Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your presentations today.
This issue of continuing education is something that has always been important to me in regard to making sure that people stay in our schools, starting in the elementary, but probably mid-year levels more than anything.
From your own experience, Ms. Pictou, you've certainly indicated that it was important to you.
We've put this $1.25 billion that's going to go into improving this on-reserve education system here coming up, but I want to ask both Mr. Montpellier and Mr. Gratton, and perhaps any of you, what you see as the most important way of making sure that we can work with students in our schools, whether it's to use the hope that once you get out of school you get into the community colleges and the proper training.... I think you've emphasized, all of you, that the importance there could start right in our schools, right in the grade 9,10, 11, 12 areas in regard to training and how important it is to have a goal once the mind was set up that there was something to achieve and something to work for.
I have some experience in relation to one particular region that has a program of helping to keep kids in school. One of them is to make sure that they graduate or finish school, as you've said. They've put some non-traditional course involvement in place to help students stay in school or at least be attracted to it. One of the things that I heard earlier, I believe from Ryan, was to talk about how it's important to make sure that there is an attendance record in place.
What can we do to make sure that an attendance record is there as a beginning to an interest in training?