Education Amendment Bill

I rise to speak in opposition to the Education Amendment Bill. I will be focusing on the regulatory regime for the early childhood sector, and it seems to me that this bill is all about unnecessary regulation—and, in fact, far too much regulation—especially in the early childhood sector. I have to say that National’s top priority in education is the children. It is not the systems, it is not the unions; it is the children. I rise to speak in opposition to this bill because it focuses not on the needs of the children, of whatever age, but I believe it adds more bureaucracy, it adds more regulation, and it adds yet more sanitisation of our children’s lives.

As I said, I want to focus on early childhood education, and I make the following points. I refer to section 317(2), inserted by clause 43: “Regulations made under subsection (1) may (without limitation) do all or any of the following: (a) prescribe minimum standards relating to premises, facilities, programmes of education, practices in relation to children’s learning and development, implementation of the curriculum framework, communication and consultation with parents, the operation or administration of those services, or any of them, to be complied with to ensure the health, comfort, care, education, and safety of children attending licensed early childhood services:”. I probably would contemplate and ask that while the early childhood educators are filling in forms, who is actually looking after the kids? It is all very well describing practices in relation to children’s learning development, but should not and would not it be a good thing for the teachers—the early childhood educators—to be actually out there, doing it?

Early childhood centres are very busy places. I should know. I have been in a number of them as a parent, and also as the local member. They are lively places, they are noisy places, they are smelly places—as my colleague Tau Henare pointed out when speaking to this bill—and they are very happy places. When parents drop their children off at an early childhood centre what they really need to know is that the teachers care for their kids and look after them. They need to know that the early childhood educators at these licensed centres are not forever filling in forms, are not overly spending time—wasting time, I would suggest—in a cramped office, because that is what it invariably is, accounting for themselves, measuring, reporting, and prescribing minimum standards. We want our early childhood educators, the people who are looking after our kids, to be out there, with our kids, playing with them, reading to them, reading with them, talking to them, and singing with them.

This bill proposes to impose extra costs on early childhood centres—costs in time, costs in money, and costs in teacher resources. I am concerned about section 317(2)(b), inserted by clause 43, which authorises “the Secretary, after consultation with those organisations that appear to the Secretary to be representative of persons likely to be substantially affected by these regulations, to prescribe criteria to be used by the Secretary to assess compliance with the minimum standards imposed by these regulations:”. So it is not the parents who are making the regulations and minimum standards for early childhood centres, it is not the parents of the children who are making decisions about the care of their kids, but a ministry representative. The ministry will have the ability to make regulations that take responsibility away from Parliament. I do not think that a bureaucrat is the best person to set standards for the care of my child. I think that as a parent I need to have a very strong say.

Here is a basic principle. All of us are in danger of regulating all the fun and risk out of childhood. We must protect our children from harm; I believe that is an absolute given. We must, as parents and educators, protect our children but we must not, at the same time, wrap them in cotton wool—which is what I believe this bill attempts to do.

When I was in local government we had ever-changing playground regulations to deal with. It seemed that those regulations changed at least annually, and probably it felt like 6-monthly. I will tell members what happened to the Oamaru playground, which is the playground that I took my three young children to, to spend a Sunday afternoon. It used to be full of playground equipment, set in the most beautiful Oamaru gardens. Over time, because of the playground regulations forever changing, the old tractor went. It had been there for a number of years, cemented into the ground. All the moving parts had been stopped from moving. The tractor went because it was too dangerous for our children.

💬 Anne Tolley: How many children were being hurt?

Exactly! I never heard of a single child being hurt. I can say that my kids loved that tractor, as did many other children. Next, the old roundabout went. I think they call them a hurdy-gurdy. My kids used to have a ball on that thing. They used to go round and round on it until they felt really sick. They loved that, but it went. The monkey bars went. Horrors! Children might have fallen on to the ground, on to the grass, so the bars had to go. Worst of all, in my view the very saddest, worst thing that we, as the local authority, did to our playground was to chop off the lower limbs of the trees so that kids could not climb them. Do members know why? Because they might have fallen out of them. Where are we going with this? I believe that the bill embodies that attitude of taking the fun and the challenge out of childhood. I need to reiterate that we must protect and cherish our children—that is an absolute given. But I believe we are going too far.

We all acknowledge that early childhood teachers must be well supported and well trained. We also acknowledge that early childhood centres must be comfortable, warm, safe, and welcoming. However, I turn to section 313, inserted by clause 43, “Administrative requirements”. Again I will read it because I believe it illustrates a point: “The service provider for every licensed early childhood service must keep, and make available to the Secretary on request,—(a) a register of the children who attend or have attended the service, specifying the date of birth of each;”, that is OK, “(b) a record of the attendance of children at the service;”, that is reasonable, “(c) a record of all fees and other charges paid in respect of children’s attendance at the service;”, that is OK, and “(d) evidence that parents of children attending the service have regularly examined the attendance record;”. Why is that necessary? I think that is another example of the onerous requirements under the bill. I continue: “(e) Also provide any other records that are necessary to enable the service’s performance to be monitored adequately.” What other records do we really need?

Finally, I contend that this bill does nothing for children. We know that children who have a good early childhood education are more adaptable when they start school and are more likely to successfully pass through the school system, to go on to further training, and to lead satisfying, useful lives. The Education Amendment Bill does nothing to contribute to children’s education; rather, it makes a huge contribution to piles and piles of useless reporting, hours and hours of useless form-filling, and further unnecessary administration.