Thank you, Madam Chair.
My questions will be for Rebecca Mearns.
It was a pleasure to meet you at the Northern Lights conference just a few months ago. Recently, we were up in Nunavut—in Cambridge Bay. We got to experience the college up there and some of the facilities, as well.
I'm looking at an interesting article. It's called, “10 Things You Might Not Know About NAC's President, Becky Mearns”. It's quite interesting. I challenge the committee members to check it out afterwards.
You were born in Iqaluit, so you're local. That's one of the reasons I really thought it would be valuable to have you here to hear your perspective, not just as an education professional, but also as somebody who actually went through the system there, to see what we could do to increase those graduation rates.
For the sake of the committee, I think there's one more thing I'd like to add to your resumé that's listed here. This summer, you caught her first seal while out boating. That's among many other things you have on your resumé.
Welcome today, Rebecca.
You know that this study is about the increasing grad rates. I heard you speak specifically, at Northern Lights, about post secondary, but I think they're related because, as a former teacher myself, I think that if a student doesn't have an opportunity post graduation, they might not see graduation as that important.
As a person from the north and from Nunavut, what would you say are some of the key things that we need to do to increase those graduation rates amongst our northern communities?