‘No one in the education system is satisfied,’ minister says

The NWT’s education minister says the territory is trying to inject funding to turn around a system that data suggests is in years-long decline.

Data for the 2024-25 academic year, released this week, shows attendance and graduation rates at their lowest for at least the past decade.

Caitlin Cleveland joined The North Today on Cabin Radio to assess the figures. The minister said even as federal Jordan’s Principle funding vanishes, the GNWT is investing tens of millions of dollars in new funding to try to support students.

Anecdotally, she said, changes in cell phone policies at some schools are having positive effects that she expects to see reflected in the next data set, a year from now.

New cell phone policies mean “there’s less drama in the classroom, there’s more connection between students, there’s more uptake in school sports, and those items together create better outcomes for our kids,” Cleveland said.

Read a transcript of the full interview below.

This interview was recorded on July 28, 2026. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Ollie Williams: What does the latest data tell you about how your education system is performing?

Caitlin Cleveland: We’re not satisfied with these results. No one in the education system is satisfied with where the indicators sit today. Our attendance and graduation outcomes remain in a place where we need to see improvement, and we need to make sure we’re making investments to see improvement.

The six-year graduation rate is 54 percent. I know Covid-19, wildfires and other things have affected that. Give us a sense of what your department’s ambition is here. What specific graduation rate are you aiming for, and when?

Covid, wildfires, flooding – disruptions to our education system have impacted the overall attendance of students and the overall outcomes.

We certainly want to make sure that, as fast as possible, we are returning to our pre-Covid success numbers and continue to see those growing.

That’s why I’m very happy we can speak together about some of the investments we are making as a territory, and also the areas where we are really focusing on supports for students, so we can see the results we all want to see.

The NWT’s education system is losing money because of the withdrawal of Jordan’s Principle funding. It’s losing teachers. You’re talking about trying to turn this around but we’re losing money to do that with, aren’t we?

We are certainly losing funding in Jordan’s Principle. We cannot let up on our advocacy with the federal government, but we’re absolutely not waiting. We see that in our investment in inclusive schooling. That alone is a $35-million ongoing investment in our education system.

In addition to that, there’s just over $10 million of investment that was made in the main estimates that were passed in March. That’s funding that would be flowing starting as of April 1 and in the upcoming school year as well. It’s increases in investment in our mental health and wellness funding in schools. It’s investments in our small community secondary student funding, investments in Indigenous language instructors, and investment in teacher salaries as well.

It is also ensuring there is stability in the system. We need to make sure our education bodies across this territory know exactly what funding is coming in so they can make sure they are offering consistent employment opportunities to people that work within the education system and play such crucial roles to supporting our students.

The investment in our education system from Jordan’s Principle in our previous year, before they made their criteria change, was $58.6 million. We’re up to an increase in almost $48 million in GNWT investments in our JK-12 education system for this upcoming school year and I’m not done. I’m going to continue to advocate for our kids and continue to advocate for what they need in their classrooms to be successful.

In 2013, the NWT launched a 10-year education renewal plan based in part on the fact there was a big gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous graduation rates. Thirteen years later, that gap is essentially unchanged. Why hasn’t the territory been able to help more Indigenous students graduate?

One of our biggest challenges is our attendance rates. We’re trying to graduate more students with less students in the classroom.

When we see our attendance rates drop, we see all of the health indicators, performance indicators of our students drop alongside that attendance rate. Right now, we’re sitting at about a 73 percent overall attendance rate in the Northwest Territories. On average, students are missing over a day a week from school, and that adds up significantly. That means our Grade 12 students, on average, are missing about three years of school by the time they get to Grade 12 age.

If we are missing three years of education and information, that is going to have an impact. One of the biggest things we can do together as a territory is make sure we’re increasing our attendance rates.

What levers does your department actually control to change that?

We work very closely with our education leaders. Different education bodies try different tactics. Some have reward programs for students. Some focus on linkages between sports and attendance.

The other thing that has an impact is cell phone usage in schools. There’s been a lot of effort and a lot of conversation on best practices around cell phone usage policies for students in the Northwest Territories. Every education body has some form of cell phone usage policy to limit the use of cell phones in the classroom.

What they find is there’s less drama in the classroom, there’s more connection between students, there’s more uptake in school sports, and those items together create better outcomes for our kids.

There’s not one silver bullet, but all of these layers come together to create the environment we need, so students feel safe, they feel supported, they feel understood, and that together makes students more engaged and increases their attendance, but also their achievement outcomes.

Are there examples where this is working?

We are seeing great results from the cell phone usage policy in the Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency, where they are seeing more participation in class activities, more participation in sports teams, and so I really have to commend the work they have done.

In addition to that, we are seeing the same cell phone usage policy adopted by the school in Ndılǫ. Speaking with their chair, they are quite satisfied with the adoption of that policy, and we hope to hear similar anecdotes from student activity there as well.

These changes unfortunately do take time, so we need to make sure we’re continuing to support one another, continuing to support students, making sure students are supported to get to school and to be successful in school.

That includes making sure our school-based mental health and wellness program is effective, knowing that has such an impact on students as well.

The Tłı̨chǫ and Ndılǫ schools that you mentioned had some of the lowest attendance rates in the 2024-25 figures. By the sounds of it, you would expect the next year’s data to show a significant uptick in attendance.

Based on anecdotes, absolutely.

There is one metric in the report that might fly under the radar. In small communities, students’ classroom marks run an average 34 points higher than their standardized exam marks. The benchmark is supposed to be a difference of about 10 percent. Are we issuing high school credentials that overstate what students have actually learned? Are we setting them up to fail?

What that makes me question is to dig deeper into ensuring we have standardized testing protocols, we have standardized assessment protocols.

There was work done and implemented just recently to make sure grade progressions are standardized and the tools educators are using to progress students are standardized. We have implemented a standardized grade progression protocol for educators across the territory, acknowledging that we need to make sure we’re consistent.

We have major projects being talked about, big defence spending coming in. The head of the NWT Teachers’ Association says we’re using major projects to create lots of jobs but nobody will actually be qualified to do those jobs unless there is some major change in our education outcomes. To what extent do you agree with that, and how do we fund all of this?

I agree that we are not satisfied with these results and we have work to do. I’m absolutely committed to doing this work alongside educators and families in this territory, and that’s reflected in our increased investments in the operations of schools, in addition to our curriculum renewal and implementing our inclusive schooling review recommendations.

We need to continue forward. We need to make sure students are supported where they are at, so they can achieve the careers they want. There is a tremendous amount of opportunity coming to them in the territory, and it is imperative they have the pathways to participate in this work.