Education Amendment Bill (No 2), Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) Link to this

I move, That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) amends the Education Act 1989. The changes in this bill will enable the establishment of secondary-tertiary programmes, reduce the compliance burden on limited-attendance centres, protect the sustainability of New Zealand’s export education sector, improve the law affecting private schools, make minor changes to school enrolment scheme priorities, and make changes to help the Teachers Council safeguard children and maintain teacher quality.

The first significant amendment will introduce secondary-tertiary programmes, enabling the establishment of this Government’s ground-breaking trades academies from the beginning of next year. Trades academies will provide students with clear pathways, giving them a head start on training for industry-related qualifications and smoother access to employment. Trades academies will motivate more students to stay engaged in learning and training by providing them with a greater number of options for study.

Secondary-tertiary programmes are particularly important because they allow students to remain enrolled in school while also studying towards a full qualification with a tertiary provider. The framework introduced by this bill makes sure that secondary-tertiary programmes will be high-quality and that accountability for the delivery of these programmes is clear.

The second significant amendment in the bill will reduce the compliance burden for limited-attendance centres by exempting them from the licensing standards for early childhood education. Although they will no longer be subject to early childhood education regulatory requirements for education plans, qualified teachers, and space and ratio specifications, they will now be subject to requirements by the operators of the facility and to legislative requirements to ensure the safety and welfare of the children. But parents also have a responsibility to make sure that their children are in a safe place.

Thirdly, the bill will enable the relevant Minister to set, through a notice in the New Zealand Gazette, refund provisions for international students enrolled at private training establishments for courses of 3 months or more. These changes will minimise the undesirable consequences associated with international students changing provider shortly after they arrive in New Zealand. The bill will reduce the financial incentive for students to change provider in this way.

The bill updates and clarifies the law affecting private schools in response to the Law Commission report, Private Schools and the Law. It also amends the enrolment scheme priorities for out-of-zone students by giving some priority to children of board members and children of former pupils, recognising the heritage of many of our schools and the strong family links formed in many communities.

The legislation also makes some changes to the legislation affecting the Teachers Council. I am grateful to the Education and Science Committee for including these changes to the legislation and to the House for agreeing to a further amendment to ensure that suspended teachers need not be automatically dismissed.

An anomaly in current law means that the Teachers Council can take a range of actions as a result of a complaint about conduct or competence, but not as a result of a mandatory report. The bill corrects that anomaly and allows that these actions include, but not be limited to, the annotation of the teachers register. This change will ensure that teachers who may be a danger to student welfare or who are otherwise unsuitable can quickly be removed from the classroom while their case is investigated. The current law technically requires boards of trustees to dismiss a teacher who is the subject of an interim suspension, and in many cases this may be unfair. This requirement too has been clarified so that an employer of a teacher is not forced to dismiss a teacher who has been suspended while their case is investigated.

Finally, the bill clarifies that the principal adviser to the Government on tertiary education policy is the Ministry of Education. The bill also clarifies the role of the Tertiary Education Commission, requiring it to advise the Minister on the implementation of policy relating to tertiary education. These changes will introduce greater clarity in the functions of the Ministry of Education and the Tertiary Education Commission. I commend this legislation to the House.

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

Labour will be opposing this legislation. I say that more in sadness than in anger, because it actually contains quite a few provisions that Labour supports. It includes policy that Labour supports but thinks is unnecessary to put into legislation. There is a combination of quite a lot of good stuff in this legislation, including the amendments that were made late in respect of the Teachers Council, which involved a degree of cooperation. I think it is fair to say there was searching questioning from the Greens at the Education and Science Committee. Those of use who are slightly more familiar with the problems that teachers can cause in schools and sometimes the urgency of getting it sorted were maybe less concerned about process and more concerned about the immediacy of kids. There is always a fine balance, and I think it is fair to say we were on one side of a boundary and the Greens were on another. It is not a big division. While I am speaking about the select committee and what happened there, I thank again Allan Peachey, who chairs the committee.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) Link to this

It is a pleasure to take a brief call in the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I will focus on one particular area, and it is a point that was well made by the other side of the House. Quite often we have too much regulation around education. I direct that comment particularly to new clauses 31A through to 31L. My experience in respect of the secondary-tertiary programmes is that there is a considerable push-back within the curriculum and academia largely to do with the people who want to spawn, grow, and develop programmes that will aid people who are hands-on learners. I disagreed with Trevor Mallard when he said that these things can happen already. The truth of the matter is that there needs to be direction from the Government to make sure that the seeds of these initiatives are allowed to develop and grow.

On that basis, it gives me great pleasure to support the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), so that we can see a lot more growth and diversity and innovation, and it is not stymied by the difficulties of fitting within periods and structures of the academic curriculum of today. I certainly support this bill’s passage through the House.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) Link to this

Mr Deputy Speaker, tuatahi māku me whai wāhi ahau ki te mihi atu ki tērā o ngā tuāhine a te Hōnore Hekia Parata, kua tohua hei Minita o te Karauna i tērā wiki kua pahure ake nei, i te wāhanga o te tautohetohe. Kua wareware ahau ki te mihi atu ki a koe, Hēkia. Nā reira, tēnā rā koe mō tēnei hōnoretanga hei runga i ō pokowhiwhi, me kī, hei runga i a tātou te iwi Māori. Nā reira, tēnā koe, tēnā koe, tēnā koe.

[The first thing for me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker, is to set aside a moment in the debate so that I can acknowledge that sister politician of ours, the Hon Hekia Parata, who was appointed a Crown Minister just last week. I forgot to do that, Hekia. Congratulations on this honour placed upon your shoulders—let us say, upon us, the Māori people. Well done, congratulations, and good on you.]

Labour will not support the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), aside from the part Trevor Mallard has just mentioned that protects children in day-care centres. I am glad about that, because I believe that the bill will do very little to raise achievement, whereas I believe that all education legislation and education policy should be targeted at raising achievement.

I think we spend too much time focusing on peripheral issues, such as whether children should have hereditary rights to attend the schools their parents went to. I think that is a total waste of our time. Perhaps when we have covered all the other main issues in education, which would take a number of decades I believe, then we might finally get to that issue, which might be at the top of the priority list, but right now it is, in my opinion, way down at the bottom of the list. We should be focusing on the core issues that will raise achievement.

I have already spoken a couple of times in the House about making sure that teachers are given the conditions in which they can weave their magic. It is up to us in this House to create those conditions as politicians and as policy makers. We need to make sure teachers understand that they have to account for the effect size on the strategies they use. They need to know and prove that what they are doing in classrooms, in tertiary institutions, or in early childhood centres is making a difference. They need to question their practice and they need to have those skills. That is what we need to be legislating for and it is what we need to have policy on—making sure teachers can question the efficacy or otherwise of their practice, challenge their assumptions, and go on to make changes where necessary.

We should aim for 100 percent of our students right across New Zealand to leave school at the end of year 13 with a National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 3, or university entrance on top of that. I do not think we do enough to engage kids in school. That is something else that teachers need to be able to do—engage students at school right through until the end of year 13. Research states that the success of students in their adult lives is not so dependent on how high their qualifications are, but rather on the length of time they spend at school. So in other words, if a student stays at school right until the end of year 13 and achieves only NCEA level 1, they have more chance of being successful as an adult then if they got NCEA level 1 in year 11 and then dropped out. So we need to encourage students and create the conditions where students will stay at school right through to the end of year 13.

We need to work with parents, as well. It is about engaging parents in the education of their children, so that they set in their children’s minds at the very earliest age and consistently apply the expectation that their kids will stay in school until the end of year 13. A student would be better off eating their lunch for 13 years at school than dropping out in year 9, year 10, or year 11—but I do not want people to think that is what I am encouraging students to do.

We really, really need to support our teachers with professional development. This morning I was up just north of Wellsford at the opening of a marae, and I heard a story from Bishop Kito Pīkaahu. I thought it was the perfect metaphor to describe the place of professional development. He told us a story about two men who were given an axe each and told to go and clear a hill of scrub. One guy had to clear the left-hand side of the hill and the other guy had to clear the right-hand side of the hill. The guy who was clearing the left-hand side of the hill was known to be a hard worker who could work from dawn to dusk without stopping. The other guy was not quite so athletic, and he decided that every hour he would take a 10-minute break. At the end of the day when they came back down, the guy who worked his guts out without stopping had cleared three-quarters of the hill. The guy who took a 10-minute break every hour had cleared the whole side of the hill. The guy who worked his guts out could not understand why that had happened, so he asked the other guy: “Why is it that you were able to clear the whole side of the hill?”. The other guy said: “Well, every time I sat down for a 10-minute break I sharpened my axe.”

That is a metaphor for always making sure that teachers have regular time to sharpen their tools and to hone their skills. There is no point for them to just go on working and slogging their guts out for 10, 15, or 20 years without having regular professional development where they can sharpen their axe, their tools. I think we need to create the conditions where teachers are able to do that. We need to support teachers; we do not need to keep hammering away, driving them like slaves.

I already said in the Committee stage that this bill looks at secondary-tertiary programmes, and I think those programmes do have merit. I know there is no evidence to say that they will definitely make a difference to a student’s education, but I think there is a perfect opportunity for researchers to follow them for the next 5 or 10 years in order to determine whether they actually make a difference. I really hope they do work, because they change the context in which students are learning.

The programmes give an element of choice to students who are not comfortable or not succeeding in the traditional school setting. Those students have the opportunity to go off and to work in a tertiary setting. The programmes are mainly apprenticeships, which is great. We need to encourage students to follow different avenues. But I do have a concern that those students who have the brains, particularly if they are difficult students to teach, may be encouraged to head off down a trade-type line instead of being encouraged to stay in school. Regardless of those side issues, I think it is an opportunity worth exploring, and one I think we should take further in terms of changing the context in which students can learn.

We should set up specialist schools, or perhaps a pilot in an inner-city area, where parents have the choice not to send their children to just a regular school where they do maths, science, social studies, and English but instead to, say, an arts school. The children still learn to read and write but they would do that around the theme of art. They could learn about art history, they could practise different types of art, they could learn dance, they could learn drama, or they could learn to sculpt. The students could do whatever. The school would be based around a particular context and a particular theme so that the children, hopefully, are engaged in their learning. For example, if we wanted to teach a child in a regular school how to play the violin, we would have to hope that someone who could play the violin got a job there as a music teacher, whereas if we had an arts school where music was part of the curriculum, the school could apply especially for a violin teacher and we expect that teacher, who could play the violin, would have an intense passion and flair for what he or she was teaching and a love of that subject. We would hope that having that teacher would get better results, because he or she could bring that passion into the job.

Again, I say I am glad. We will vote against this legislation other than Part 1A, which protects kids in day-care centres in malls. I think that is a sensible thing to do. It was a dangerous oversight, I believe, to omit that provision in the original bill, and I am glad that that provision has been returned. Kia ora.

DAVID CLENDON (Green) Link to this

I am pleased to take a call on this legislation. I acknowledge the work that my colleague Catherine Delahunty has done in terms of the Education and Science Committee and of generally maintaining awareness of the way this legislation has been going.

It is undoubted that the education sector is in need of change, and possibly some legislative reform is required to facilitate changes in that sector, but we do not see that the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), in total, delivers much of value or engages with the very serious, real, and substantive issues of the day that affect the sector and the people in it. There is a considerable atmosphere of distrust in the entire education sector at this time. To us, this legislation seems to be just tidying-up, or messing around at the edges, rather than going to the heart of and addressing some of the more substantive and, indeed, more urgent issues. It is never a bad thing to tidy up some of the small shortcomings of legislation or of practice, but it seems to be an opportunity lost and time not well spent to be dealing with the lesser issues and leaving the larger ones untouched.

It is clear that the education sector as a whole, the ministry, and—dare I say it—the Minister of Education seem to be almost in a state of war. Something of a battle is raging out there, particularly over the issue of educational assessment. The Principals Federation, the teachers unions, several hundred boards of trustees, and the Porirua City Council have had opinions, and many parents groups are clearly concerned about the absence of any trialling of the national standards that are being imposed.

A perceived threat is hanging over the early childhood education sector, as it is forced to cut quality. That sector is being put in the unenviable position of either raising charges or cutting the quality of the service it delivers, and it simply ought not to be put in that situation.

The tertiary education sector is in some disarray, as enrolments for study are capped. In the meantime, instead of dealing with very substantive issues, we are focusing on the rules about people leaving their children somewhere while they go to the gym and shopping in malls.

Some reasonable objectives are contained in this bill, connected to refunds for international students. There is some useful spelling out of the relationship between schools and tertiary providers in terms of trades training. There are changes regarding teacher registration. We have challenged those changes in terms of the process undertaken to achieve them, but we see some value and benefit in the content of those changes.

We are voting against this legislation, despite the fact that there is some good content. Some valuable changes are accommodated in it, but, overall, the bad changes in this legislation certainly outweigh the good. The parts of this legislation that we cannot support are clearly ideologically consistent with the Government’s overall philosophy about the myth of choice and the belief in protecting the privileged.

The clauses relating to limited-attendance centres were bizarre. They were very strange in that they reduced the protection for children in order to facilitate some undefined convenience for parents. We are not disputing that those creches are limited to childcare rather than education; we agree that they do not need the same level of educational scrutiny, audit, or regulation. But it is an absolutely critical responsibility to ensure the safety and the protection of children, and we are pleased that that matter has been attended to. We acknowledge the determined campaign that has been led by Mr Mallard in order to effect that change. We will be very happy to support that amendment, which has become a part of the new legislation.

The Green Party remains fundamentally opposed to the idea of the proposed changes and the priority settings for enrolments of out-of-zone students. These changes do not accurately reflect an egalitarian approach to education, nor do they sufficiently acknowledge our mobile and diverse population. They clearly offer privilege to those with parents who once attended a school, or to the children of members of boards of trustees, which creates a sense of entitlement among certain groups for no really robust or sound reason. Public schools need to maintain the integrity of the open access and the lack of special privilege that our education system was built upon, and we think that philosophy is certainly worth maintaining. If parents are determined to maintain some sort of dynasty or some continuation, they have the option of going private or they can simply stay in the zone.

We see the clauses relating to private schools as an opportunity lost. The Law Commission review of private schools provided some useful recommendations—some relatively light-handed recommendations—some of which have been included, but too many of them have been ignored. The human rights of all children need to be protected in law, and we agree with at least one submitter that that has not been achieved in this legislation.

As has been noted, we are on record speaking against the late amendments brought to the select committee relating to the powers of the Teachers Council. We listened to the teachers unions, which were summoned at the last minute to comment on changes to the suspension rules. The New Zealand Educational Institute said that, as representatives of a large professional body, it did not support the changes to the working conditions and rules governing its profession without appropriate and adequate consultation with its membership. We think that is a reasonable stance for it to take. There was no substantive argument in favour of this change being rushed through. It may indeed be a good idea, but it is important that a robust process be put in place; without such a process, we cannot agree to this part.

We believe that the sector and the Government need to work together to deal with some of the substantive problems that are obvious and that have been mentioned, but the current climate is such that there is not the degree of engagement or trust needed to enable or facilitate that open and necessary conversation. We will continue to be available, and will continue to work with and within the sector to advance the debate that we ought to be having in this House today, instead of the rather lightweight and disappointing discussion that is occurring. We will continue to oppose this legislation. Kia ora.

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) Link to this

I am always proud to stand in this House to support education reform and legislation. I spoke earlier today about two of the priorities of this Government, and this legislation adds the third priority to the list. This area is a strong reason that the Prime Minister is so widely supported up and down the country. This legislation maximises participation and keeps students engaged in education across all levels.

I was quite shocked to hear the analogy that one of the Labour members raised, which was probably a plagiarism from Stephen Covey. Most of those of us in business would understand the concept of sharpening the saw. Businesses up and down this country would love to have the luxury of 14 weeks a year in which to sharpen the saw, which is what our teachers get. I know that many businesses would dearly love to have that opportunity, but unfortunately they do not have it.

The specific point that I will make about this particular legislation, which I am immensely proud of, is the changes to enrolment schemes. I had a member’s bill in the ballot on this point, and that is now part of the legislation that we are passing today. I remind the House that the focus of members on this side of the House is on students being engaged in their learning. One of the strong aspects of having students engaged in their learning is their connection to the school, and their parents being connected, as well. If we talk to parents at the moment who are getting wonderful reports at home from their school, we find that it is a fantastic opportunity for them to engage with their children, their schools, and their learning. That is why I am enormously proud to support this legislation.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

It is extraordinary that that member, Louise Upston, cannot pass up the opportunity to put the boot into teachers. There is such an enormously long queue of people waiting to become teachers, just to enjoy their 14 weeks’ holiday! I am sure that the teachers who are listening to the debate will be saying: “Oh goodness me! Not again. This National Government does not understand what we do and the importance of our role.”

One really interesting point in the OECD report that came out in the last few days is that it put New Zealand very high on the educational ladder, but behind Finland. The Finnish society values its teachers much, much more than we do here in New Zealand. They are paid more, they have better conditions, there is a queue of people waiting to become teachers, and schools choose from many more people who apply than are actually selected to be teachers. As a result, needless to say, no surprise, Finland has a better-performing education system than we do. We could take a leaf out of Finland’s books, in order to improve our education system. I think the member Louise Upston has got it dead wrong.

As has been said, Labour is not supporting this legislation, but it does do a number of things in terms of tidying thing up. I have mentioned in an earlier speech that there are the good, the bad, and what I would describe as the ugly parts of this legislation. I think the ugly parts have been removed, but there are some parts of the legislation that are not so good.

As I said in the Committee stage, I believe that the secondary-tertiary partnership option that has been selected is a good one. I think it provides more opportunities—particularly as it has been trialled in South Auckland—for Pasifika and Māori kids to go on to tertiary education. Many of those kids may not have performed so well in a secondary environment, and this provision might provide a more amenable environment for them to be able to take on trades, particularly in the industry and manufacturing sectors.

The legislation also makes some changes to international students and their obligations towards institutions here in New Zealand. By notice the Gazette sets the period during which international students on courses of 3 months’ duration or longer can withdraw from their course and receive a refund on their course fees. Basically, that means that private training establishments will be able to retain more money and to recoup more money that has been sunk into recruiting an international student if the student pulls out of the course much earlier than he or she would have. It means that the students will face higher financial costs if they want to pull out of the course. That amount has not been reviewed since the early 1990s, and I think it is overdue for change. It will mean that there will be a lot less of the waka-jumping that we have seen up until now, and it will possibly also have the effect of deterring students from coming to New Zealand, on the pretence of joining an educational institution, and then leaving their course shortly after they arrive here and staying on in New Zealand. This is a tidying-up part of the legislation, but I think it is a useful and good part of it.

I turn to the aspect of private schools that both Mr Mallard and David Clendon have spoken about. I think it was 90 years ago that this legislation was last looked at. The Law Commission has made a number of recommendations, and most of them are very sensible. Some of the recommendations have been taken up and others have not—

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

I thought I would have a go at waking up Paul Quinn, as well. I can tell members that after this debate I will get the video clip of Louise Upston saying she thought that teachers had 14 weeks of holiday a year, and I will send that to every teacher in the country, because I think when they see National’s view that teachers have 14 weeks of holiday every year, they will all come flooding to the Labour Party in droves. Teachers will be so outraged at that. I know that Louise Upston may think teachers have 14 weeks’ holiday, but she does not seem to allow for the fact that in order to be in a classroom and teach students, they actually have to have time to prepare the lessons they will deliver and to mark the assignments of the students. It is not holidays that the teachers have for 14 weeks. Perhaps if that member visited one or two of the schools in her electorate, she might have a bit of a—Anne Tolley seems to be shaking her head. She seems to think that teachers have 14 weeks of holiday, as well. I think that probably just confirms what most teachers in the country think about the Minister of Education already.

I am happy to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), and I particularly acknowledge the work my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has done in regard to the drop-off early childhood education services and limited-attendance centres—I think that is the term the Government uses for them. I think the amendment that has been put forward in the name of Trevor Mallard, and passed with the Government’s support, is a particularly important one. I think it is vitally important that when parents leave their children with an early childhood service, if people in that service have access to those children without any other form of supervision, there should be adequate safety measures in place to ensure those children will be safe, regardless of where it is and the duration of the stay. I think the amendment put forward by Trevor Mallard will help to ensure that that happens.

I also think it is good that the Government has finally come to the party on that amendment, after spending weeks and weeks denying that there was even a problem with what it was trying to do, as we have seen at question time over and over again. It is very good that my colleague Trevor Mallard, supported by the other members of Labour’s education team, has not let this issue go, and has continued to push it. We have dragged the Government kicking and screaming to what will be a sensible outcome in that regard. However, there are many other things in the bill that will result in Labour finally opposing it.

Before I move on and stop talking about early childhood education, I will pick up on some of the comments that have characterised the debate in relation to limited-attendance centres.

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

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to know whether it is appropriate for Minister Hide to have taken his position in the chair before you have put the House into Committee.