Estimates Debate — Vote Education (continued)

In the estimates report on education there is a small paragraph on student loans and student debt. In that teeny-weeny paragraph the Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) admits that student debt in this country “will continue to grow”. This Government has been consistently changing its approach to tertiary education policy since it was elected. Students supported the Labour Government after Labour ran a heavy campaign in 1999 to sort out the student loan scheme. Four years later, the student loan burden is not getting any lighter, and the Government’s policies are not making it any better. The silky-smooth public relations machine even had the cheek to manipulate the line of the Government. It managed to change the pledge from “making” tertiary education affordable to “keeping” tertiary education affordable without it having to make any considerable structural change to the system.

The Government’s knowledge economy policies are premised on the idea that a well-educated society is a public good, yet the tertiary education system still reflects the ideology that education is a private good, still reflects the myth that education is a commodity. Members need to be aware that the majority of the now $6 billion debt owed to the country by students was borrowed to pay for living costs—that is, their rent, their power, and their food. Those same students are trying desperately hard to train to become doctors, nurses, and teachers—professions that this country desperately needs. To so burden those people, and to continue to burden them, is not only wrong but immoral and unethical.

The current student debt burden is now $1 billion more than this year’s Budget surplus. We should not be surprised when students and graduates ask whether their student loan debt is actually a convenient way for the Government to make the books look good. It would cost the Government approximately $400 million to provide a universal student allowance for every tertiary student in this country. That is a comparatively small sum to provide all students with the living support that they need to obtain a quality tertiary education without racking up a huge debt that will hinder them during the most productive part of their lives, as they work hard to secure themselves a future in a very uncertain economic climate.

Likewise, it would cost about $400 million to reduce the fees for tertiary education to a maximum of $1,500 per year. But instead of actually using the money that is available to the Government to better enable students to access tertiary education, the Government has set up the fee maxima system, which simply means that students will be required to pay only an excessively high, prohibitive level of fees, rather than an exorbitantly high, prohibitive level of fees. Labour’s record on student debt and student loans is a total and utter disgrace.

In these estimates, the Minister of Education has managed to secure $8,200 million to spend on education. One has to feel sorry for education Ministers in this Government, because they are captured by the teacher unions and those in the debate who believe that increased spending on education brings improved education. New Zealand actually spends more on education, as a percentage of gross domestic product, than any other OECD country. In the last 50 years spending per pupil has quadrupled, but has that translated into education standards going up? No, it has not. Education standards have gone down, parents have remained shut out of the picture, and we have a situation now where only middle-income and high-income families have a choice about where their children go to school. We allow parents to choose which doctor they send their children to, but we do not allow poor parents, in particular, to choose which school their children go to.

Unlike my colleague from the Green Party, I am more concerned about those children who will never ever get to the gates of a university, and who will never even have the chance to take out a student loan, because in this vote the Government has ignored the issue of truancy once more. Nowhere in this estimate is the public more badly served than in the area of truancy. We are not investing any more resources in dealing with the growing problem of truancy. I note that the Education and Science Committee made the point that there is still no national database, and that it has now been put off till about 2005. The Non-enrolment Truancy Service has repeatedly called on this Government for help in trying to get children back to school.

I acknowledge that a database is not the silver bullet. There are a number of reasons that children do not go to school. Teachers rely on parents to get children to school, parents blame teachers, and we all end up blaming the Government. Well, I am not going to blame the Minister of Education. I ask him to take some advice, to think outside the square, and to put some more money into the Non-enrolment Truancy Service so that it can explore some of the reasons that children in the crucial age group that is hit by truancy—that is, ages 14 to 16—are school-resistant. They might not necessarily be education-resistant; they might just be resistant to the one-size-fits-all system, whereby they are put in a class with all their peers, and come under peer pressure to be naughty and not go to school. Not all of them have parents who are educationally irresponsible. They might be bullied, or they might not fit the system. We have the classic situation where Auckland Metropolitan College has closed down, and a number of the children who went there are now probably figuring in truancy statistics. They are not necessarily bad children; they just do not fit the rigid structures of other schools.

Why not spend a bit more than the measly $4.1 million that we give to the Non-enrolment Truancy Service? Truancy officers do an amazing job acting as social workers—better social workers than those from the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in a number of cases—and working full-time by necessity but being paid for only part-time hours. I ask the Minister in the chair, Steve Maharey, and Trevor Mallard to take some of the $30 million that has been tagged for the America’s Cup and invest it in the area of truancy.

Let us look at how bad the problem is becoming. In case people do not think we have a problem with truancy, I shall share with them the figures I got yesterday from the Parliamentary Library. In 1997 there were 3,172 referrals to the Non-enrolment Truancy Service, and last year that figure went up to 4,345. In 1 day in Manukau City, 1,200 children were identified as not being at school—and those are only the ones the service could pick up. Because we do not even have a database, we do not know about the others we are not picking up.

This Government is wasting money on film makers, musicians, and the arts in order to shore up its voting public at the next election; what about the wasted resource of these children? The Government is not investing in getting these children back to school, but is instead wasting resources on potential artists, film makers, musicians, and those sorts of people. We should look at what truancy costs the country further down the track. In most cases, children who are truants end up in the criminal courts and move on to become repeat offenders, unless something is done to look at why they do not want to go to school. Does this Minister want us to end up in the situation in Britain, where there are police in schools, and where mothers are being sent to jail?

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate on Vote Education. I am pleased to see that extra money is going into early childhood education under this Government. I believe that early childhood education is the absolute foundation, and the most important part, of our education system. If one puts in place a good foundation, it is built on; children have success, and that continues right throughout their education. We will be investing an extra $55 million in early childhood education over the next 4 years to ensure that more children can access early childhood education. A first-rate start is absolutely what we want for all young people. Research shows the significance of that boost at the start of their education; the good effects continue right through to the tertiary level.

The additional funding from the Budget 2003 is specifically targeted to increase participation and to raise the quality of early childhood education. Those are the things that are really important. We need to have increased participation rates, so that every young New Zealander has the opportunity to take part in early childhood education. The other thing is to raise the quality of early childhood education. This Government knows that the most important issue with education is the quality of the teaching that is put in place. That is particularly important at the early childhood level, because those young children are so vulnerable and deserve absolutely the best. This Government is committed to raising the professionalism and the quality of teachers in the early childhood sector.

We continue to build on the important foundations that have been set by the Government and the early childhood education sector working together. We set those foundations in Pathways to the Future: Ngā Huarahi Arataki, which is a 2-year strategic plan for early childhood education. It was launched last year, we are continuing that strategic plan, and we will see the benefits of that over time. There are three goals at the core of the action plan: increasing participation in quality early childhood education services, improving the quality of those early childhood education services, and promoting collaborative relationships. This Budget gives us all—that is, the Government, the workers in the education sector, and parents—the opportunity to continue working together to achieve those goals.

The additional funding brings total early childhood education spending to $421 million in 2003-04. The extra funding that is being put in place includes an extra $1.6 million in capital grants to provide property for licensed early childhood education services in areas where there are not enough services to meet the current demand. Over the next 4 years, nearly $1 million is being provided to the Developing Centres Fund, so that more children are able to attend playgroups in areas where they currently cannot access appropriate licensed and chartered early childhood education services. It is known as the Promoting Participation Project. An additional $1.4 million is being provided over the next 4 years for the Māori-Pasifika early childhood education teacher scholarship programmes, which are aimed at increasing the number of qualified Māori and Pasifika early childhood education teachers. We know that is an area where there have been profound shortages, and this Government is dedicated to making a difference in that area, and to making sure that those children have qualified teachers. There is $39 million to ensure that early childhood education services are compensated for cost increases in both staffing and operational areas. There is $4.5 million in capital funding over the next 2 years to implement a new funding framework for the sector. The number of early childhood education incentive grants is extended by 70 a year, to continue the Government’s commitment to assist early childhood education services to have their staff upgrade their qualifications. This is what is at the heart of improving the early childhood education sector.

If there is a magic bullet in public policy, this Government believes that it is education. That is why 31 percent of the Budget has gone to education—the equivalent of what has gone to health. In other words, there is no greater commitment that we in this Government make than the one we make to education. That is why we are spending over $8 billion on education, as was pointed out by Deborah Coddington. But when I sit here and listen to debates like this, I know why we are on 52 percent support in the polls, and other parties are struggling to get over the threshold. The debate about education is, fundamentally, the debate that Labour, along with its progressive coalition partner, is having with the country.

On one side of us we have a group of people who regularly travel the country and say that, despite 31 percent of the Budget going to education—over $8 billion—it is OK to spend $400 million more on allowances, to spend $500 million to abolish tertiary fees, and to spend $X million on what it would take to deal with the loan scheme. They say that all of that is affordable, that all of that is OK, that we should pile well over a billion and a half dollars more into just tertiary education, and that then, no doubt, we should turn our attention to the compulsory system, the early childhood system, the transport system, the health system, and so on, and start writing out cheques for them. It is a kind of logic that hardly anybody actually believes in enough to vote for it. Only a few people do. People might go to meetings and say that they wished the costs would go down, but they know that the only people who are serious about that are the people who are in Government now. That is why we are staying in Government. People understand that not only are we running the debate but also are the only people putting forward a genuine solution. We do not spend all our time with our heart on our sleeve. We try to think robustly about what we are doing. We are doing a good job. So when people on that side say that spending another $400 million would be OK, that another $500 million would be OK, and that we should just carry on racking up the amount and should just spend money, I take that to be interesting but not important.

On the other side of the debate we have people who say that we are spending far too much, that we should charge students more, and that the private gain to students during their lifetime from going to university is so great that they should pay for everything they have to face as university, polytechnic, wānanga, or college of education students.

💬 An Opposition Member: What about private training establishments?

And students at those private training establishments—whoever. I can say to Georgina te Heuheu that we pay them too, the taxpayer pays them, they are publicly funded—[Interruption] Well, Carich Computer Training has to face the same things that all other private training establishments do. National never treated the private training establishments as part of the tertiary education system; they were some kind of limb hanging off the side of it. Under this Government they know that they are in legislation as being part of the tertiary education system, and thereby are secure.

But that side of the debate says that we should not be paying so much, and that we should let students pay for their education as they get a private gain from it. People take one look at that and ask whether that argument means that students should pay the whole cost of training to be an engineer, a teacher, or a social worker. Once again, we think those arguments are interesting but not very important.

So we end up with a debate in here about people who, on the whole, attract a little bit of attention because they are saying extreme things. But in the centre of politics, straddling the whole of the centre of politics—the big tent of politics—is the Labour Government, which is taken seriously because its analysis is the only one in town that results in good, concrete, workable policies.

This Budget carries on that tradition. It carries on that sensible tradition of investment, and it says there are issues beyond students. It invests in the system. I wonder what the people who say we should spend another $400 million on allowances tell students about the quality investment in research, teaching, and so on that this Government is doing. I never hear people talk about that. The talk is always about one part of the equation. People have to be paid, and institutions have to be kept running in a quality fashion. This Budget does that. It puts money into research, innovation, e-learning, and the tuition costs of students. It is a good, balanced education Budget that reflects the fact that we think that if there is a magic bullet, it is called education. That is why this Budget so clearly emphasises education, and that is why I believe that people around the country will carry on supporting exactly what this Government is doing.

I am very pleased to join in this debate on Vote Education. As the Minister, Steve Maharey, has just outlined to the House, education is very much what the Labour Government and the Labour Party, historically, has been about. Many of us in this Government have an education background in a variety of service. I was not a teacher, but certainly have worked in the education sector before coming into Parliament. It was, in many respects, my passionate belief in education for all, that drove me towards coming into politics in a more formal sense.

I am proud of what our Government has done historically, and currently is doing, for education. One of the reasons we have been successful in that particular policy area is our acknowledgment and practice of the interconnectedness of the compulsory education sector with what happens to people when they go out into the working world. Today Minister Maharey responded to a question about industry training and the fantastic results that are being achieved in this country because this Government works with industry in providing education and training that is responsive to the needs of the modern world.

Our most recent industry training publication reports a 12 percent increase in trainees to a wonderful figure of nearly 107,000. That is commendable and will show tremendous results in the workforce in New Zealand, as New Zealand’s productivity and modern workplace delivery continues to occur. That stands in stark contrast to the practices of those parties opposite that will, I suspect, be on the Opposition benches for many years to come. They certainly do not show any signs of getting their act together with regard to education, which is the core, a fundamental part of governing any country responsibly, and looking towards the future.

A most alarming comment was recently made by a National Party spokesperson on a range of issues but nothing defined, Don Brash, with regard to his approach to the treatment of employees, when he said that every 2 to 3 years they can get a bit stale and can be replaced.

💬 Hon Member: That’s true.

That is true in respect of some of the members of the main Opposition party—or what was the main Opposition party but does not hold that position any longer, at 22 percent and falling. Opposition members’ approach to people is really summed up in that line of Don Brash’s that people in the workplace get a bit stale and can just be replaced. This Labour Party, historically and currently, does not see people as superfluous or expendable and who can be discarded at the whim of those who may be more powerful.

Our philosophy has always been to value people, to give them the skills, to give them the opportunity to be the best they possibly can, and by supporting people through to realising their full potential. One of the ways we have seen that evidenced so obviously in our communities, particularly our regional communities, is the expansion of the Modern Apprenticeships scheme, which we continue to receive very positive comments about as we talk to employers in our electorates. That has had tremendous results. A great deal of work has gone into that, and the partnership between the Government and industry has produced some superb results. It is wonderful to see young people out there in the workforce delighted about what they are able to achieve, to contribute to their own local economy; and the boost to their morale is just tremendous. This is a Government that is serious about education and puts its money where its mouth is.