Education Amendment Bill

Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

I will certainly take up the residual part of my speaking time on the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill. If I remember correctly, when I was interrupted by the dinner hour on the last sitting day this bill was on the Order Paper, I wanted to talk about two things that were in the bill and one that was not. Labour is supporting this bill. We support information matching between the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Teachers Council, and we do that for a number of reasons.

First, there is the distinct possibility that teachers who have been deregistered have not come to the attention of employing authorities that may be looking to appoint teachers to teaching positions. That information sharing between the register of teachers and the Ministry of Education allows the Teachers Council, in regard to people employed in teaching positions, to identify the person’s employer, and also the person’s registration status, which is an essential item for the protection of the quality of teaching in our schools. In addition to that, there is a more pedestrian purpose to that matching of information—one that is no less valid—which is the ability of the ministry to identify, through that information sharing, the accurate and appropriate salary entitlements and eligibility to any allowances to which teachers might be entitled. So we support that information matching, and see it on both levels—firstly, as a very clear indicator of the quality assurance of staff teaching our children in schools, and, secondly, as I say, as a more pedestrian matter but one that is none the less important to teachers in receipt of salary entitlements.

The second point, which is important and which Labour supports entirely, concerns the changes that the Education and Science Committee has made to the process around police vetting of all those who have access to students in teaching establishments. The select committee saw fit to shorten the time frame for the police vetting process; I think there is a suitable level of urgency to that, as reflected in where the select committee got to. I pay tribute to the chair of the Education and Science Committee, and to those who worked on this bill, for progressing it to this stage with a useful amendment such as that.

The one thing I am disappointed about, however, and I remain disappointed about it, is that the National members on the select committee—and indeed the Minister—saw fit not to accept some proposed amendments from Labour members. The amendments arose out of our Education Amendment Bill (No 3), which was in train prior to the last election. One of those amendments was to make it explicit for principals to ensure that their schools provided guidance and career counselling in schools. That is an example of where in fact it would be entirely possible to join the dots of the compulsory education sector with those of the tertiary education sector, when the Government is looking to make it harder for students to enter tertiary institutions, harder to stay there, and harder to access support mechanisms, like student loans and allowances, in order for them to succeed in tertiary institutions.

One of the cries that go up constantly is that the young people arriving in our tertiary institutions are not sufficiently prepared, and not adequately prepared, to make suitable and appropriate decisions about their tertiary study. How can they make appropriate decisions about their tertiary study, and have more chance of succeeding in a chosen discipline or degree programme, if they are not equipped earlier than that with suitable career-choice advice and career guidance? To make it optional for schools to have guidance counsellors—and that is another whole area in itself—and career counsellors is to deny that these things ought to be joined up. It is in fact to deny a common-sense thing that is provided at low cost through our secondary schools, and that can equip our young people in particular to succeed or to do better in their chosen tertiary course of study. It is a shame that that is not included in this final legislation. It is something that would not have caused any major problem. It would be something that the schools that are already doing it could continue to do. The fact that it is not being made explicit in the bill that principals should ensure guidance and counselling on career choices and career pathways is a point of neglect. It is a shame that that has not been included in this legislation.

The Education Amendment Bill that we are debating for its third reading today makes some significant advances not only in the quality of education but also in the protection of students within the education system. It is a shame. It is short-sighted. It is unnecessarily partisan of the Government not to include the Labour amendments that would have seen career counselling made mandatory, and that would have seen an insistence on that counselling being there in the school curriculum. We will never get the kind of quantum leap we need in this economy if we are not preparing our young people, through the pipeline of the education system, to make appropriate and successful tertiary education and career choices for themselves. Whether or not young people go on to university or a polytechnic, into an apprenticeship or some form of trades training, or into some other appropriate avenue for further education, they should have access at every point in their high school and compulsory education sector training to that kind of advice. It is a matter of regret that that provision is not in this final legislation. Thank you.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) Link to this

It is a pleasure to speak during the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill. The education system in the 21st century certainly needs to be dynamic and flexible, and the bill will go some way to ensuring that it will be, through these changes. The bill itself does that in a number of ways. Firstly, it adapts the police-vetting system to require vetting of the non-teaching staff employed at schools who may have unsupervised access to children during school hours. Secondly, the bill introduces information sharing between the Ministry of Education and the Teachers Council, which will finally close off a loophole for unregistered teachers.

With regard to the police vetting of non-teaching staff, the legislation also makes mandatory the police vetting of anyone 17 years or over in a home-schooling situation. In fact, those requirements for police vetting will apply to early childhood education centres, primary schools, intermediate schools, and secondary schools. Additionally, those police vets will be required to be initiated by the management team or board of trustees, depending on the school type, and will be required to be conducted within 4 weeks of this bill becoming law. After that, in any future case, they will be required no later than 2 weeks after non-teaching staff likely to have unsupervised access to children start work.

This Government takes education seriously, and in doing so has set educational achievement as our children’s No. 1 priority and as the No. 1 priority for the country. That being the case, we recognise the importance of a first-class education system and first-class conditions for our children and our teaching staff. In conclusion, I make the point that such a priority really does highlight the importance of a policy such as national standards to improve our children’s education, literacy, and numeracy. It is important that we place that as a touchstone for the quality of our education. Education is a powerful force; it transforms people’s lives for the greater good. On that basis I commend this bill to the House.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

The Labour Party supports the Education Amendment Bill, although I do have grave reservations, not so much about what it actually contains but about what is omitted from it. The bill has four main purposes, and I will go through them.

First, it introduces information matching between the New Zealand Teachers Council and the Ministry of Education in order to identify individuals without registration teaching in schools. Secondly, it removes the requirement for all contractors to be police vetted, and replaces it with the requirement to police vet only those contractors that have, or are likely to have, unsupervised access to children at schools and in early childhood education services. Thirdly, it proposes that the New Zealand Teachers Council no longer provide a police-vetting service, and that schools and early childhood education services can apply directly to the New Zealand Police. Fourthly, it proposes that the initial maximum 3-month suspension of a teacher’s practising certificate or authority to teach will be amended so that the suspension can be reviewed after 3 months and extended for a further 3 months.

My concerns about this bill are not so much about the four purposes, but about the fact that when I think through those four purposes I ask myself which one of them will bring about a quantum leap, a step change, or any sort of effect on the core purpose of our education system, which is to raise achievement. Not one single purpose in the bill will bring about a quantum leap or step change in raising educational achievement. Perhaps the first purpose, which relates to introducing information matching between the New Zealand Teachers Council and the Ministry of Education to identify individuals without registration teaching in schools, may have some impact on raising achievement, in that it is important that all teachers in schools are registered. When teachers are registered it means that they have been to teachers college and we can expect that they would have a certain competency. But, other than that, this bill does not address that which will have the greatest impact on raising achievement, which is the core purpose of our education system, and that is the calibre of the teachers in our schools.

I have spoken about the calibre of teachers at length in the House time and again. If we have a continuum of those issues and strategies that will have the most impact on raising achievement and those strategies that have the least impact on raising achievement, these four purposes in this bill will be at the lower end of that continuum because none of them addresses the ability of the teacher. The interface between teachers and students is when learning occurs. Even if we were to buy into the Government’s argument that the policy on national standards was the most important policy it had that would have the greatest impact on achievement, we would expect that the next legislation the Government brought through would contain the second-greatest impact on raising achievement. Quite frankly, none of these purposes will have as much impact as that on raising achievement. For example, purpose No. 3, which removes the requirement for all contractors to be police vetted, and replaces it with a requirement to police vet only those contractors who have, or are likely to have, unsupervised access to children at schools and early childhood services, is basically saying that the sparky who goes down to the back prefab to fix a light switch does not have to have a police vet. I have to ask this House what impact the sparky fixing a light switch down in the back prefab, or the resource room down the back of a school, would have on raising achievement. I do not know; it simply has no impact.

We have spent countless hours in the House on this bill; we are on its third reading, and we have been through the Committee stage. We have spent all this time on a bill that will not impact significantly on the core purpose of our education system, which is raising achievement. If we were to look at those issues or policies that would have an impact on raising achievement and improving the ability of teachers, we should be discussing issues such as the quality and calibre of those people whom we select to go into teachers college in the first place. We should make sure that we have minimum criteria for teacher trainees. Not only that, we should also be debating the quality and standard of teacher training.

I have been down to Christchurch, where I have observed the Graduate School of Education. From what I know from my experience as a principal and teacher, its training programmes are absolutely superb and we should be making sure that what the Graduate School of Education is doing is replicated throughout all teachers colleges in New Zealand. I was told when I visited the college that when it set itself up it fully expected that within 5 years it would be redundant because every teachers college and college of education would replicate the programmes it takes its teacher trainees through. Instead of its programmes being replicated and copied, they have basically been marginalised and sidelined. That is a crying shame because the programmes provided by the Graduate School of Education in Christchurch are first-class.

The next thing we need to do is ensure that the professional development teachers have once they have finished teachers college and they are out in schools is also first-class, and that it follows on from the training that goes on at the Graduate School of Education, which uses research-based best practice teaching—

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) Link to this

I am delighted to stand as the final speaker in the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill. Education is my top personal priority. For this National Government, lifting achievement in schools and building opportunities for every young New Zealander is vital to growing our nation. There are a couple of ways in which this bill does that. Firstly, it is focusing our funding on the front line, reducing red tape, and lifting achievement. Kelvin Davis, the member who spoke before me, did not think that children’s safety in schools is a priority. I think that if a child is unsafe at school because of a contractor not having had a police vet, it is a major barrier to that child’s learning. I will not stand here and tolerate unsafe school environments.

This bill is about improving efficiency in the schooling system, reducing compliance costs for schools and early childhood education centres, and improving the quality and effectiveness of education legislation. Labour Opposition members have talked at length about what they would have liked to see in the bill. Well, this is a Government bill. This is not the Labour Opposition’s bill. That is why we have talked about what we believe is important: putting the focus on the front line, which is students and their learning, and reducing red tape.

Unfortunately, one Opposition member in particular filibustered for quite some time in the bill’s second reading. He went on and on about the changes that he would have liked to see happen, but two former Ministers of Education in his Government did not make these changes happen. Well, I place priority on children’s safety, whether it is in a school environment or in a home-based early childhood education centre, which this law also extends protection to. That is why, without any unnecessary delay, I am thrilled to support this bill. This Government understands the importance of education and makes it a priority. Thank you.