Education Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The bill contains two areas of significant policy change. Those are to establish a new regulatory regime in the early childhood education sector, and to extend the national student number to both the early childhood and compulsory education sectors. This bill also implements a number of changes to reform and improve the state of education legislation in order to make it more workable and less out of date. The chair and members of the Education and Science Committee in the previous Parliament deserve our thanks for their careful consideration of this bill, and for the constructive amendments they have recommended.

This Government has undertaken major reforms in early childhood education. Our 10-year strategic plan is increasing participation in quality early childhood education, improving quality, and promoting effective relationships between all those involved. The Government intends to implement a new regulatory regime for early childhood education to underpin that plan.

The bill replaces Part 26 of the Education Act 1989 with a new Part 26. Existing provisions contain ambiguities; the new amendments will give the early childhood sector more certainty about the standards they need to meet in order to become licensed and receive Government funding. Under the new requirements, all early childhood education and care centres will need to be licensed. Exceptions are home-based education and care services, and hospital-based education and care services. Those services can choose to be licensed. Play groups can also choose to become certificated play groups, in order to receive Government funding. New regulations will set out the minimum standards that early childhood services and play groups will need to meet in order to become licensed or certificated. Those new criteria will ensure greater consistency in licensing standards than is currently the case. The new regulations will be phased in over 6 years—giving everyone time to meet the standards—and follow extensive consultation.

New Zealand is one of the first countries in the world to have a nationwide early childhood education curriculum. Including reference to it in legislation shows its significance to quality early childhood education. This bill enables the Minister of Education to prescribe a curriculum framework for licensed and certificated services after thorough consultation with all those involved. All these new proposals were the subject of consultation with early childhood sector representatives throughout the country in June and July 2004.

The bill amends the Education Act 1989 and the Education Standards Act 2001 to enable kindergartens providing an all-day service to meet the same registration requirements as other early childhood services providing a full-day’s service. Kindergarten contract negotiations have resulted in kindergarten teachers’ performance being assessed against agreed professional standards. An amendment to the State Sector Act 1988 allows the Secretary for Education to prescribe guidelines for kindergarten associations to use when assessing their teachers against those standards. Amending the Act will ensure national consistency in the application of standards.

The second significant amendment to the Education Act 1989 will see the existing National Student Number extended throughout the whole education sector. The National Student Number is already used in the senior, secondary, and tertiary sectors to keep students’ academic records correct and to ensure the efficient and accurate funding of our education institutions—to stop people double-dipping, I suppose! Extending the National Student Number is necessary to improve the data-management processes for the education sector. The National Student Number will enable information in different systems to be linked together for more efficient analytical use. Researchers will be able to obtain statistical data for longitudinal research on student achievement. This data will identify trends, but not individual students.

This new legislation has been developed in consultation with the Privacy Commissioner, and safeguards will be in place to ensure that extending the National Student Number will not expose it to misuse. Authorised uses of the National Student Number are specified as early childhood services, schools, tertiary education organisations, the Ministry of Education, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, the Tertiary Education Commission, Career Services, and any other body or body agency declared by regulations following consultation with the Privacy Commissioner.

Authorised users may use the National Student Number for only one or more of the approved uses. All other uses are prohibited. Approved uses are monitoring and ensuring a student’s enrolment and attendance, ensuring education providers and students receive appropriate resourcing, statistical purposes, research purposes, and ensuring students’ educational records are accurately maintained. A maximum fine of $15,000 is provided for any instance where the national student number is misused.

Other amendments in the Education Amendment Bill are designed to improve administration efficiency and to transfer and update sections of older legislation that is still in force to the Education Act 1989. Sections that are no longer necessary are repealed. The sections covering the powers and duties of the Teachers Council have been amended to enable the council to handle the process of registration and discipline more efficiently. This includes a penalty for breaching the disciplinary tribunal orders relating to confidentiality, so vulnerable witnesses are better protected.

A number of amendments are designed to recognise the practical working environment for boards of trustees. Boards will no longer be required to hold an annual meeting. The current requirement serves little purpose, and most boards find it irksome. Similarly, the time that a board has to decide how to fill a casual vacancy has been extended from 4 weeks to 8 weeks.

The bill contains amendments to ensure that international students enrolled with adult and community education providers are covered by the same legislation that applies to international students enrolled with other education providers. The bill also gives effect to Cabinet’s decision that international students in the early childhood sector do not receive Government subsidies. The bill allows the Crown to share revenue from applying the international student levy to integrated schools with the proprietors of those schools. That recognises the contribution that proprietors make to capital costs at those schools. Minor and technical changes to improve administration efficiencies are made in the tertiary sector. Other provisions, including the offence of wilful disturbance of a school or early childhood centre, school transport provision, and bonded scholarships for entry to teaching, are updated and transferred to the Education Act 1989.

A similar process has been followed for the Education Lands Act 1949; provisions applying to leases and licences of school property have also been updated and transferred to the Education Act 1989.

I will be circulating a Supplementary Order Paper proposing several amendments for consideration during the Committee stage of the bill; for example, the ability to use the Student Loan Scheme Act 1992 to recover any money owing if the recipients of bonded scholarships default on their obligations, and some corrections and minor changes to the bill that will improve the drafting of some sections of the bill.

In conclusion, the bill continues the Government’s commitment to raising the standards of our education system and to tidying up and streamlining education legislation to make it easier to follow, and more efficient to implement. I commend the bill to the House.

I thank the previous speaker for that absolutely riveting speech, which no doubt was written by the Prime Minister’s office.

First, I congratulate the chairman of the Education and Science Committee on a good report. I agree with everything in it. I think our party agrees with most things in it. The problem we have is that when we read the report and hear what the Minister has just said, we know a whole lot is going on that we are not privy to. That is really great. The Minister has just talked to the House about quality education in the early childhood sector, but nowhere in that speech did he refer to the 20 free hours policy. That policy is a huge policy for teacher-led centres, both in the private and the public sector.

When did the Government come up with that policy? It was about 2004, in the Budget. The policy did not have any money, any roll-out plan, or any implementation plan. Oh, no—the policy was just thought up the day before the Budget. The Government thought that it would give early childhood centres 20 free hours, but it was just for the Government stoolies. Then all of a sudden, just before the election, Government members said to themselves that they had better roll it out for teacher-led private providers as well. However, a year after the Government first thought of that policy there is still no implementation plan or roll-out plan, and the Government still does not know how much that policy will actually cost. That is a huge mistake to make.

How do we know that? We should look at the New Zealand Educational Institute agreement with the Kindergarten Teachers Association just last week. What did they get in that agreement? There is a 13-month agreement just to talk over the implementation plan for 20 free hours—

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Say that again. Is that true?

They got a 13-month agreement. Those guys went out on a national strike. Rick Barker knows what a national strike is. He has been on plenty. In fact, he has been on one ever since he came to the House. Those guys got a 13-month agreement. There was no wage increase, no better pay and conditions—as we might think the union would have battled for. What did they get? They got a 13-month agreement to sit down and talk about a programme the Government does not know how to roll out or what its cost will be. That is absolutely—well, I am absolutely horrified!

But here is the thing. Those 20 free hours are not available to kōhangas, and they are not available to playcentres, because they are not so-called teacher-led. Why does the Government not take all this money it apparently has—the hundred million dollars that the 20 free hours a week policy will cost at the end of the day—and just give it to the centres, and tell the centres to get on with the job of teaching our children? I know that bulk funding is not National policy but, by crikey, I am a real fan of bulk funding. I will tell members why. It keeps those members over there out of the business of teaching our children. I say we should leave the teaching of children to the experts, not to the “spin machines” over there.

What is disappointing tonight is the fact that the Minister of Education is not even in the House. He is not even in the House to talk to the bill.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

It is called the Education Amendment Bill, and he is not even here in the House.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Barker. I think I am aware of what your point of order is. No mention should be made of the absence or otherwise of any member. Is that it?

💬 Hon Rick Barker: That is it, Mr Deputy Speaker.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Henare.

I hear through the Minister that he and his side are going to introduce not just one Supplementary Order Paper, not just two Supplementary Order Papers, but a whole raft of Supplementary Order Papers. Now, what does that suggest to the House? Well, it suggests to me that they do not know what they are doing. You would have thought they would have got it right.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Yeah—I am saying: “You would have thought”—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to raise this issue with you and see whether we cannot do something about it. I am guided by you—am I allowed to say that? Yes, I am. I am referring to the restriction on the use of the word “you”. I think it is archaic. I think it has to be removed, and I seek some sort of ruling and guidance from you on that.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I cannot, of course, agree with you, but I do not disagree. At the moment it is not allowed and the member may not use it. Most members occasionally use it, but it is not allowed under Speakers’ rulings and the Standing Orders. So the member will desist, please, and continue his contribution.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it not amazing that the only people from the Labour Party—well, let us put it this way. I know I am not allowed to do this, but let us count the National Party members present: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15—15 members in the House at 5 to 10 at night—

💬 Christopher Finlayson: Including the leader.

—including the leader of the National Party: the next Prime Minister of this country, the man who does not go around the country spending $450,000 on a pledge card.

If Labour thought about all the stuff the Hon Jim Sutton talked about tonight in his speech, it could actually put that on a pledge card. Labour could take the $100 million it has allocated—or not allocated—for the 20 free hours a week policy, and give some money toward the pledge card so that maybe they could write down all those things they are going to do, for instance, like the regulatory regime.

We have enough regulations in the industry right now. Why do we need more? This industry—at the moment I am concerned with just the early childhood sector—is over-regulated, over-bureaucratised, and over-sanitised. No one can do anything about it. My mother-in-law runs an early childhood centre. What she complains about most is not the kids or the teachers.

💬 Pita Paraone: The mokopunas.

No, she does not complain about her mokopunas; she loves her mokopunas—especially my kids. What she complains about is the bureaucracy and having to fill out forms. Her job is having to fill out childcare subsidy forms. Why should it fall to her to do that? Why can the parents not do that? Or why can the parents not pick the subsidy up in a tax rebate? Those are the sorts of things this industry needs—and some clear, basic regulations and standards.

Those Government members always wanted to be early childhood teachers. They could not get there, so they became members of Parliament. They could not do the training or the hard yards, as those teachers inside our early childhood centres have done.

💬 Sue Moroney: They couldn’t teach that member.

Oh, not that member—for the last 6 years I have worked in kōhangas, and Ms Moroney would not know what the inside of a kōhanga looked like. She would not know what the inside of an early childhood centre looked like. It is not those members’ business, but they want to tell early childhood centres how to run their businesses. It is not Government members’ business but they want to tell those teachers how to run their businesses—and that is the problem.

Does the House know there is a regulation about the measurements of a toilet, for goodness’ sake, as to how far it is off the ground? For goodness’ sake, children will go poo-poos wherever and whenever they so damn well wish! There is a regulation that states a teacher is not allowed to be left alone changing a child’s nappy, just in case something might happen. For goodness’ sake, the Napier earthquake happened, but people got on with their blimin lives. They did not rely on the Government to get them out of the poo all the time.

I commend this report, because it is a good report. It looks at some of the regulations, and proposes that we should tidy them up a bit. It could have gone further, and I think it is imperative that we, as a Parliament, make sure we get rid of regulations that should not be there. That is why we are actually opposing it. It is a good report, but it does not go far enough and it is time for us to go that extra step and cut the regulations. We should get rid of the regulations and then we will be on the right track, and we will have our kids educated in the way they should be.

What a lot of bluster from Tau Henare, the member of this House who has been in so many different political parties that no matter whom he meets in New Zealand he can honestly say to them that, at some point in his political career, he has agreed with them. I am sure his career will not end with the National Party. I am sure that the Hon Tau Henare will move on and find greener pastures, as his career history shows he is wont to do.

Mr Henare raised the fact that there are a lot of National Party MPs in the House tonight, so I want to say one thing: we have all noticed the fact that the National Party members sit here as though they are at the movies. They come down to the House in droves and sit here as though they are in a movie theatre. Labour MPs have work to do. I do not know why the National Party MPs have no work to do. When they come down to the Chamber, they do no work; they sit in here as though they are at the theatre or the movies. They fawn over whoever is making a speech, standing up and saying: “Wasn’t that person absolutely wonderful! I really concur with everything he said.” But when are they going to do some work?

That was an interesting speech from the Hon Tau Henare. He talked about too much regulation, but which party is the first party to jump all over the Government whenever anything goes wrong? What happens whenever there is any question about there not being enough rules or about the Government not being clear or specific about what it required of early childhood providers when giving out Government funding? The first time something goes wrong in the early childhood sector, one can guarantee that the National Party will be all over it.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.