Financial Review Debate — Ministry of Education

This is a case of our being more in sadness than in anger, as far as the Opposition is concerned. I think that we have gone through the point, with this Minister of Education, where we were angry with the Prime Minister for her appointment when her inadequacies were shown. I think it is important to know that as Heatley has gone, and as Worth has gone, it is our expectation that this Minister will at some stage join that group of former Ministers. I think that the Prime Minister has to make up his mind relatively soon as to when he will hand out the Not Achieved to this Minister.

As we focus on the different parts of this vote, we would have expected this Minister to be in charge of both parts of this vote as Minister of Education. But we note that effectively half her workload has been stripped from her because of the inadequacies that have been shown, and that half of the workload has been given to Mr Steven Joyce. It is sad that a Prime Minister has had to take half the workload from a front-bench Minister, in the way that the Prime Minister has had to do, by taking away from this Minister her responsibility for reporting on a very significant part of this vote.

We saw the Minister at the Education and Science Committee answering on this particular topic, and I think it is fair to say that there has been a previous Minister who had a worse performance at the select committee: Nick Smith, I can remember. I can remember Wyatt Creech and Dr Smith appearing before the select committee, and both of those people knew their subject. They did their homework; they understood. They knew what a vice-chancellor was, they knew what a vote was, and they knew how the system was put together. They knew what group special education was, because they were responsible for it, and they did their homework in the way that this Minister just does not.

They would never have put $62 million into national standards in a way that strips money out from making actual change in education. They would never have cut the money from professional development in the way that this Minister has. She has taken $45.6 million out of professional development.

💬 Hon Member: Let’s list literacy and numeracy.

No, she has not transferred it to literacy and numeracy; she has taken it out of the total money available for professional development for teachers—$45.6 million over 4 years.

💬 Katrina Shanks: 9 years and you couldn’t do it.

No—9 long years of money going up, but under this Minister the money for professional development has gone down. That is because we have such a lightweight on the front bench. Again, she is someone who is clearly not coping with her job. She is clearly not coping with her job in the way that people should cope.

I am sure that my colleague will talk about adult and community education, but I am going to schools now that used to have adult and community education. I have been to two schools in the last 2 weeks, and I have talked to three schools if we count a meeting with a principal who came to see me. They all say that adult and community education used to make a real difference to their schools. It was something that bonded them with their community. It got adults into their schools at night, and that meant that vandals did not turn up. But what has this Minister done? She has cut the funding and said to schools that there is no more money for anti-vandalism, there is no more money to fix up the schools, and there is no more money for the overheads that have been lost as a result of doing that—and, by the way, she is taking $62 million out of the Education vote for her national standards.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: That’s just not true.

Well, I do not know; when I went to school, 36 and 26 were 62. I know there is a new approach to numeracy on the part of Anne Tolley, but that is still $62 million that could have been helping kids learn, and she has stolen it.

It is an absolute delight to speak about the financial review of the Ministry of Education. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to deliver a brighter future to every New Zealand child, and I am proud to be working with a Minister of Education who has the courage to take the steps needed to do that. Before the election, National promised to deliver national standards. In December 2008, just before Christmas, we passed legislation that would see national standards in every school and legislation to make sure that more of our young students attend school.

I will focus on the issues. They are the important things that are being delivered in education by the Ministry of Education. This Government is determined to do better for the one in five children who currently leave school after 10 years, unable to read, write, and do maths. That is a disgrace, and members on that side of the Chamber are unwilling to own that failure—one in five. Those members do not like it and they will not listen. We recognise that a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy is vital. That is the one priority and that is what the Ministry of Education has been delivering. It is fantastic news.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I think she believes it.

We need our children to be able to read, write, and do maths, but, unfortunately, Mr Mallard does not believe that, which is a great disappointment to members on this side of the Chamber.

Our priority is national standards. They are simply signposts. They describe what children in years 1 to 8 should be able to achieve and by when. Teachers will assess—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the member. I am having difficulty hearing. Interjections are fine, but running commentaries are not. I cannot hear the member, so I ask members to tone it down. I am happy with interjections, but not with running commentaries.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I wish you had done that during the previous speech.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The member was speaking then and I know that there were interjections, but the member was able to be heard and I could hear what the member was saying. I do—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: They were constant.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I hear where the member is coming from. I am having difficulty hearing this member. I ask members to please be quiet. I am having difficulty hearing this member, and I am asking to be able to hear her so that I know what is being said.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Are you saying that there are two standards in this House: one for members who have strong voices and one for weak members?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have made my ruling. I am asking members to tone it down. Interjections are fine, but not running commentaries. It is such that I cannot hear the member.

Just to reiterate, the national standards are quite simple; they are signposts for years 1 to 8. I have three children in years 1 to 8, so this is really important to me as a parent. It is important as a parent to be able to know and receive information back from the school on exactly how children are doing, and that is what the parents I talk to at school every week are telling me. We are investing $26 million to train and support teachers as they implement national standards. Another $36 million is being invested to help students who are identified as needing additional assistance.

National does not believe that excellent schools are created by the Ministry of Education; they are created by excellent teachers and excellent principals. I want to give members an example of an excellent local school in my electorate. It is a decile 1—[Interruption] Members should listen. If they cannot stand the truth, they should listen up. The school is a decile 1 Māori immersion school. It does not have to have national standards, but it recognises how fantastic national standards are and it will implement its own this year. It knows the values that national standards will deliver to the students in the school. It is fantastic news, and I am really proud of that school for taking leadership and ensuring that its pupils learn how to read, write, and do maths.

The other thing we have to crack down on—unfortunately, in 9 years, the previous Government it did not tackle this at all—is truancy. We know that we need to have students at school in order to teach them. It is not rocket science. Unfortunately, for 9 years Labour did not tackle it or address it. Look at the report Attendance, Absence, and Truancy in New Zealand Schools in 2006: Labour failed miserably at keeping kids at school. Well, we are not going to say that that is acceptable. We are taking action on truancy and we will put in an extra $4 million a year. I have visited schools recently to look at the data that each school is able to use with their electronic systems. It is fantastic. Teachers get to see exactly where the problem is, they get to see where students are struggling, and they can support those students to make sure that they are at school.

National standards is about the future of every New Zealand child. It does not matter what race students are or what their family circumstances are. This Government aspires for those kids to do well.

I differ from my colleague Trevor Mallard in one respect: I rise to speak to the financial review of the Ministry of Education both in sadness and in anger. When I look at tertiary education I see that the characterisation of this Government’s work in tertiary education has been cuts, cuts, and more cuts. Yes, I am sad about it, but also I am angry. It is an ignorant approach to education to continually and routinely under-invest and cut just at the moment when other countries around the world are increasing their investment in tertiary education because they know that the way to sustained economic recovery is through investment in tertiary education and not through cutting it.

Worse than that level of ignorance, which is almost unfathomable, is the deliberate policy that this Government is demonstrating in tertiary education of narrowing access to tertiary education opportunities. The Government is not broadening the access, but narrowing it. We are talking about the period of appropriation when the Hon Anne Tolley was in charge of the tertiary education portfolio. We saw from the outset a Government beginning the way it meant to go on. It cut adult and community education funding by some 80 percent, taking out $13 million from a $16 million budget, and leaving $3 million behind. It reduced the number of high schools around New Zealand that ran adult and community education classes from 212 to 24, with a few others added on as clusters of schools led by one lead school out of those 24.

That was the first effort at narrowing the basis of access to post - compulsory education opportunities for New Zealanders. It is one area where New Zealanders have been able to step back into education in an accessible, non-threatening, low-cost environment that allows them to revisit what may have been a previously unsuccessful educational career and to begin to build the foundations that they need in order to excel.

Last year I went to about 17 or 18 public meetings. Sometimes there were 60 people at those public meetings protesting against the cuts to adult and community education; sometimes there were 500 people. Time and again, I saw at each of those meetings the level of anger and the level of loss that people felt for not only those things that the Minister does not count as necessary, such as social cohesion and strong communities, but also a loss of opportunity to learn, which those cuts represented. It was felt very acutely by people right across every community, even communities that one would imagine that the National Government would be keen to protect, such as rural communities, where post - compulsory education opportunities are few and far between. The National Government took no notice, because the hallmark of the previous Minister’s tenure in the tertiary education portfolio was obstinacy, ignorance, and just plain stubbornness.

That was the first of the cuts, but let us see what else happened under that Minister’s tenure. I have to say that the new Minister for Tertiary Education, Steven Joyce, is not proving to be any better, in that his approach to tertiary education is evidencing even more cuts. We will come to that shortly. In the year under consideration the Government cut $98 million from tertiary scholarships, with the bonded merit scholarship scheme, the Step Up Scholarships, and the Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship ceasing from June 2009. So the efforts that the previous Labour Government put in place during its 9 years in office to allow people to access advanced tertiary education have been cut by this Government; $98 million was taken out.

Let us look at the CPI adjustments from 2009. For industry training, Modern Apprenticeships, and adult and community education elsewhere the CPI adjustments were cut. That is another $172 million shortfall in funding to those programmes over the next 4 years. Cuts, cuts, and more cuts.

It is a bit rich, is it not? It is easy for the previous speaker, Maryan Street, to come to the Chamber and talk about cuts, but she was a Minister in the previous Government and was responsible for leaving half a billion dollars’ worth—half a billion dollars—of promises that were made during an election campaign with no funding in place to deliver on them. Someone else had to come in and clean up the mess. It is all very well for her to get holier than thou, but someone else had to come in and clean up the mess.

I want to talk in this Chamber about student engagement, because that is what this Government has been focused on, and the previous Government ignored it. In fact, one could almost say that it was Labour’s dirty little secret. Let us talk about truancy. In 2006 a survey was done on truants, and it found that almost 30,000 kids were absent from school at any one time.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: How many?

Almost 30,000. Do members know what Labour members said? They said that it could not be accurate. They said that the report could not be true. There was a big tangi in the week when the survey was done, so they said that it could not be true. What did Labour do next? The survey was due to happen again in 2008, and what did the Minister of Education do? He cancelled it, because if one does not—

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I struggle to understand why the Minister brings up connotations of tangi as being relevant to her delivery. I think it is obnoxious and appalling.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member. These are debating points. But I refer all speakers, as we did right at the beginning, to the fact that we are debating the appropriations. It would be good if we could focus on the appropriations.

What has this Government done? The first thing I did as Minister was to say that we needed to define the problem and to have a report. In 2009 we carried out a truancy report, and guess what? We found that 30,000 kids were missing school on any one day. The problem was there; the previous Government just hid it and hoped that it would go away. What has our Government done? We have doubled the funding. Over the next 4 years we will put in an extra $4 million a year to address truancy.

💬 Hon Member: Oh, that’ll make a huge difference!

It will make a hang of a lot more difference than was made under the previous Government. It could make twice as much difference, because there is twice the amount.

We have reviewed the district truancy services. We will pay more to the district truancy services. There is that wonderful electronic system with automatic texts to parents, which has been so effective, and we are putting in the incentives for schools. I give credit to the previous Government for setting up that system, but it never did anything more. We are saying to schools that we will help them to get that.

In addition to that, though, this is not just about attacking truancy. The other thing we have done is to develop our Youth Guarantee. Let us compare that with what the previous Government did. Do members know what the previous Government’s answer was to students leaving school without qualifications? It was to change the law to keep students at school until they were 18, so that they could not leave. It was called Schools Plus. When we came into Government, we asked where the money was in the appropriations for Schools Plus. That money did not exist. It did not exist. Where was the policy work around the big announcement that the previous Prime Minister made? Where was it? It did not exist; it was just another flimflam from the previous Government.

What have we done? At the beginning of this year, with the money that used to go to support people learning Moroccan cooking, Spanish, and concrete mosaics, 2,000 young people got fees-free places at polytech—2,000 people. Those 2,000 young people had left school without qualifications and could have been on an unemployment benefit, and there will be another 2,000 next year.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Another 2,000.

Another 2,000 next year. That is what has happened to that money.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: She’s not managing. She needs more support. Come on guys, you can do it.

It is like a screaming skull over there, is it not? The Manukau Institute of Technology opened New Zealand’s first tertiary high school. We put a couple of million dollars into New Zealand’s first tertiary high school, because that is an innovative way of keeping young people engaged at school.

Then, of course, there are our trades academies. We asked for expressions of interest. We got 112 from around the country—112 people put forward propositions. They were delighted that a Government had asked them how they could help keep young people at school. We have taken 11 propositions from that, and from the beginning of next year, within 2 years of becoming Government, we will have six, or maybe seven or eight, trades academies opening to provide good pathways.

I was not going to take another call—I have spoken with the Labour whips and I may be in a little bit of trouble—but I think that that speech by the Hon Anne Tolley cannot go unanswered. The first thing we should focus on is the comments the member made about standards, and her suggestion, which has been made here and around the country, that every single student will, when standards are properly implemented, leave with a National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. I have never heard so much nonsense in my life. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of students in every cohort in New Zealand who are not capable of getting NCEA level 2 unless the standards are dropped enormously. It is inappropriate for a Minister of Education to be so out of touch that she is going around the country promising parents—promising parents—that their children will achieve at that level when she, if she has a modicum of intelligence, will know that that is absolutely impossible. She has a system that she is putting $62 million into—

H V Ross Robertson: What?

She is putting $62 million, which was stripped out of professional development and a number of other areas, into an objective that is absolutely and utterly impossible.

Next, I will make a comment about the academies to which she referred. I tell her that as I move around the country in the areas with academies, I am discovering absolute chaos. No one has bothered to tell the schools which of their kids are at the academies. The schools have pastoral care responsibilities for those students; they are meant to be on school rolls—[Interruption] Well, truant officers will not be looking for them because they are not on school rolls, but no one has told the schools. At the start of the year apparently there were thousands of kids all around the country at the academies, but no one had told the schools which kids had gone to the academies. What a shambles in implementation!

What about qualifications? What shambles is this Minister putting into secondary qualifications now? She is taking out a number of unit standards—quite a large number of unit standards—and what is the result of that? The result of that is that if people want to run a sports academy, for example, at a school, they now have to have moderation from one, two, or three different industry training organisations. Instead of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority doing the moderation, if a school is running a series of academies under the implementation of the policy started by this Minister in the financial year under review, that school has to have one, two, or three different industry training organisations doing that work. If a school is running six, seven, or eight different types of non-traditional programmes, it might have up to 20 different organisations coming in—

💬 Hon Member: Get on the planet, member—get on the planet. Don’t insult us with such stupidity.

—no, no; absolutely—to that school to moderate, because of the abolition of unit standards under the direction of that Minister. Some people do not understand how our system works; some of us have been working with it now for about 20 years, and we know that we make haste slowly. That Minister is someone who, with her changes, is making an enormous difference, but it is negative.

There is a very easy way of doing what she should have done. I agree with her basic thesis that differentiating an equation for calculus and making a cappuccino should not have equality for university entrance. For people going to university, they are not the same thing. There was an easy way of fixing it, which was to say that unit standards did not count for university entrance, but that Minister was too slow to pick that up.

Report noted.

I understand that the next financial review that members wish to debate is the financial review of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Will members please turn to the Primary Production Committee’s report—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Rather than starting with half a minute to go, might we take leave to take the dinner adjournment now? I have seen 5.59 p.m. on the clock for about half a minute now.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry