical type of data. We do have more data which was gathered again
through interviews and which is gathered through consultations with
schools. We have not developed yet a
survey or an indicator that would be sensitive to the specific issue which the
member has raised.
Just in summary of the range of mechanisms
that we use to collect information, we do collect data from schools and school
divisions and that is on areas in addition to the seven indicators like student
enrollment, teacher information, school division demographics, financial
accountability and then we also collect K to 12 assessment data. We look at the curriculum assessment results,
and we also look at the designated high school final exam results. Then we also use other sources throughout the
Department of Education to look at things such as labour force surveys.
So we use external measures and reporting
so that we can then look at where the changes are. Some of the measurement is done, things such
as labour force surveys which occur on Friday mornings towards the end of each
month, that information is measured by
Ms. Gray: Can the minister tell me then, and she gave
some examples of some of the seven indicators, and this one intrigues me very
much, the increased respect amongst students and teachers, because we read
about that so much in journals and magazines.
I still have not quite figured out from the minister's answer, and it
may just be my understanding of her answer, but how we are going to measure
that? How are we going to know if there
has been increased respect among students and teachers? Where is that now? What is the respect among students and
teachers? Do we have any information or
data that tells us something about that particular aspect?
*
(2020)
Mrs. Vodrey: In the particular area of respect that the
member references, that has been identified as an issue through the legislative
reform hearings, and that was certainly identified by Manitobans as an issue,
one that they would like to make sure that some attention is paid to in terms
of the relationships. As the member may
know, they have recommended in that report that there be a formalization of
what the rights and responsibilities are of students, of teachers, of parents,
so that people will be able to look specifically at what is the expected
behaviour and what should it look like from the outside.
That has been a specific recommendation
that flowed from the report, that flowed from The Strategic Plan, which we have
been talking about. I would say that we
are moving closer to the sort of database that the member does reference. This particular issue is one which would be,
the database would likely be formed by surveys of teachers' observations, and
perhaps we might widen that to include other kinds of observers too; it might
be parents as well. So we do not have
the specific database that is formed as a result of surveys. However, we have moved a step closer and, if
I look at the legislative reform again, there has been a recommendation to
identify certain types of behaviour that each person might be responsible for.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I thank the minister
for that answer. I do not want to put
words in her mouth, but I think then what she is saying is that when we look at
some of these indicators, perhaps as far as where these priorities are along
the strategic plan in terms of their implementation, some of them‑‑and
the one I used as an example, the respect issue‑‑really have not
started to be evaluated as yet and that in fact that evaluation will fall in
with the results of whatever this government decides they will do in regard to
the education legislative reform package.
Is that a correct assumption?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, again, I said to the
member that if she was looking at observable mechanisms and how other
Manitobans suggest we might approach this, that does occur in the Legislative
reform. But I have also said that we are
in the process of doing surveys throughout the province and that some of those
surveys would be based on observable kinds of data. That would be one way in which we might be
provided that information from teachers in the field.
Then the other part of that is the
development of our management information system which will allow us then to
manage the quantity of information which we would like to establish, because we
have not had that capacity. Last year in
the Estimates process, we spoke about the need to expand our management
information capacity in the Department of Education, and we will be looking at
that when we get to that line this year.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, does the minister
have any samples of the surveys that she is referring to, perhaps not with her
tonight, that she could share with the members here that would give us an idea
of sort of the kinds of surveys that are going to be used or are now being
used?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, yes, I am informed we
can table some of those surveys when we are sitting tomorrow.
*
(2025)
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I thank the minister
for that.
Again, continuing on with this document, Building
a Solid Foundation, on page 5, it talks about one of my favourite subjects, how
governments have to put their house in order and be more responsible in public
spending, et cetera, and it talks about possibly redefining how government does
business. I cannot remember whether I
have asked the minister questions on this before or whether it was the Minister
of Family Services, but I am wondering what the department's plans are in
regard to looking at their own department in terms of its efficiency, its
efficacy. Are there any plans to
evaluate the department and how the department does business with a view to, of
course, providing the best quality service possible for Manitobans?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chair, in making sure that our own
management practices in Education and Training are sound and are co‑ordinated
and are integrated, we have used a corporate approach to decision making. We have been looking to create an environment
that is conducive to change and also shared decision making and open
communication. That shared decision
making has been a very important part of the process to involve all of those
people who will then, in effect, be ones who will be putting into practice what
the new plan is.
We have made also a number of efforts to
be proactive rather than reactive. I
will just give as a way of example the PDSS division of our department or the K
to 12 side which is holding consultation meetings with major stakeholders in
order to receive information regarding our own service delivery. In addition to that, staff are also looking
at what the strengths and weaknesses are that they see were the areas of needed
improvement.
So we have been looking on that side of
the department, both internally for suggestions and recommendations from those
who are part of the department and also externally holding consultations with
stakeholders, to look at what the service is and how they receive information
and so on and how to make us the most efficient.
In addition, we also have internal
auditing as a process and the Treasury Board management practice review. We also have the provincial audit. We have been taking a number of steps to look
at making our own internal functioning as efficient as we can.
I have given you the one example from the
PDSS side. I would also point to the
reorganization now in the division called Advanced Education and Skills
Training, which is another reorganization to provide the service in the most
efficient way. With that reorganization, we have brought programs which were
previously with the Department of Family Services and the Department of Labour
into Education and Training so that we do have that continuum of service within
our department.
Our Schools Finance Branch has been
reorganized and it has implemented Total Quality Management practices. It is looking to be very service
oriented. It is using a consensus
management practice and also a process review.
We do have an ongoing commitment to
quality service. For the past two years,
our Instructional Resources Branch has also been implementing Total Quality
Management as well as a branch organization.
I know when we get to that line, the member might like to talk a little
bit about that. Again, the focus in that
area is of a team approach and also a systems‑wide review to service
delivery and to problem solving throughout the branch.
So we are looking at quality management
practices in PDSS, in Schools Finance and in all areas. We are looking again to be inclusive to bring
into looking at how we can be more efficient, the people who are actually
working within the department as well as externally.
*
(2030)
Ms. Gray: Are there any divisions or sections of the
department that there is a plan to amalgamate them or disband them? I ask that because I have no preconceived
ideas as to if there is, but it is just a question. Are there any other plans to probably look at
restructuring or amalgamating services in the department?
Mrs. Vodrey: We have done some reorganization, not of a
whole division but of areas within divisions.
It has been done to provide a service and a more efficient service. I have in our PDSS side, in the K to 12 side,
we have been looking at areas of curriculum implementation and design and we
have wanted to make sure that within that area we would have Distance Education
functions, for instance, now as a part and a consideration of the Curriculum
Branch. Then that organization would not
be developing something which would perhaps be then just laid on another area,
but in fact the development would occur at the same time in the most integrated
style.
I have spoken about the Advanced Education
and Skills Training and the reorganization which we are doing there. In our finance area, we have this year put
all administration and finance of schools in one area and the department in
another area to again be able to separate and look at exactly what is. So it will be very evident exactly what is
happening in each area.
Ms. Gray: When the '93‑94 budget was being asked
to be prepared by the Department of Education, what instructions were given to
the department, i.e., were they told that they had to look at savings or cuts
across the department? Were they told to
come up with creative ideas for saving dollars, or spending dollars in areas of
priority? What were the instructions
that were given to senior staff in the department?
Mrs. Vodrey: Well, I do not have to tell the member that
this has been a very difficult budget year.
However, we wanted to make sure, and the efforts of all our work have
been that all of our decisions were still to provide a very efficient and
effective system. In carrying out all of
the process that we have, all of that budgetary process, we still were guided
by those principles that I have spoken about during the Estimates process, and
they are important to the Department of Education.
We did look at issues such as
excellence. We looked at equity. We looked at the openness, being receptive to
ways of thinking and acting that result in renewal. We looked at responsiveness to help and make
the Department of Education and Training as responsive to needs as we can and
to take into consideration backgrounds and characteristics and geographic
location when we looked at needs. We
also considered choice and we also looked at relevance and integration
connecting the components within Education and Training. We also looked at accountability.
There have been a number of changes in
society. We attempted also to recognize
what those changes were as we made our budgetary decision and to continue, as I
said, to look at efficiency and effectiveness in all areas that we were making
our decisions.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, did the departmental
staff have suggestions for service reduction or dollar reductions in areas
within the department that, for whatever reasons, the minister and cabinet did
not act upon?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I know that we have
had an opportunity to speak about this before, and we did look at this. We look
to come forward with a number of ideas.
Then we look to make sure that, as we looked holistically across the
department, then we were able to look at and have to make decisions that we
felt would allow us, guided by those principles, to continue in the area of
service that we feel very strongly about.
Ms. Gray: Changing tracks a bit, and there are more
questions that I have under the blueprint, Building a Solid Foundation, but
they relate to special needs, and perhaps they would be more appropriate to ask
as we move into those sections within the department.
The debate this afternoon surrounding the
fact that we have a number of students within a number of school divisions here
in the city of
I think, suffice to say, certainly from
the number of students that I have spoken with, that there is probably a
mixture of that, that there are a number of reasons why the students have
decided to be heard by the administration and the school division.
I know that the First Minister (Mr.
Filmon) talked about difficult choices, and I know the Minister of Education
has talked about difficult choices and talked about the responsibility or
perhaps irresponsibility of teachers and what they have decided to do, but I
wanted to ask the minister a few questions regarding this. When the budgetary decisions were made in the
Department of Education and that was communicated to school divisions, it was
communicated to MAST, it was communicated to the Manitoba Teachers' Society,
there certainly was a reaction to those cuts.
I recall saying at the time, and I am not
sure whether it was to the minister or in the House or to the media who are
scrum in the hall, but I recall saying that because of the lack of consultation
of these cuts, what would occur would be a siege mentality in that we would
start to see, whether it was university professors or whether it was teachers,
basically act in such a way that they were under siege, i.e., they would feel
that they were under great duress, that they were isolated from the rest of the
world, that it was going to be survival of the fittest, and in fact that the
decisions that they would have to make would be based on survival, not
necessarily based on what might be the best solution to work out in a situation
where one might be negotiating. Because
in fact when you feel that you are under siege, that is not how you act.
*
(2040)
This is probably what has happened in the
case of some of the teachers in River East School Division and in some other
areas where they have decided‑‑and in being out in
I say that because also, on CJOB the other
day a number‑‑and again, this is certainly not a scientific study,
the people calling into that show‑‑but I was concerned about some
of the comments of callers made when they phoned in and talked about if in fact
teachers are under stress, that we could easily relieve them of their jobs and
get volunteers to teach in the classroom; and people phoning in and saying
well, it is really very easy to teach, you just have to stand up there and give
the same lecture that you have given for the last four years. It did concern me, the perceived lack of
understanding of teachers and their profession.
Whether right or wrong, the fact is
teachers out there feel that they are the brunt of everything that is wrong with
the system. They feel that the
administrators are passing the buck to them.
They feel that when something goes wrong, the parents are saying that. They also feel that that is the public
perception. They are starting to feel
burnt out and morale is very low.
One of the things, and I refer to the
First Minister's (Mr. Filmon) comments about public perception, and probably
the First Minister certainly knows better than I do because we do not have the resources
in the Liberal caucus to do ongoing polling, so it is hard for us to know what
the people of
One comment is from one group of people
and they are saying, we have to be concerned about the amount of money we are
spending in education, and perhaps there are no more dollars to go around, so
therefore how do you best manage that?
That is one side of the issue. I
say that very honestly because I have been getting that feedback at education
forums.
The other comment that we are getting is
from other people, educators and noneducators, who are saying, but maybe there
is not more money to go around, or yes, we need to put more money into the
education system. So we are getting
those two opposing views, but the one thing that is coming out by educators and
noneducators, by parents and school trustees is, there has to be a better way
to ensure fairness across the system.
That is the one thing that I have heard
consistently in my meetings with people throughout the province. I recall asking a question when the minister
provided her staff to sit down and go through Bill 16 about: Was there a different way of developing a
funding formula so that there would seem to be more fairness across school
divisions?‑‑because that is one of the complaints that school
divisions are talking about; that is one of the things that teachers are
saying, is that if some school divisions are going to be losing administrative
days and professional development days, they are feeling put upon because in
the school division next door, that is not happening to those teachers.
I usually hate to give speeches in
Estimates, but after all of that, I guess really what I am asking the minister
is two questions. One is, is there a way
to try to get back to school divisions, school trustees and teachers as a
government, and say, okay, the communication perhaps has not been that good? We know that there are a lot of concerns out
there. We are getting a lot of reaction.
What can the minister do and what can her
department do now, given what is going on in
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, let me start by
saying that I certainly understand very well what the role of the teacher
is. I also understand very well what is
happening in classrooms. I think that it
is important that we help Manitobans know, as well, the changing kinds of
students that we have in education and more about what the situation is in
schools.
I have said many times that though I began
my work teaching at the university level and then in a hospital, I did spend a
number of years working directly in the school system. In those years, and it was over six years, I
worked in the system from kindergarten through Grade 12. It gave me an opportunity to look at the
issues of students, the pressures of teachers and what is being required in the
system at all levels.
I was not confined to working at
particularly just an elementary level or a junior high level or a senior high
level. I had an opportunity to work through the system, and I think that was
very beneficial because it has allowed me to work also as part of a team. That is an approach that I have
advocated. I have been using the term
partnership.
I use that with great sincerity because it
is in partnership and as a part of a team that I believe, in the work that I
was part of within the school system‑‑the team being the teacher,
the parent and the speech therapist, and in my case, the psychologist did have
an opportunity to work on behalf of a student and to look at forming a plan and
making a difference.
So I can tell you that I certainly do have
an appreciation of the issues within the school system and, particularly,
within the classroom. That is where I
have spent a great deal of time in terms of working with students and also
families on behalf of students.
So I think that is one place for us to say
that I have really made a great effort to integrate that knowledge and that
information into all of the decision making and the discussion that I have had
as minister. Since I have been minister,
I have not worked as a school psychologist, obviously, but I have spent a great
deal of time in schools.
I am very comfortable in the schools in
this province. I have spent a great deal
of time actually being in the classroom, having a chance to speak with
teachers, having a chance to speak with students, and that is students of all
age ranges as well. As I said earlier this afternoon, I have spoken with
students who are in kindergarten and Grade 1, and I have spoken with students
who are in their graduating year in Grade 12 and students in between. So I can also look at what students hope for
as well. That is certainly a point of view that I have brought to the issues
and to the approach that I have taken with all the partners in education,
whether it is working again with teachers in the classroom, in schools or with
the formal organization.
I think that that does allow us to make
sure that our communication remains open.
That would be very important. I
think that it is important that that communication continue. I want to remind the member, too, that in all
the communication that I have had with teachers, because she did speak about
teachers specifically, I have let teachers know that they have not been
targeted.
I have asked teachers to look, first of
all, around this province, as a matter of fact, even as closely as within their
own community, and to look to people within their own community and to look at
the changes that many people have had to make, and it might even be within
their own family. When we were at the
Principals' Forum a couple of weeks ago, there was a teacher there who said,
well, in my family‑‑the spouse in that family was undergoing a
major salary reduction in the work that that spouse was doing. The teacher knew first‑hand that the
efforts being made in many sectors across this province did not target teachers
alone but that there were being efforts made, both in the public sector and the
private sector, where there had to be a control of spending.
*
(2050)
So what I have said to teachers is, first
of all provided an appreciation of the work that they do, but then wanted to
remind them that they have not been targets, that adjustments have been
required within their own neighbourhood, with parents of students that they
teach within this province. Then we only
have to look across
So we did institute, as a result of a very
difficult series of budget decisions, two ways in which we wanted to look at
the fiscal situation of this province, and we have attempted, through Bill 22,
through looking at the in‑service days, to preserve the quality of
education in the classroom and also an attempt to save positions. It was one way that we could look at
attempting to preserve the quality of education that we looked for in
I would say, too, that there are a lot of
Manitobans that have given me the same message as the member said that she has
received. This is our situation. We cannot afford to pay more. Let us look at
how we can do the very most and the very best with the money that we have
available. Many Manitobans have said,
more money does not mean necessarily a better quality, because we know a great
deal of that money does not necessarily flow directly into programs, but
instead it flows into areas such as salary, which we spoke about this
afternoon, also potentially into such areas as administration. So this year we did direct that
administration be reduced so that the money available was actually available
for students.
In terms of the funding model and
fairness, and the fairness that I think the member is speaking about, we attempted
to introduce fairness when we introduced our new funding model. In the past, the way schools were funded was
not fair. It was very much on an ad hoc
basis. It did not provide a degree of
certainty. Now, with the new funding
formula, it does provide a degree of certainty in school funding because
schools now know what they will be funded for, what is the foundation of
education.
When we introduced that funding formula,
we agreed it would be subject to review, that we would look at it to make it the
most efficient formula we could. We
formed and continued the Education Advisory Committee, which had been operating
in the development of the formula and which continues to operate now. Where
school divisions have concerns and issues which they would like to have
considered in terms of the funding formula, they are submitted to that
committee. That committee reviews
them. That committee is representative
and it reviews it in terms of a geographical light and educational
concerns. That committee did make
recommendations this year, and I have said several times, we accepted those.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, what I want to ask
the minister, though‑‑I mean, she talks about communication and her
understanding of teachers and what it is like for them. I do not dispute that. I am not about to sit here and judge the
minister in terms of what her feelings are or her thoughts are in regard to
teachers and their ability to do the job.
Again, it does not matter in some ways
what the minister or her department feels in terms of the kind of job that they
have done to try to communicate to the partners in education what is going
on. The point is, there is a terrible
lack of understanding out there in the education community about the funding
decisions, why they were made, whether one group is targeted or whether another
group is not targeted. Perception, as
they say, oftentimes becomes reality.
So we have the Teachers' Society, we have
teachers in general, we have the Manitoba Association of School Trustees, we
have administrators in school divisions, we have town councillors, we have city
councillors, particularly in the area of
We have at the bottom of the rung these
teachers who feel that in fact they are the brunt of everything, and we have
parents out in the community who are feeling that the children perhaps are not
getting the best education, in some of the comments that we hear, or they are
in support of the teachers and saying that the teachers have a very difficult
task and do not have the resources at their disposal to do the job.
My question for the minister is: What can she do, unless she does not think
that there is a problem out there in terms of communication? Where are we going now in education? What does she feel she can do as a minister
with her senior department to try to repair some of that damage out there and
to go back‑‑
Hon. Albert Driedger
(Minister of Highways and Transportation): There is no damage.
Ms. Gray: There is damage out there. I mean, I have heard it enough. The Minister of Highways says, there is no
damage. I disagree, because there are
too many letters coming in, there are too many people making phone calls, there
are too many comments by people in various sectors of society who are involved
in education. It does not matter whether
they agree with the government in terms of the government's decisions on
funding or whether they do not agree because they are still saying the same
thing. They are saying, we have to do a
better job of working as partners and we are not doing a good job.
I have sat in meetings where school trustees
are pitted against teachers, and yet I know that really their goal is the
same. They want to see quality education
for children, but they are sitting there arguing with each other, and I think
we have pit some of these groups against each other, and I do not see that as
very productive for education here in
So I would ask the minister‑‑and
this question is not necessarily judging or prejudging what has happened so far
in education or what she has done or what her department has done or what this
government has done, all that aside, whatever you think about that, the point
is there is damage out there. There are
misconceptions possibly. There is not a
partnership. So given that, what can we
do to change that?
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the member referred to
statements I have made and comments that I have made, and I thought that
perhaps it might be appropriate since the focus of the comments that the member
for Crescentwood is making‑‑and I want to say that I compliment her
on taking a very constructive tack. I
mean, I think she genuinely sees that there is conflict and that there is a
degree of unhappiness among those in the public school system, and that this is
something that obviously cannot help in providing a better quality and a better
atmosphere for education in
I think a number of things should be
addressed, and one is that I would hope that those who are involved in the
education system would see themselves as part of the greater community and not
something that is in some way isolated from the rest of the community and
immune to the same pressures, be they social or economic, that affect everybody
else in the community. It is my view
that only if they see themselves as being part of the same broader community
and subject to the same economic pressures as everyone else can they take an
objective and positive view of the circumstances that face funding for
education in the '90s.
Because the reality is that all
governments of any political persuasion, in any province in this country, will
be facing a situation of shrinking revenues vis‑a‑vis any other
time period in recent history, whether you look at the '70s when government
revenues by way of personal income taxes and consumption taxes were growing at
a rate of 13 percent a year, or whether you look at the 1980s in which they
were growing at just under 8 percent per year.
You look at the '90s and the best estimates that we have is that they
will not grow at any greater rate than 3 percent per year, so a quarter of the
rate or less than a quarter of the rate that they did in the 1970s.
That means that all government departments
in all areas that government is responsible to fund have to be part of any
solution, unlike this afternoon, when the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman)
suggested that if we were going to try and reduce expenditures, we did not have
to deal with the salaries of those people who work in education. When that is more than 70 percent of the component
of the cost of education, that is impossible to deal with.
So you have today the situation where we
have to in some way engage the education community in the understanding that
the funding that is available to them is going to be under the same pressures
as the funding available to everyone else.
For five straight budgets, we have made a priority of essentially
isolating Health, Education and social services from the realities of
reductions in spending of all other government departments.
*
(2100)
The problem is that those three departments
collectively represent 65 percent of the total spending of this government, and
if you add to it another 10 percent of spending, that is the cost of interest
on the debt, you are left with only 25 percent that you have to play with. So you can do as we have done in other years
and reduce spending in some departments by 10, 12 percent or in all other areas
reduce spending overall over a course of five years, and you still cannot cope
with the shrinking revenues unless you take Health, Education and Family
Services into the tent and say, you have to be a part of any solutions that we
find vis‑a‑vis control of government spending.
Once you conclude that that is inevitable,
and I might say governments of all political stripes in all provinces in Canada
have arrived at the same conclusion, then you have to go to those people who
are in Education and say, the solution is either to reduce the numbers of
people who are involved in Education to reduce the payroll cost or have
everybody take a little less. Now, that is not a novel solution. That is a solution that has been fixed upon
by everybody throughout the rest of society, be they public sector or private
sector.
In private sector, the reductions in
incomes have been significant in many cases, in many industries, wholesale
reductions that people are taking and in cases that never would have been
thought possible. The airline industry
and others that have been well‑paid professions are globally taking
reductions and saying it is a part of staying in business, and, therefore, it
is the way in which I am going to protect my job.
There seems to be a different thought when
it comes to certain fields of endeavour in the public sector, where people say,
well, there is a bottomless pit out there and all we have to do is tax more or
run the deficit up and everything will be okay.
Well, that obviously has come to an end, not only in this province but
in every other province in
We would prefer to do it together, and we
would prefer to offer alternatives and have people, such as school boards, in
positions of responsibility, work out whatever is the best choice with their
employees, whether that is a voluntary rollback of their wages, whether that is
a reduction in the number of days that they work or a variety of different
options, but the inevitability is that they have to get by with a reduced
payroll.
We do not prefer to be that way that they
go out and have a conflict with their employers, the school divisions or
attempt to engage in conflict with the provincial government or conflict with
their students over it. We would prefer
that the employees, that is the teachers and all of the support staffs and
administration, find a way of coming to grips with reality and recognizing
reality all around them. The member
opposite says that she has heard comments on phone‑in talk shows in which
people are being negative toward the teachers.
I regret that just as she does, because I think that it does not need to
come to that.
I for one understand why the teachers are
being held responsible, because every study that has ever been done with
respect to education suggests that the real critical part of education is
always in the interface between the teacher and the student, and that is where
all the most important things in an education take place. Therefore, much as we can talk about the
responsibility of administrations, of school boards, of all sorts of other
people, that interface between the teacher and the student is still the
critical point at which this education does take place. That is why the teacher is being held
responsible.
The second aspect to that comment is that
people who live in the real world, out in society, are all looking around and
seeing their friends, their neighbours, their families having to take reduced
incomes or having to take temporary layoffs, or losing their jobs and they say,
nobody is immune to this. Why should
anybody in society, whether they be in education or health or anything else,
feel that they are automatically entitled, that they have some predisposed
right to get more money all the time, above the rate of inflation and above the
ability of the society to pay for that, and all the rest of us have to suffer,
and, in fact, suffer doubly, because not only do we have reduced incomes but we
are asked to pay more taxes in order to fund that.
Obviously, there are a lot of people out
there who are hurting and who are making comments about that hurt and directing
it to those people who are making demands that they see as being
unreasonable. So that is the situation
that is being faced today. That is
reality, and if the member opposite, the member for Crescentwood or the member
for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen), whom I see shaking her head, have better solutions,
then I would like to hear those solutions.
I would like to see what they say is a better way of doing it and how we
can isolate those in our education system from the realities of the economy or
the rest of society.
But, if not, then I think that what we
have to do is sit down, knowing that those realities exist, examining options
that are available to us to deal within those areas and try and come up with a
collective solution. But if the only
solution is to say no, we do not have to reduce, and, no, we do not have to
take less income, that is not possible.
It is not possible for most of society and it is not possible for those
people who depend upon the taxpayer for their income from society.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I would ask the
minister, because she is part of cabinet then‑‑and the First
Minister spoke of other options or suggestions.
My question would be, given that Education and Training is certainly
seen as very important and has been indicated as very important as far as the
throne speech, were there other options that were looked at outside of the
Department of Education in terms of savings that could have been found within
other departments, or even looking at merging other departments, or perhaps not
even having all those departments there?
Were there some suggestions that were made that, for whatever reason,
were not used, so that in fact there could be savings in other
departments? I mean, what kind of
options were looked at?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we are probably out of
order in talking about other departments while we are in the midst of Education,
but since that is clearly a question that cannot be answered by the minister,
but has to be answered by somebody from Treasury Board or from the other areas,
the reality is that for the previous five years, the overall cuts in government
were all in all of those other departments.
All of the savings in administration, all of the reductions in staff,
almost 10 percent of the total provincial civil service, primarily, were in
those other areas of government.
It is not possible, when 65 percent of the
entire expenditures in government comes from those three departments, that any
three departments could be isolated, especially those that account for two‑thirds
of the spending.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, one of the comments
made this evening was the importance of the interface between students and
teachers. I certainly agree with that.
One of the difficulties, I think, that the
teachers are also facing, and, in fact, some of the parents have commented on,
is that whether teachers are facing a cutback in salary or whether they‑‑a
couple of things are happening: they are
losing professional development days; and they also feel that over the last
number of years‑‑and this does not necessarily just mean five, but
over the last 10 years‑‑the resources that are available to them in
the classroom are diminishing.
I specifically refer mostly to teachers
who have children with special needs in their classroom. I use that term "special needs"
very broadly because there are a lot of children now in the classroom who have
behavioural problems, never mind the children who have special needs and
medical problems. The teachers are
saying and the parents are saying, it is very difficult for teachers to be able
to do a good job in the classroom because they feel they do not have the
resources or the supports available.
When you have a situation where not only
are a group of professionals asked to take fewer professional development days
or not have professional development days, and where they may be asked to have
their salaries rolled back, but you combine that with them feeling that they do
not have the same amount of control in their classrooms because they do not
have the resources available to them, I think that the issues that teachers are
facing in the classroom today and over the last five years are certainly more
complex than what we might have seen 10 years ago, because of a number of
things such as deinstitutionalization, et cetera.
*
(2110)
I would ask the minister how she might
reconcile that particular aspect, particularly because it certainly has been in
need. I have not heard one teacher that
I have talked to who has not brought up the issue of lack of resources in the
classroom.
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I would like to speak
about special needs for a moment because we certainly have examined special
needs with a great deal of seriousness, and we have done several things that I
would like to point to as very concrete steps to assist the field in the area
of special needs students.
First of all, our funding, we have very
dramatically increased our funding in special needs. We have increased the funding in the past two
years from $53 million to approximately $81 million. That is a significant dollar amount attached
to a commitment to special needs children and the resources required in the
area of special needs. I would also like
to say that for the emotionally, behaviourally disordered young person, this
year it is true. In the past, those
young people were not recognized for resources or recognized at the highest
level for the child in most severe need.
This year, one of the recommendations that
came from our Ed Finance Committee was to look at funding both at Level II and
Level III, depending upon the severity, those emotionally, behaviourally
disordered young people, and we have done that.
We have now included the funding for young people who have that
emotional behavioral disorder in our funding formula. It is not being done for the first time, a
real recognition for the need for support in that area.
(Mrs. Shirley Render, Acting Deputy
Chairperson, in the Chair)
The third point I would like to stress is
that we have last year in February 1992 founded the Student Support branch
within the PDSS division and the Department of Education and Training. That is
the only branch of its kind which deals with students at risk. It is the only one in
We have funded that branch to
approximately $10 million, and individual schools put forward plans and
recommendations. With those
recommendations, that means that the individual schools can look at their own
regional needs, their specific needs as the result of the demographics within
that school, and they are able to look at how they would like to begin to solve
the problem. That is a real grassroots approach. It is an approach that deals with a great
deal of respect with the professionals who are working in that area and in that
particular school.
So that is three very strong commitments
that this government has made in the past few years in the special needs
areas. As I said, we have increased the
funding level significantly. We increased
it quite significantly in '92‑93 with the new funding formula. Then, again, as I said, we made an additional
modification this year for students with emotional and behavioural disorders,
and we have a position for a consultant in special education which has been
reprioritized to increase consultative programming support to school
divisions. We are providing, as I said,
Level III support in this area. Our
Child Care and Development Branch and Curriculum Services and Native Education
and the Student Support branch are all collaborating to provide some
professional development activities for schools districts and divisions in the
area of prosocial skill development.
I would also like to remind the member
that we do still provide, through our funding formula, funding for professional
development, and that works that a school may then have a teacher come and we
will pay the substitute cost to assist in the area of curriculum where there
have been changes and to assist school divisions to the extent that we
can. So that is also, I think, another
commitment.
I would just like to close in that answer
by giving a quote to the member, because we did gather a number of quotes from
eligible schools across this province in response to the programs initiated by
those schools funded by our Student Support branch. This one person said: I chose to evaluate the success of our
efforts by having all staff respond to a questionnaire. If you skim through the comments, you will
find that co‑operative learning is now entrenched in this particular
school and has been implemented at all levels.
Needless to say, we feel a little smug about our accomplishments,
justifiably, I think. A sincere thank‑you
to you for your support, encouragement and, of course, money.
Ms. Gray: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, the minister
referred to an increase from $53 million to $81 million. Was that Levels I, II and III? With those extra dollars, will that then mean
that so many more children will be able to receive special needs funding, or is
that increased funding for existing children?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, yes, it is
funding for Levels I, II and III. It is
funding which we now provide through the funding formula.
In the past, sometimes it has been school
divisions who have funded in those particular areas. We are now funding, so it is not the
responsibility of the local school division.
In some cases, it is not a matter of funding additional numbers of
children but rather having the funding being done by funding that flows through
our Ed funding formula rather than funding which would have been done alone by
the school division.
Ms. Gray: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, perhaps the
minister does not have them with her this evening, but I am assuming the
minister has detailed statistics, et cetera, on the various levels of funding
and how they are used that she could table, by school division.
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, I do have
that detailed information which might be best made available when we actually
get to that budget line.
Ms. Gray: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, the minister
referred the other day to workweek reduction and talked about professional
development days and administrative days.
I am wondering if the minister could tell us the rationale behind
deciding that administrative days and professional development days perhaps
should be options that school divisions should look at in terms of saving
dollars.
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, we looked at
days in which there was no contact‑‑which was not a teaching day‑‑between,
on a teaching basis, the teacher and the student. When we looked at the
reduction we did not want to reduce the number of teaching days within the
school calendar. However, there are,
within the school calendar, 10 days which are in fact not designated as
teaching days, so those were the days.
In our effort to protect the classroom and
to protect the students and the quality of education within the classroom, we
suggested that school divisions might look at those particular days, those days
without student contact in terms of a workweek reduction.
*
(2120)
Ms. Gray: Does the minister see professional
development as part of a strategic plan, either for professionals and teachers
or for staff within her own department?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, professional
development is an important part of development for people in their work. We do know that a number of teachers use the
summertime for instance, when they are on holidays in that two‑month
period, to increase their level of certification to take courses so they can
increase their level from perhaps a Level IV to a Level V. That then brings with it, for teachers,
increased salary and benefits. We do
know that there are many ways in which teachers are able to look at
professional development.
Ms. Gray: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, does the
minister feel that an employer, whether that employer be a school division or
whether that employer be a government department, that employers have a role to
play in ensuring that their employees do receive a certain amount of
professional development or staff training and development?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Acting Deputy Chairperson, from the day
of the funding announcement, we did say to school divisions that school
divisions were the employing authority, and as the employers they had the
opportunity and the option to negotiate directly with their employees about any
changes they believed that they needed to make.
However, we also did provide for them,
with Bill 22, enabling legislation where, if they were not able to come to an
agreement in terms of salary and benefits through negotiation as employer to
employee, that then we, as government, were looking at the workweek reduction
and we would provide enabling legislation, should school divisions wish to also
take advantage of a version of the workweek reduction.
But in terms of the professional
development or the in‑service, we do believe that there are a number of
effective ways that staff development programs can be accomplished. A number of ways which are already operating
now are the summer institutes, where teachers concentrate on a specific
teaching strategy, and they do so for up to five days in a very intensive way
to look at strategies which they will believe will be effective.
We also look at Training for Trainers
programs, where division staff‑‑where a trainer can then work with
division staff and work with classroom teachers in a classroom setting to
provide the ongoing support to teachers.
The Training for Trainers program has been a very popular one. Also, trainers or facilitators can
demonstrate a teaching strategy for classroom teachers. They can observe the classroom teachers and
coach classroom teachers in classrooms.
In addition, study groups can be
established and some have been established, I am told, after school hours for
every two to four weeks with a discussion leader. Teacher select a topic, and they determine
what they already know about an area and what they would like to know about an
area. They design ways to gather
information and to assist each other in implementing the strategies in their
classroom.
Then, as I have also said before, Manitoba
Education and Training has provided school divisions with an opportunity to
access professional development activities by providing several grants through
our funding formula. It is a $450 to
$500 grant per eligible instructional unit for professional and staff
development, and a $2,500 grant per division in support of professional
development activities related to the provision of courses using distance
education technology. That was a new one
this year; that one was another that was seen as very important in response to
our Distance Education task force. Divisions
then decide, with that professional development money, how they would like to
use it.
So when the members asks what is the
responsibility of an employer, Manitoba Education and Training, through the
funding formula, does provide money. It
is up to school divisions to decide how they would like to use that money. Some divisions, I am informed, use it to send
a staff member away and then bring that staff member back to train staff who
are in the schools now, or they may wish to use it in any number of ways, but
we have provided for the money within the funding formula to assist employers
as they determine what their priorities might be.
The Student Support Branch also has
provided staff development opportunities for schools with very high
concentrations of students at risk. The
school staff identify the teaching approach that they want to implement on a
school‑wide basis and develop a staff development plan for one to three
years, and comments from the staff, and I did read you one, about the use of
this comprehensive school‑based staff development approach have been very
positive. The approach has been
successful and teachers have been volunteering to attend sessions during the
summer and on Saturdays.
Ms. Gray: