Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill

There has been an interesting and a frank exchange of views up to this point with regard to the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. I want to talk to Part 1, which deals with the truancy issue, but I would like to preface my comments, and then direct some questions to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Anne Tolley. I preface my comments by saying I am sure that every person in this House wants to see in school every young New Zealand person who should be in school. That is a desire we all have. However, in order to do that we have to engage with the students who are truanting. Very few parents want their children to truant school. I think all of us would be hard-pressed to find even what we might regard as the most difficult parents who do not want their children to succeed.

However, I will concede—and I know this as the former Minister of Education—that a tiny minority of people actively encourage their children not to attend school. There must be penalties for them. Raising the level of fine is not something that in principle we are opposed to. But we in the Labour Party are concerned that parents who themselves are victims of their children’s own behaviour will be impacted on by this legislation. I would not like to see, and I am sure nobody in this House would like to see, any parent who really wants his or her child to be at school, and who is not aware that the child is truanting, be hit by this change in the law and get a $3,000 fine. We have put up an amendment to require that the proposed changes in fees will only impact on the most uncooperative of parents. I really urge the National members to consider supporting our amendment, because I am sure that they, like us, do not want to see good parents penalised by the behaviour of bad children.

I ask the Minister whether, in addressing the issue of truancy—which is a subject that she has asked me many questions about in my former role as Minister of Education in the last 14 months or so—the increased fines are her only step to address the question of persistent truancy. I remind you, Mr Chair, and also the rest of the Committee and particularly the Minister, that the previous Labour Government took a huge range of steps to try to address truancy. Indeed, in 2006, when the Hon Steve Maharey was the Minister of Education, we reviewed truancy services—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: The vice-chancellor.

That is another subject,

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Could Mrs Tolley tell us what a vice-chancellor is?

I know it has been reported to us by very reliable sources that the new Minister of Education had to ask the Tertiary Commission what a vice-chancellor does. I hope that Mrs Tolley knows what truancy officers do. We reviewed truancy services in 2006 and, as a result of that review, a whole series of resourcing actions were taken, including the provision of both organisational and financial resourcing to combat truancy. That is the only way to deal with the real problem of truancy. The issue is not about parents; it is about children and young people who are disengaged from learning.

Mr Peachey was a fine educationalist; we have different views, but I respect what he did in schools. He was, and still is, motivated by a desire to have good educational outcomes in our country. He has in the past acknowledged to me, and he will acknowledge, the contribution made by the setting up of the electronic enrolment system, with every school now on it. We put about $6 million into that, so that for the first time ever we know exactly which children are in school and which are not. Every school is online, and the staff report truants daily into a central computer database in our schools. For the first time ever we put that in, so we knew exactly what the truancy problem was. We also put another $2 million into individual schools where there were particular problems that had to be addressed and the schools needed support to do that. Again, the issue was not about fining parents, because we are talking about a very small number of students here. We are talking about a much larger number of disengaged students. So there was another $2 million of funding for the individual schools that were most affected by truancy.

We put another $4.5 million into district truancy services, so that the contractors and people who work with the Ministry of Education, councils, and schools could deal directly with the problem. The 89 district truancy services that were set up worked very closely with territorial authorities to try to deal with the problem of truancy. We employed 10 officials—the bureaucrats we hear about from National, which wants to get rid of them, scale down the bureaucrats, and use their salaries to enhance resourcing at schools—at the Ministry of Education to deal with very persistent, individual, hard-core cases of truancy, as well as with children who were under the care of Child, Youth and Family. Those are very special cases that needed very sensitive and professional care.

The Student Engagement Initiative at schools was again very extensively funded, with $1.8 million provided to help schools to deal with truancies. We introduced the Youth Apprenticeships scheme in schools. It started off in 10 schools, in the time I was the Minister it was in 20 schools, and 120 schools will have the scheme in 2009. Those are actual, practical things that engage students in learning. Schools Plus was the flagship policy of the Labour Party at the election. We promised to commit $170 million to it in order to explore alternative pathways for learning for young people, capture their interest, deal with Youth Apprenticeships, and set up the institute at Manukau Institute of Technology. Those are real, concrete resourcing issues that deal with disengaged pupils. That is how we deal with truancy and get kids back into school. Yes, we do need to punish parents, but that is a tiny part of the problem. The real problem is disengaged students and how we deal with them.

I ask the Minister, Mrs Tolley, how she is going to deal with persistent truants. We have left her a well-resourced sector. We have not solved the problem. We made good progress, but we have not solved the problem. It is a really difficult issue in education. We are not unsympathetic to increasing the penalties, but again I stress the issue of making sure that good parents are not punished by the behaviour of their children. I urge the Minister to look at our amendment that is on the Table over there. Hopefully she will look at it, but I do not think she has done so yet. I am sure that she also does not want to have good parents punished for the behaviour of bad kids.

I come back to the point I made at the beginning of my presentation that probably 99.9 percent of parents want the best for their children. They want their children to be in school, and they want them to be successful. Children who are not in school are mostly absent not because of their parents; they are absent because they are disengaged from learning. The key to solving truancy issues is to engage children in effective learning, keep them interested, keep them at school, liaise with homes, and have professional staff in place to deal with that. Schools are really struggling with the truancy issue. As I have said, we now know for the first time ever which kids are not at school, because of our electronic system ENROL. That will be able to tell Mrs Tolley exactly what the truancy situation really is at the moment.

I again ask the Minister to please consider protecting parents from the unintended consequences of raising this fine, because we do not want good parents to be punished for the bad behaviour of young people.

It is my pleasure to rise and talk to Part 1. I am rather sad to acknowledge that normally during the Committee stage of a bill as important as this we would be able to refer to the many submissions that we would have received during the select committee process. I am sure there would have been many submissions in the select committee process, had the new Government allowed that opportunity for the public, the parents, the education sector, and the many people who would have had an interest in this. I know we would have had a lot of very good submissions on Part 1 and the school enrolment and attendance issue. I feel very sad that we are not able to refer to those submissions, but there have already been many fine contributions during the course of the debate on this entire bill. If we think about the passion, energy, and information that has come through this debate just from the members sitting in the Chamber alone, I know we could have had so much more coming through had we had the opportunity to have public submissions on this bill.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: They wouldn’t want that!

I am not sure why the Government would not want that, because I think it is a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity to engage the broader community. All parties across the Chamber have acknowledged that education is the key to our future. Our children and their education are the key to our future, and we should be taking some time to gather that information.

However, much has been made by the Government about clause 6. This is the clause that allows prosecutions to be taken by the Secretary for Education. I want to ensure that people listening to this debate know that prosecutions can and have already been taken over the issue of truancy in this country. I think it is really important to acknowledge that, and it is important that the new Government does not make it look as though this is something that it is bringing in, because this ability has been there all along. Sadly, on 29 November the Waikato Times reported on two families in the Waikato who were prosecuted for not having their children attend school. One was in the town of Morrinsville—a student from Morrinsville College—and the other was in Matamata—a student from Matamata College. It is rather interesting, because I come from Matamata and my good colleague Jacinda Ardern comes from Morrinsville, so we both knew those families. It was really very interesting to note that when we looked at the information and talked about those families, we knew that there were many, many issues going on for these families. Prosecution has happened in this instance. It probably is not the best outcome for those families; neither was the unavailability of their children—those students—from the education system.

But it is not as simple as just increasing fines. It is not as simple as just having an outcome at the end, after everything has gone wrong. Very complex issues are at stake here. It is really interesting when we observe the families who face prosecution. Often they come from the lower socio-economic ends of our communities, and this was certainly the common thread that existed in those two cases. There has been the ability to prosecute, and it has been happening. Certainly I think the initiatives the Labour-led Government put in place have helped to ensure that we know what the level of truancy is.

Again, there is a bit of a theme developing here. I think it is quite misleading to say that because we now know and can quantify what the problem is, it means, therefore, that there was not a problem before and that it somehow emerged just over recent years. Of course, these problems did not emerge just over recent years, but the Labour-led Government was committed enough and was brave enough, actually, to quantify and measure these problems. The Labour-led Government implemented the ENROL system that my colleague the Hon Chris Carter talked about before, and that helped us quantify what the nature of the problem was. That is a very important thing that the previous Government did.

I want to briefly mention the Māori Party’s position on this part of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, and its amendment that proposes to split off Part 1 and Part 2 into separate bills. We certainly support its intention to do that, its reasons for doing that, and its acknowledgment that although Part 2 is an ideological argument that we will no doubt continue to have, Part 1 is about punishing the poor simply because they are poor, and there is absolutely no justification for it. I am very pleased that the Māori Party opposes Part 1 of this bill.

The fact is that the long tail of underachievement that is touted around here and was touted all through the election campaign is actually a long tail of poverty. Mr Peachey is wrong in his statement that somehow education is to blame for the increasing poverty in our communities. In fact, it is poverty that is to blame for the impossibility of many of our young people getting ahead and getting the education to which they are entitled. I am not surprised that Mr Peachey is wrong about this, but he is wrong, and it is important to point that out.

We are talking about communities where there are very low and very insecure incomes and where people are living in unstable and largely unsuitable homes. I think it was in today’s paper that we saw an article about 15 people living in one house—a family of seven in one room. There are ongoing health problems that arise from that level of poverty—for example, skin infections that are treatable. In fact, a large number of doctors who work in public health organisations say that one of the biggest disgraces of this country is the fact that so many children present with preventable diseases and illnesses like asthma, glue ear, eczema, and scabies. Those diseases are all the result of living in poverty—for generations, in many cases—and certainly that is the case for children living in poverty in those places. Poverty results in perpetual shifting, as people with very insecure housing and very low incomes keep trying to find adequate housing that they can afford. If they find that they cannot afford it, for whatever reason, it leads to perpetual moving.

This leads to children having to change schools very regularly. We often hear about this happening in South Auckland, but it happens across the country. Hundreds of children every Monday change schools because their families have not been able to find secure employment and secure housing, where they can set up a long-term base for the benefit of their children and their children’s education.

What then happens is that children who are continually moving from school to school are really living lives of absolute turmoil over which they have no control. It is impossible for schools to then be relevant to the needs of those children and their ability to concentrate, to stay well so that they can do the work, to be socially connected to the school and to that community, and to trust and have faith in and build relationships with teachers and other children. Those things are impossible when the children may well have to move in just another month or so because of the family circumstances.

Those are all problems and challenges that schools have to deal with in order to find some way to be relevant to these kids, who are living lives of turmoil over which neither they nor their parents have any control. This is not about families neglecting their children or wanting to keep their children out of school. It is completely reasonable to see why children would not want to go to school in those circumstances. Why would they want to try to go through the whole process of going to another school with more kids, more teachers, and more relationships, only to have that stripped away from them again because their parents have lost their jobs, they have not been able to keep up with the rent, they have been evicted, and they have to move and find somewhere else to live? This is the real lives of the people we are talking about.

What is the National Government’s response to these real, lived lives? Those members know barely anything about this issue, and they have virtually no contact with the kinds of communities that we are talking about here. What is their response? It is not to deal with the causes of the poverty that leads to this kind of turmoil and instability, is it? There is no policy here to deal with the dislocation of these children. In fact, the priority for National is to punish these families by fining them three times more than they would have been fined otherwise—$3,000 a family.

I rise to support the great speech made by my colleague Chris Carter in relation to what the Labour Government has done in the last 9 years. I see that Mr McClay has disappeared, but he was huffing and puffing about those young people who were 8, 9, and 10-year-olds and who are now 18, 19, and 20.

I would say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Anne Tolley—apart from congratulating her because she lives in Gisborne—that the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill is quite a fascinating bill. We listened to debate on the bill providing a 90-day trial period for employees where National took away workers’ rights and said that it was good for them, and took 2 percent off KiwiSaver and said it was good for people. Now standardised testing, which has been tested internationally, is something that turns around to more bad practice. I wonder whether there is a hint of that in this bill, because when boutiques and the Esprit Group tried that practice in France and when people tried it in Wisconsin, it turned towards being a voucher system. I ask whether this bill is the lead-in to that, because it is quite incredible: we started off with the teachers being blamed, then the parents, and now it has become a monetary issue. If we double or triple the fine, will that fix up the issue? How cranky is that?

Mr Peachey said that a lot of the practices from his time in the classroom are now antiquated. Steve Maharey understood that, and he moved to modernise the classroom. As Chris Carter said, the Labour Government put a lot of effort into solving the problem of truancy, and that is why it declined by 24 percent. I am really happy and thankful that this Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, has said teachers will not be affected by the 90-day probationary provision.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Courageous!

It is courageous stuff—great decision-making. I thank the Minister for that, because she knows she said that, like that beleaguered statement that was being tossed around over the other side of the House. We see the failed national standardised testing in the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, and it is being linked to other activities that National wants to bring in. We know what bulk funding did, and we know how that practice got around. This is incredible.

In the last two days, when the Opposition has performed remarkably against a Government that is still trying to find its way, we have all said that education is the cornerstone to going forward. There was something in the Speech from the Throne about invigorating and turbocharging the aspects of enterprise. I see Hekia Parata over there, and she is a great educationalist. I am so proud of the Māori members in here. [Interruption] That is right, she is my cousin, and I am so proud of her. I am so proud of Nanaia Mahuta, who will most probably become the vice-chancellor of Waikato University. I am so proud of Te Ururoa Flavell, even though St Stephen’s School closed. He was the principal, and he knows about it.

💬 Hon Members: What about Paul Quinn?

And Paul Quinn went to Stanford University. I left school at 15, but I became one of the longest-serving Associate Ministers of Education in this country under the great Labour leadership, so I learnt a fair bit.

Few parents encourage truancy, and members know that full well. We practised Te Hiringa i te Mahara, which brought up the performance of schools up in the East Coast, led by Parata and well resourced by this Government. If members go to the Tolaga Bay Area School—do members know where Tolaga Bay is?—they will see that every student who leaves that school goes somewhere. I say to Mr Bennett that at Turakina Māori Girls College, where truancy was high, and at St Joseph’s School, all of those young ones go somewhere. They are not as privileged as he has been through life, and Governments have to be careful in this standardised testing stuff not to create a bigger class distinction, because a whole range of issues and ramifications, both social and cultural, are bound around truancy.

Mr McLay talked about Murupara. We gave the people of Murupara a curriculum that was relevant to what the community wanted. They wanted to teach Ngāti Manawa, and we did that. Truancy came down through the Labour Government. Government members should be thankful that we supported the Education Review Office, because if they want to construct frameworks of performance, they should be sure about what they put into them. The Minister has not thought this through well enough, she has just rushed this legislation, and bleated and bleated about this being important.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I noticed twice during the member’s speech that he talked about “his Government”. I hate to remind him, but there was an event on 8 November, in which Labour lost the election.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): That is not a point of order.

I rise to speak in this debate this evening, and I want to endorse the comments of the Hon Chris Carter that truancy is indeed a bad thing. No one in this House would regard truancy as a good thing, and very few parents across New Zealand would regard truancy as a good thing. Tonight we are debating an issue that is sufficiently serious for the parents of this country to deserve a chance to discuss it and debate it. I am appalled that we are sitting here tonight when this bill has not gone through the select committee process. That is an outrage. There are parents out there with good and important views to be heard on the issue of truancy.

I want to ask Minister in the chair, Anne Tolley, a number of questions. How much work was done to talk to parents about truancy before this bill was put in place? How much work has that Minister done to find out the real reasons behind truancy? What are the real things that are causing students not to go to school? I am looking for the Minister to take a call and let us know how much research she has done on what is causing truancy in this country. The parents of this country deserve a chance to have a say about this bill.

This Government has come in and has been so arrogant within the first week that it is not even prepared to refer this bill to a select committee. There are important views to be heard from parents right across New Zealand on truancy, and I simply cannot believe that this Government would not be prepared to put the bill before a select committee. Is it because it is ashamed of the bill? Is that why it is doing this? This Government needs to know the views of parents, the views of teachers, and the views of truancy officers right across the country. We need a proper discussion about this, and the only conclusion I can draw is that the Government simply does not care about the views of parents. That is the conclusion I draw from the fact that there is no select committee process.

💬 Allan Peachey: Rubbish!

I ask Mr Peachey whether he wants the bill to go to a select committee. Would he like to hear the views of parents? We need to have a proper debate on this issue. Mr Peachey is the chair of the Education and Science Committee. It would have been a perfect opportunity for him to have heard the views of parents from right across New Zealand.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. As I said, I would like to know from her what work she has done to talk to parents and to students who have been truants. What work has she done to find out what the real reasons behind truancy are? On this side of the Chamber we want to know a little bit more from Mrs Tolley about what research is being done around whether increasing fines will actually reduce truancy. What do we actually know about the impact of increasing the fines on truancy rates? Has the Minister got an answer for that? I look forward to her taking a call on that matter. At the moment, all we have is a bill that puts the fines up to $3,000 to make sure that the National Government can show it has done something about truancy in its first week. This is all about the politics of the National Government; it is not about reducing the rates of truancy.

I also want to hear from the Minister whether she has analysed any research from overseas about what has happened in the area of truancy. We do not know anything at this stage about whether the Minister has talked to educationalists around the world about what works when it comes to reducing truancy. That is the kind of information we would have been able to find out during the select committee process. But this Minister and this National Government do not want to hear real research and real information about what might work in terms of reducing truancy, because they simply do not care about the views of parents.

National has come in and had 1 week of shameful behaviour. It has been ramming legislation through the House, and not making any time for the views of parents right across New Zealand. That Minister needs to stand up, take a call, and answer the questions. Has she talked to truants? Has she talked to parents of truants? Does she know what the international research on truancy is? Can she tell us whether there is any research internationally—

💬 Hon Annette King: She’s not writing it down.

She is not writing it down? Do we think she can remember the questions? I will ask them again for the benefit of the Minister. Has the Minister talked to the parents of truants? Has she undertaken any studies of truancy internationally that we can learn from? Where are the experts whom we could have heard from on this bill?

It is very, very clear that this is a punitive measure, rather than a constructive one. This is not about making schools a place where students want to go; it is about punishing them when they do not make it through the gate. What is wrong with making schools places where kids want to go, rather than places where they are forced to go? That is a much more constructive approach.

Mr Flavell talked before about truancy being particularly high amongst Māori students, so surely a big part of that, and a big part of solving it, is making school a place where Māori students feel comfortable and a place where they actually want to be, rather than trying to make schools into one-size-fits-all places, which is exactly what the rest of this bill does. National will impose these standards and tests and make school a one-size-fits-all place, and if one does not conform, one will just get shoved out the door.

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: Nanny State!

That is right. I have a number of questions as well, and I hope the Minister will take the time to write these down. She has not written down any of the other questions—she will lose track, I am sure—but I am certain she will give us a good explanation. I am sure she will not listen to Simon Power, who put his finger to his lips to stop her standing up and taking the last call.

Sitting suspended from 12 midnight to 9 a.m. to (Saturday)