Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill

I am sorry to take a call ahead of the member Rajen Prasad, but I want to offer the Committee a couple of explanations. The first is that clause 6 is simply the object clause. The fact that it is simply the object clause does not make it unimportant; it is actually the heart of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill. It is a straightforward clause but it is at the heart of the bill. In it, substituted section 5, “Object”, states: “The object of the Society is the advancement and promotion in New Zealand of science, technology, and the humanities.”

I will say some things in a minute about the Royal Society and its role in the advancement and promotion in New Zealand of science, technology, and the humanities. But for the Hon Rodney Hide’s benefit, if indeed this is necessary, I should take just a minute to explain to him that the Clerk at the Table, who has sharper eyes than the rest of us, found that one of the words in the amendment in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to clause 5 of the bill—we have dealt with that clause, so I will be quick—was left out. That word was “literature”; it was left out by error. Having had it drawn to my attention, I decided to put it in again. That was the amendment to the amendment. “Mr Take-No-Prisoners, Speedy As She Goes Chairman” did not give me the opportunity to explain that amendment to the Committee, and that is how the earlier situation arose. I understand that the Chairman wishes to make progress and I am not at all critical of it, but I thought I would let the honourable member know how that situation arose.

How does the Royal Society meet its object of the advancement and promotion of science, technology, and, now, the humanities? I will give just one example. It is a programme that was begun—I am sorry to go back in history—by the aforementioned Hon Simon Upton. It concerns schoolteachers who teach science and maths, but not, at the moment, those who teach humanities. Those schoolteachers can apply to the Royal Society for a scholarship to give themselves 6 months’ break to go and do some science. They might want to advance their own studies in this, that, or the other area of science. It needs to be of a practical, hands-on nature. It could be referred to, I suppose, as a bit of a mini-thesis, a mini-masterate, or a mini - postgraduate qualification, though no qualification flows from it. At the conclusion of that 6-month period the hope is that the teachers will return to the classroom renewed and re-energised to progress their teaching of science to the young people in front of them.

That scholarship programme is intensely popular. I am sure many members in the Chamber would acknowledge that they have run up against this or that schoolteacher who has headed off to improve their ability to measure and manage water quality, or any other thing in the area of science. Some of the things people get up to can be rather interesting, even to the point of being off-the-wall.

That scholarship is run by the Royal Society. When I was the Minister of Research, Science and Technology I became anxious that the scholarship was being used as an exit strategy by teachers. I was anxious that we had somehow made it a bit easy for teachers to leave the classroom, and maybe head away from teaching for ever. I arranged for a bit of a review to be done. A whole lot of people were interviewed, and the review came back straightforwardly with what we would, in retrospect, say was the pretty obvious finding. It found that if teachers were going to go, not giving them a scholarship was not going to hold them any longer. Some of them went from the scholarship to leaving teaching altogether, but the fact is that that number was well outweighed by the number of teachers who came back into the classroom after their 6-month scholarship.

It is pretty much equivalent to what happens in the tertiary sector, where people get a sabbatical for 6 or 12 months. It is not as regular by any means; it is done only by a competitive process. It does not happen as of right. It is managed by the Royal Society. In fact, the person who managed it for years and years died, as a young man, only about 3 years ago. A whole lot of teachers came together to mourn the passing of this fellow and to heap praise on the Royal Society for its handling of this particular scholarship.

That is one thing that the Royal Society does to meet its object. An interesting question is before the Royal Society if this Committee decides to pass clause 6: whether that scholarship programme changes and whether a person who teaches English or media studies will now be eligible to apply for a scholarship. My hope is that they will. Already mathematicians can apply, and we could say that maths is not a science but an art. If members do not agree on either of those words, they could call it a philosophy. Mathematicians are already eligible, so why not the others? At that point the Royal Society would be managing this competitive sabbatical leave for pretty much all secondary teachers around the country—maybe not for physical education; I am not sure.

The Minister of Education, to my right, may know about this scholarship programme. If she does not, I urge her and anyone else who has an interest in education to find out a bit about it. It is an astonishingly good programme. It is the brainchild of Simon Upton and it has been continued by successive Governments. It works to instil another round of excitement in those teachers, whom we all consider to be so important in our society. It is a cost-effective programme. It is run by the Royal Society, and it is one of many, many things that it does.

I will resume my seat in the hope that colleagues will be able to indicate to the Committee how they think the object of the Royal Society might now be best discharged.

Debate interrupted.