Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I seek leave to suspend Standing Order 256, relating to omnibus bills, to allow the Committee of the whole House on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) to consider an amendment in my name that proposes amendments to the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I am pleased that we have finally got to the debate on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2); I think it is fair to say that it will not take quite as long as it might have previously. I think there will be an interesting debate when we get to new Part 1A, which we will debate after Part 1.

That leaves us with a number of areas where Labour disagrees very firmly with National. The first area I will focus on is the question of whether entry to a State school should be a hereditary right; whether, in the end, someone whose parents or even grandparents went to a school should have a right to enter that school over and above someone who lives close to the school, and who would otherwise be in the zone. It is the view of Labour—the very firm view of Labour—that State schools in New Zealand should not be subject to entitlement rights. People should not be able to pass down the right to attend particular schools. Generally this is from father to son; it is more often that way than from mother to daughter. The rule just about always concerns single-sex schools. I know National is firmly in favour of hereditary rights, but generally that is not the case in New Zealand, and for that reason we have amendments that focus on that question.

Some amendments sitting on the Table focus on the question of private schools and their disciplinary procedures. The Law Commission undertook a very, very thorough review of the law as it related to independent schools, and made a series of recommendations. To give the Government credit, it picked up a few of those recommendations, but it did not pick up some of the more important ones, and it was totally unable to tell the Education and Science Committee why. I am not blaming officials in this area—it is not their job to defend Government policy—but we were looking for reasons why some of the suggestions of the Law Commission were not picked up, after its well-researched project. Because we did not get a good explanation, we have, in fact, picked up two of the Law Commission’s recommendations ourselves.

The first recommendation is pretty simple. It would make private schools’ disciplinary procedures available, on request, to students and their parents when students are facing suspension, exclusion, or expulsion. That seems pretty reasonable. We are not saying that the procedures have to be printed; they could be on a website and people could get them that way. They could be in a booklet. If we are to have a just approach to discipline within the private school system, then having a system that records those processes and makes them available to students is, as the Law Commission recommended, pretty reasonable. We cannot see why a Government would not want to do that.

In a similar vein, the commission said schools should adhere to some basic procedural requirements. When students have been suspended, their parents should have the right to request that the suspension be lifted or varied, and have the right to make submissions in support of the request. Adequate notice of the proposed exclusion or expulsion should be given to the students and their parents. There should be a reasonable opportunity for the parents to attend a meeting. Again, anyone who has any sense of natural justice would say that none of that should be a problem; it should be pretty much automatic.

I do not want to in any way portray the Labour Party as a defender of independent schools, but I say that most of them have very good processes. I think that very, very few of them would have a problem with these recommendations. But as the Law Commission makes clear, a few independent schools—some traditional, and some I might describe as weird and wonderful—do not have processes that work in an appropriate manner. I see no reason why they should not have good processes.

The next area I will focus on is the question of disciplinary processes to do with the Teachers Council. I thank the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Education, for inviting me to her office to give me a group of areas in relation to which she was proposing to table a late Supplementary Order Paper in the select committee. I think members of the select committee will agree that I probably ended up promoting the Supplementary Order Paper within the committee, because I have no doubt that the disciplinary procedures for the Teachers Council are dated and do not work effectively.

I acknowledge, and I warn Ms Turei, that Catherine Delahunty, a member of the committee, was not happy with that process. I agree with her: it was not good process. We asked both the unions, the Teachers Council, and the School Trustees Association to appear. None of us thought it was good process, but then again none of us thought it would be worth waiting another couple of years till a similar bill came down the track, and just leaving the gap there. That call was made.

I must say—and I feel slightly surprised about this—I have read recently about a plan by the Minister for Tertiary Education for another Education Amendment bill, mainly dealing with tertiary matters. It is too late now for this particular part, but it might have been better process if, in fact, it had been associated with that legislation. As we are learning, when Education Amendment bills occur, they can be very broad. That would have been better process, but that was not the case.

Having said that, the Minister and I talked about one area that we thought we would progress but which, after she received further advice, she chose not to move on. For me it was probably the most important issue that sat there—that is, the fact that so often when cases are before the disciplinary tribunal there is a reflection across quite a big group of teachers, because of the very poor suppression arrangements in the rules of the Teachers Council. Some very good work has been done by Simon Power on the suppression issue.

I have picked up on that issue in Supplementary Order Paper 183 in my name. It would add new clauses 12DA and 12DB. They effectively incorporate those principles into the processes. We would move to an assumption of openness but then have the committee closed and have the ability to suppress names. No one wants to see the names of kids who have been molested by teachers published. But at the moment the rules of the Teachers Council are basically all or nothing. It is either all open or all closed. They do not have an ability there.

There are two approaches. One is that we can write the rules for the council, and those are set out in my Supplementary Order Paper. The Teachers Council says that it has not changed the rules, because it thinks that the $1,000 fine imposed on media organisations that breach suppression is not sufficient. I agree with the council. Media organisations want to get a lot of publicity. It is fair to say that probably the Minister and I both get calls on Friday nights and Saturday mornings from Sunday papers with case after case that they glory in. But they do have a case. It is reasonable that there should be an ability to focus on it.

The alternative is set out in my second Supplementary Order Paper. New clause 12DC changes the $1,000 fine to a $100,000 fine. It does not rewrite the rules. That amendment would allow the Teachers Council to redo its rules and have proper suppression rules. It could name the teacher but protect the child. I think that would be reasonable and it would have a presumption of openness. At the moment that is not the case.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

In my opinion the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) represents why we have the tail of underachievement that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Anne Tolley, often talks about. She talks often about the one in five children who fail at school. If we look at the five general areas in the bill, four of those areas would fail to raise achievement in any way, in my opinion. It is my ongoing concern that we have Education Amendment bills that actually do not focus on the core purpose of the education system—that is, to make sure that children learn.

One of the areas in this bill deals with secondary-tertiary programmes, and I believe that has real merit. I commend the Minister for taking a gamble on this. There is no evidence that this will make a difference to raising student achievement but I think it is something that should be explored. It should have researchers following it along, so that in time we can see whether the secondary-tertiary programmes do make a difference. Then if they do not, we need to have the courage to do away with them. There is a very simple way that we can check whether they are making a difference. If members refer back to education research, such as that by Professor John Hattie, they will see that he talks about the effect size of educational initiatives. If a programme has an effect-size of greater than 0.4, then it is making a difference to student learning.

Just about every initiative or strategy that teachers use in class could be said to work to some effect or another. But it is the strategies and innovations that work the most that we really need to encourage. As I say, if, over time, research goes to show that secondary-tertiary programmes do not have an effect size of over 0.4, then we need to have the courage to try something else.

I think this part of the bill is a good start. I believe we could go further in terms of the secondary-tertiary programmes. They change the context of a student’s learning. Instead of being stuck in the form rooms of a traditional school setting, where students are bound by the school rules—they have to wear their uniform, pull their socks up, tuck their shirts in, and those sort of things—they have the opportunity to move into an educational setting where they are treated more like adults. It is interesting to note that a teacher I used to work with often commented to me that while a child is at a school in the compulsory learning sector, they should be called a pupil, and it is only when they go into a tertiary setting that they should be called a student. What we have with secondary-tertiary programmes are pupils moving from the old traditional school setting into a more adult setting. I think that is a really good change of context, and in itself that could be a motivating factor.

However, secondary-tertiary situations will not make a difference if the lecturers in front of the students are not expert practitioners. That is the crux of what we always have to consider whenever we talk about education legislation, that the people in front of the students are highly skilled practitioners. We need to keep focusing on what will make students learn and what will make 100 percent of our school students achieve beyond their potential. Of course, it comes down to the expertise in front of the students, and whether the strategies teachers are using have an effect size above 0.4. As I have said, an initiative with an effect size between 0.4 and zero will be in the bottom half of the strategies that make kids learn. Some strategies would have an effect size of 0.01, which means there is a tiny improvement in students’ achievement .

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) Link to this

I am sorry that I did not get to my feet quickly enough at the conclusion of the Hon Trevor Mallard’s speech. I wanted to acknowledge his assistance with Supplementary Order Paper 177 on the Teachers Council amendments, in particular, and explain to him that although we discussed name suppression—and I am keen to promote that on behalf of the Teachers Council—we believe that going ahead with those changes at this time would be out of step with the work that my colleague the Hon Simon Power is also doing on name suppression within the criminal law system. Mr Power’s bill has gone to a select committee, so the proposal is that we wait for that bill to come back to the House and ensure that whatever we do is in step with that legislation. Although we will be voting against the amendment today, we support doing something as soon as we possibly can.

The second issue is to do with the proposal to increase the maximum fine. I am advised that this would be totally out of step with other provisions—for instance, the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act, which has a maximum fine of $10,000 for the breach of a similar order. We need to make sure we are in step with other legislation.

Finally, I say to Mr Davis that he is absolutely right, but unfortunately we cannot legislate for high-quality teaching. We know that it makes the most significant difference in schoolchildren’s learning. The way we do that is through the support we put behind the teaching force with things like professional development, resources, tools, and techniques. It is the support that we put behind our teachers. Unfortunately, we cannot legislate for that quality; legislation changes the structure. Mr Davis is right with regard to the trades academies that we are attempting to change the structure to create new opportunities, and of course we will evaluate the effectiveness of those changes.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this

I will speak on behalf of my colleague Catherine Delahunty, who is the Green Party’s education spokesperson and a member of the Education and Science Committee, which considered the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). She has asked that I raise a number of points during the Committee stage today.

The Green Party has real concerns about a number of aspects of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and we will continue to oppose it. The areas of concern are those that have been outlined by submitters such as the Law Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and, of course, the early childhood education sector. The issue of limited-attendance centres for children and the loss of police vetting has had some media coverage and for good reason. The Green Party agrees with Labour that the rationale for removing safety aspects at creches in malls because they are not educational facilities does not stack up. The police vetting of staff working with children should be a bottom line, and we would like to see clarity as to which legislation protects children before those clauses are removed from the Education Act. I am aware that there is a Supplementary Order Paper on the Table to fix the situation, which the Green Party will support.

We were also concerned about the issue of staff ratios. The whole approach to limited-attendance centres is classic laissez-faire politics. It sounds great to say that we should leave it to parental choice, but we do not think parents realise that standards will be removed from those centres. The baby is being thrown out with the bathwater, because regulation is allegedly bad and children’s needs are not at the centre of the argument in these clauses.

We are opposed to the changes to out-of-zone enrolments—again, we understand there is a Supplementary Order Paper to deal with that—and the criteria that give priority to children of former pupils or board members from outside the zone for the school. That kind of privileging is not warranted in public schools. The Green Party is opposed to that provision and if there is the capacity to change it, we would certainly support it.

One submitter raised the issue of the management of private schools, indicating that the bill has missed an opportunity to address recommendations from the Law Commission on a range of issues from suspension to governance. Although the Green Party does not prioritise issues in the private sector because we have our hands full trying to keep a free and equitable education ethos in the public school system of Aotearoa New Zealand, I know there are also Supplementary Order Papers on the Table on this issue, which may attract Green support. Children have human rights in all areas of education, private or public, and there are genuine gaps in the law and in the process of natural justice, so we are looking at those Supplementary Order Papers carefully.

We also oppose the late amendments to the bill, which Labour and National presented to the select committee and education sector in the last stages of the process. It is not good practice to shoehorn even more complex elements into the bill and to expect the education sector to have any ownership of it. The provisions around broadening the powers of the Teachers Council to suspend teachers needs a much more careful discussion with the sector itself, and that has not happened. Therefore, despite parts of the bill appearing inoffensive, the Green Party will not support this bill, and we will not support the Labour Supplementary Order Paper concerning the Teachers Council. Thank you.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

Firstly, I will respond to what the Minister of Education said about being unable to legislate for good teaching, or words to that effect. I agree with what she said, but I think that, as a Minister, she is the person who is able to create the conditions in which teachers can weave their magic.

One of the conditions that will have some effect is the provision of secondary-tertiary programmes. I would like to think that the Government could have taken the whole change of context idea a step further, and perhaps it could have introduced an idea that I raised in the second reading around specialist schools. Legislating for specialist schools could provide something similar to secondary-tertiary programmes, in that they change the context in which students are learning.

I know that the ACT Party and the National Party often talk about choice for parents and students, but that choice normally revolves around a student in a decile 4 school in one part of a city being able to go across town during the day to a decile 8 school. That is fine for upwardly mobile folks, but it does not address the issue of choice for those who cannot get around cities. The problem is that a decile 4 school teaches basically the same sort of stuff that a decile 8 school teaches, whereas, with specialist schools, someone who lives in the middle of a city could, within 20 minutes, go to a school that offers a different type of learning, such as, specialisation in the arts, specialisation in sports, or specialisation in science or technology. The Minister could legislate for different contexts that provide real choice for parents and students, and I would like to lay that thought on the table.

To go back to the parts of the bill we are debating, I point out my that colleague Trevor Mallard has already brought up the enrolment scheme priorities and changing the law so that the children of former pupils can attend the school their parents used to go to. How many students will pass National Certificate of Educational Achievement purely because they were able to attend the school their parents attended? We are talking about maybe a couple of hundred pupils at the most. It will not have an effect on the greater need of students across schools in New Zealand. So I fail to see why this provision has any real need to be discussed at a time such as this when we have more serious concerns—for example, the fact that one child in five is failing. This adds nothing to the raising of student achievement.

Likewise, if there is someone who lives in the Hutt Valley but is a member of a board of trustees here in the city so that their child can go to a school here in the city, how many students are we talking about who will benefit from this? The critical mass of students across New Zealand will not have their educational standards lifted by this. I believe that it is just another example of education legislation focusing on the wrong issues when we should be fairly and squarely focusing on the aspects that will raise achievement the most.

I believe that there has been a change in position in relation to limited-attendance centres since the second reading. I thought that was silly lawmaking at its worst in that limited-attendance centres would not have to vet people who were going to work there. I thought that was absolutely ridiculous and, in fact, dangerous for the little kiddies who would be attending those limited-attendance centres. There is no way on earth that a parent taking their child by the hand to drop them off at a limited-attendance centre for a couple of hours while mum or dad goes and does the shopping—

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

I rise to take a call on a couple of matters. It may come as some surprise to members opposite—and it might even wake up Paul Quinn, if I am lucky—that I am going to speak about the fact that there is unnecessary law. I think that I have a reputation amongst members on the other side of the Chamber for liking big Government and lots of laws and regulation, which is grossly—Colin King is nodding.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) Link to this

I will respond briefly to the point made by Kelvin Davis about clause 6, “How to select applicants who live outside the home zone”, particularly in relation to new section 11F(1)(d). Mr Davis argued against why we might want to include this provision, and I will give an opposing point of view to his.

I believe that this paragraph provides for tradition in a world where we have become increasingly transient.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

I look forward to having that debate on the hustings. Mr Quinn is saying that people can go to Hutt Valley High School because their parents went there but people who live a lot closer cannot.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

I take a brief call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). In many ways we are largely in agreement on the aspects that were being talked about. I will pick up on a couple of points. One is the secondary-tertiary interface. The option of partnership, which has been taken up, is the right one. That was certainly reinforced by many of the people who spoke in submissions at the Education and Science Committee. I think this is where education is heading towards: encouraging many more of our young people through school, and if school is not an appropriate vehicle for them, enabling them to move on to a tertiary education system that provides them with more flexibility in order to carry on and, in a sense, regain that confidence in schooling. The Manukau Institute of Technology, which has started this, has been mentioned. That went through in an earlier piece of legislation late last year or earlier this year. Fine work has been done there by Stuart Middleton, who is a former teacher of mine who actually taught me in the seventh form.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

I too will respond to Chris Tremain’s comments and his analogy about not accessing one’s own marae if one lives way away from it. Quite frankly, I would just go to the nearest marae, just like if my children could not go to the school that I went to, I would send them to the nearest school. This is exactly what I have done in Kaitāia. I grew up in Kawakawa, an hour and a half’s drive south, and it would not be practical for me to bus my kids down to the school I went to, so I just send them to the local school.

I will address the amendment from the Hon Trevor Mallard inserting new section 35RB after new section 35R in clause 11 of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). Subsection 1 of 35RB says: “Any student who is facing suspension or expulsion from attendance at a school registered under section 35A, or the parents of that student, may request details of that school’s disciplinary procedures.” I think that is common sense. In fact, it was my impression as a former principal that schools were meant to put out to their community their complaints procedure at the start. So, if a parent or a student—

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) Link to this

This is the path that I think we have finally come to, and if we had come to the agreement earlier than we have come to now, we probably would have come to it on 9 December rather than 11December.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

I agree entirely that it is sensible that police checks have been put back in the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). The fact is that police vetting has to occur for employees working in creches. I doubt that there is a parent who would go off to do their shopping with their child in hand and, wanting to leave their child at a limited-attendance centre, who would ask employees whether they had been police vetted and whether they had any convictions for child abuse, because nobody would say yes. So I think that is a necessary protection.

As has been mentioned, it will not totally eliminate untoward things happening to little kiddies in those limited attendance centres, but it is a measure of protection. It will give parents a lot more confidence in leaving their children in places such as in shopping malls. So I am grateful that this has occurred and that there has been some sort of compromise, so that this protection has been given back to these kids.

I also agree that there needs to be the type of protections that the Hon Trevor Mallard spoke about, such as for glassed-in areas. As a former principal I used to instruct staff, male staff in particular, not to put themselves in compromising situations or be left in a room with girls on their own. It is an unfortunate fact, but we had to provide those protections for our male staff to make sure that there would be no opportunity for anything untoward to happen and no opportunity for any accusations to be made about them. It is good that this measure has been reversed so the parents of these kiddies in the limited-attendance centres in malls will have confidence that their kids will be looked after.

This is a short call just to say that I think it is good. It is appropriate. It was a silly part to overlook in the original bill, and it is great that this has been remedied. As I said, parents can take their kids to those limited-attendance day-care centres and have just that extra measure of faith that their kids will be well looked after. Kia ora.