GN has not cut funding for full-day kindergarten at École des Trois-Soleils

I would like to take this opportunity to clarify some information found in the letter entitled “Iqaluit’s francophone parents, school commission, need unity of purpose” that appears on the Nunatsiaq News website as a letter to the editor, dated Jan. 28, 2015.

Despite what has been stated in the aforementioned letter, the Department of Education has not cut funding to the full-day kindergarten program offered by the Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut.

“Cutting” implies that there was funding given in the first place which was not the case.

The Department of Education provides funding for the delivery of a half-day kindergarten program all across Nunavut, and this includes the CSFN (Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut) and L’école des Trois-Soleils.

The CSFN has received its annual allocation of funding from the department for the current year and until recently was in a position to operate this program, which is presumably a priority of that organization.

As there have been no changes to funding allocations, it is obvious that funding or a lack thereof is not at the root of this issue despite claims to the contrary.

As is the case with all DEAs, the CSFN has the prerogative to assign teaching positions within its school as it sees fit.

Finally, at this time the department has not taken a position either for or against full-day kindergarten for Nunavut and is investigating the merits and feasibility of such a change in programming.

An undertaking of this magnitude for the entire territory must be studied closely and lessons learned from other jurisdictions must also be taken into account before we would be in a position to recommend such a course of action.

John MacDonald
Assistant Deputy Minister of Education
Government of Nunavut

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