Financial Review Debate — Ministry of Education

I am very pleased to take a call on the financial review of the Ministry of Education. First of all, I want to begin by addressing my comments to all of those teachers up and down the country who are continuing to experience the poor effects of the Novopay payroll system. A year and a half after Novopay was implemented we still have a system that is not paying people what they are owed. It is still a system in which school principals and administrators are having to spend hours and hours and hours every pay cycle sorting out problems or finding ways around problems. I think that is completely unacceptable. The Government put Steven Joyce in charge of Novopay a year ago to fix it, and he has failed to do so. Instead, what we have seen is a gloss of paint slapped over the top of it and Steven Joyce saying we have dealt with all of the problems and things are getting better. They are not getting better. Schools are still consumed by Novopay problems, and the Government is simply turning a deaf ear to those problems. That is not good enough. It is time for Novopay to be scrapped so that schools can get on with the job of teaching and learning and not be constantly distracted by having to deal with payroll issues.

Teachers work incredibly hard. We value the work of teachers. We value the work of school support staff—that is everyone from the teacher aides through to cleaners, caretakers, school administrators, librarians. They all work very hard for the benefit of our education system. They deserve to be paid what they are owed. They deserve to be able to rely on the fact that their pay packet will be in their bank account each fortnight. At the moment they cannot have that reassurance. It is a year and a half now since Novopay was implemented. It is still not working. That is simply not good enough. It is time for the Government to actually step up and say that if Novopay cannot deliver—and clearly it cannot—it is time to pull the pin on it and put in place a system that works, because this has gone on for long enough.

Moving on, I want to talk about a couple of other issues that were raised during the financial review process. The first is the introduction of partnership schools, because, of course, more information has become apparent since the financial review into the Ministry of Education took place. It has now become apparent, for example, that partnership schools are receiving up to five times the average funding of State schools. That is clearly wrong. The Government, of course, is trying to load the deck in favour of partnership schools succeeding, but if every other school in the country was given a level of funding equivalent to what is being given to partnership schools, I am sure that they would be doing a lot better as well.

This is a Government committed to creating a two-tier education system: a small minority who will do very well out of it, and the vast bulk of the rest who will simply deal with whatever is left over at the end of it. That is not good enough. Our focus has to be on making sure that every school in New Zealand is a great school and that every teacher is a great teacher. I do not think we should be creating a two-tier teaching profession and I do not think that we should be creating a two-tier schooling system, and, unfortunately, many of the policies of this Government go in exactly that direction. We should be focused on making sure that every child in New Zealand has the opportunity to reach their full potential, and that means we have to recognise the enormous work that is done by the dedicated and committed group of teachers that we have in our classrooms already.

I want to say that I am awaiting with interest the outcome of the recent announcements around the expert teacher positions. There are sector working groups working on that. I have made it very clear that we will wait and see what comes out of that working group process, because if there is broad buy in and support for some of those roles from within the sector, then we will support those, as well. I have got real reservations about some of those roles that have been announced, but we will await the outcome of that process before we make any further announcements on that.

What is very clear, however, is that the lack of trust that exists within the education system at the moment will be one of the biggest impediments to any change being successful. People simply do not trust that the current Government is going to implement this new system in a way that will be respectable of the teaching profession—that will genuinely embrace the nature of a strongly collegial and collaborative teaching profession, an autonomous teaching profession. People do not trust that the Government is actually going to deliver on those things, so although they may think that there are elements of the proposals that they also agree with, they are very, very reluctant to sign up to this package, because they simply do not have trust in the current Government to deliver on it. That is true right across the board in education, and that has got to be addressed.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. There are so many issues inside education funding that it is very difficult to contain oneself to a single topic, or to be contained to only 5 minutes. I could, for example, point to what is an obvious ploy of the National Government of announcing headline-grabbing budget lines in one Budget, taking a month’s worth of media coverage on that budget line, then quietly removing that same budget unspent in the following year, and then using the same bookwork transaction to give itself another headline. I could, for example, point to the National Government’s lauding of its investment into education. It is going into this election crowing about its increasing spending into education. The fact that much of this spending has nothing to do with a commitment to education but is a requirement due to a large natural disaster—a requirement to rebuild the educational facilities of Christchurch—appears to be lost on its backbenchers, as is the fact that much of this spending is required to rebuild schools throughout New Zealand. It was a National Government that changed the building code and the building standards and that approved faulty materials—millions upon millions to fix past National mistakes.

I could warn the New Zealand public about the current trumpeting by this Government of its supposed increased investment in education from the Budget under discussion to the more recent Budgets. I could warn the New Zealand public that when the Government says that it is investing more than ever before in education, it does not mean this to futureproof the public education system; rather, it is fattening the goose for sale. National is implementing a marketable business model over our public schools so that, should it successfully gain a third term in Government, it will extend the partial privatisation via charter schools to all New Zealand schools, as was previously advanced by this party in the 1990s.

But I will have to content myself with a single piece of propaganda from this Government, directly from this Budget. This single example shows how the National Government’s policy of “plug and play” when it comes to Ministers, which leads to a reliance on officials’ high-level thinking, which in turn leads to unintended consequences, impacts negatively on the children of New Zealand. I refer to the Budget announcement on increases to the early childhood education equity funding—the Budget announcement that said: “$47.9 million is being invested over 4 years in Equity Funding to support learners in our target communities.” What were the targets for this supposedly additional funding? They were to be: “A. Low socio-economic community”, “B. Special needs and non-English speaking background”, “C. Language and culture other than English”, and “D. Isolation.” The Ministry of Education and the Minister of Education made the following statement: “We expect that services that receive Equity Funding will use the increased funding to increase the enrolment and participation of children from the priority groups by taking actions such as: keeping ECE fees low so children from priority families can support and maintain regular participation, encouraging and supporting family/whānau to actively engage and support what their children are learning … provide additional resourcing for learning in te reo Māori and Pasifika languages.”

So how has that worked out for New Zealand? Well, let us talk about the New Zealand Playcentre Federation, an organisation internationally recognised, an organisation that goes directly to low early childhood education costs with the direct involvement of whānau and family, and, even more than that, an organisation that provides opportunities for those family members, those parents, to gain education at no cost. Well, as we debate this Budget, Playcentre is nationally in crisis. Unless the current funding context changes, then at least 483 playcentres across New Zealand will continue to crumble and they will close. Playcentre’s only hope is to hold on long enough for a change of Government later this year.

How about mobile kindergartens? How about the killing off of Hunterville’s mobile kindergarten through Government funding cuts and increased compliance? Mobile kindergartens involve teachers travelling to a number of rural or isolated areas with a range of equipment and resources and running kindergarten sessions for young children and their families. They provide early childhood education services in areas in which few other early childhood education services are available. Who will fill this gap? They will close. They are about to close, running at a $100,000 loss because the funding model no longer fits. Who will fill that gap for our rural children? Private business? Do not be ridiculous. There are not enough numbers to provide the commercial viability of a business to go into these areas, but that does not minimise the Government’s responsibility to rural communities for their children to be able to access these services inside marae, inside community halls.

Tēnā koutou e te Whare nui o te Whare Pāremata. Tēnā koutou katoa. I am pleased to take a call on Vote Education, although it saddens me because the education space should be a manifestation of harmony for the benefit of all our children’s learning, instead of which it is now a highly contested space between those who seek to privatise and those who want quality local public education, which includes innovation, to be the priority. That is what we have been struggling with, I guess, under Vote Education for the last couple of years.

We need foreign charter schools like a fish needs a bicycle. We need privatisation in the same way that we need the aforementioned bicycle. We actually need to think about what the public-private partnerships that have just been announced by the Minister of Education today will do to the quality public education system, which we are trying to strengthen. It is very interesting to see the cost-cutting and the property speak in the Cabinet paper that I have just been trying to read, which shows that schools are going to be “bundled together”—I love the rhetoric here—to see whether there is money to be made out of them under the name of relieving teachers and principles from managing school property.

Well, if one has read any of the international literature on public-private partnerships, the contract still has to be managed by the school. Schools have to deal with the private company that is making the money—or not—out of the school, and many of them have been left holding the baby. That is very, very worrying when we see the master plan for privatisation that has been rolled out this afternoon in this country.

Christchurch, of course, is the Trojan Horse for all of this. I was there last week and one of the principals said to me that it takes him far more time to manage his school cleaning contractor than it does to have people work for him directly. He said that managing contracts is actually far more time-consuming and difficult than just dealing with the people whom he knows who used to come in and clean his school. That was a minor example of his concerns about public-private partnerships, about which he knew nothing. He is from east Christchurch and is very intimately involved—supposedly involved—in the brave new world that is being created in the modern learning environments.

The other thing that was interesting that was said to me was that a modern learning environment might be some colourful beanbags and some new classrooms, but in reality the community remains the community, with a lack of the resources that they need. He said: “We as schools are still going to struggle with dealing with what is really going on with homelessness, with enormous stress, with poverty, with low wages, and with families that are under stress.”

So at the heart of the debate, although the Government will continue to deny this under Vote Education, is the reality of the child poverty statistics, which the Crown has admitted have been underestimated by up to more than 20,000 children. That is why we need to encourage our best people into teaching, and, like others, we watch this space to see how things play out in terms of the $350 million that has been allocated to give more money to executive principals and others.

But we also need to acknowledge that we have to address the fundamental issues of inequality, and the Green Party has done so. The Green Party has developed a package on the hearts and hubs of communities, how schools can be better at meeting those needs, open our doors, and be dedicated communities. There is a huge and ironic difference between the idea of a public-private partnership with services managed by a manager to make sure they are efficient and the idea in the Greens package of dedicated school coordinators to organise programmes with communities.

That could be Te Reo Māori, it could be adult and community education, it could be language classes, it could be social workers, it could be dental health, it could be parenting programmes, it could be whatever the community wants, not to see whether it is more efficient, whether more money can be made, and whether the Government can cut its spending on property, but to build communities. Free after-school and holiday programmes for children in decile 1 to 4 schools, a school nurse in those schools, and lunch for those decile 1 to 4 schools, if they want it, based on how they want to deliver it—all of these can be done and we have costed them for under $88 million per annum. And we have received very positive feedback from educators and communities about this package. We think it is a far better investment than investigating privatisation of school property or paying executive principals, who have got to look after 10 other schools and mentor them 2 days a week while running their own schools.

We think ours is a better investment. It is the difference between shallow and deep support for schools and communities in the reality that we face. Principals of low-decile schools tell me that low-decile environments require a different skill set and a lot more resources. One example they gave me was school support staff. This principal had taught in both decile 10 and decile 1 schools and said that much more needs to be spent on school support staff in low-decile schools.

Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I am really pleased to be able to take a call in this financial review debate, because I would like to take the opportunity to publicly commend the Ministry of Education for the fine work it has been doing in a very challenging portfolio. We have heard from speakers this afternoon, and if we were to believe everything they said, we would be surrounded by an education system characterised by doom and gloom, when, in fact, out there our schools—over 2,500 schools catering to 832,000 of our 5 to 17 and 18-year-olds—and over 5,000 early childhood education centres of a diverse range of provision are doing exciting and fulfilling and constructive things.

As Minister of Education I am very reliant on a family of education agencies within the government sector to undertake that work. The Ministry of Education is key amongst that. One of the first discussions I had with the new Secretary for Education, Peter Hughes, was what our particular role and contribution would be through the Ministry of Education. A significant change is going on. Whereas once the job of the Secretary for Education and of the ministry was characterised as being sector leadership, what we have recognised very clearly—unlike previous administrations—is that the leadership of the sector properly remains with boards of trustees, our parents around the country, and the principals of those schools. The role of the Ministry of Education is to provide the systems support to back those schools to be successful in delivering high-quality teaching and learning so that achievement can rise for all of our children. And that is what the Ministry of Education is doing.

There is a system change going on. It is being recognised by the sector leaders. That system change includes changes such as ensuring that what we are asking of schools really does add value to their operational environment and is not simply about compliance. They are appreciating that every fortnight now the Ministry of Education is communicating with them about the key issues and concerns that they need to be aware of. They are getting the support from our regional offices, which are working with them on understanding what our investment in data means for more effective operating of their schools, but, more properly, on making sure that they are causing learning to happen and that they know that it is happening.

So I would like to commend the Secretary for Education, his leadership team, and the ministry as a whole, which is full of very committed people up and down our country whose job it is to back our 2,500 schools and over 5,000 early childhood education providers to win. Why? Because we want to be responsive to parents. Whatever community they come from and whatever level of socio-economic status they have, parents want their children to be successful, and they put a great deal of trust into the schools and early childhood education providers to ensure that that can be the case. And there are professionals in schools whose jobs are to make sure that they are able to deliver their skills, their training, and their expertise to make sure that learning and engagement are occurring with the young people in front of them and that they are able to give information to parents in ways that parents can therefore be empowered to support their own children’s learning at home and in the community.

We have seen the importance and the necessity of ensuring that parents are being well supported, and that has led to the transfer of the authority and all of the funding from the Ministry of Education to the New Zealand School Trustees Association. That has resulted, in Budget 2013, in an 84 percent increase for the association. It is the organisation that works with over 16,500 parents, relations, and community people who want to see their school succeeding. We want to ensure that parents are getting reports in plain English so that they understand how they can help their children learn, and we are constantly improving that reporting by getting feedback from parents about what they require. We are investing in a tool kit for parents about the questions they can be asking their children’s teachers so that they get the answers that help them to be informed and helpful towards their children in their learning journey.

The Ministry of Education has been entrusted with $9.7 billion of taxpayers’ money to bring about a lift in achievement not for three out of five of our kids, not for four out of five, but for every one of our children and young people. We know from the research that the critical in-school difference is made by the quality of teaching and the quality of leadership. That saw in January this year the Prime Minister, in his state of the nation address, prioritising education and investing $359 million in four new roles. Those new roles will give better career pathways for our profession and they will support the status and the profile of the profession so that we can keep, attract, and grow the quality of teaching and leadership, because in schools that is what makes a difference to achievement.

And we want to back our profession to win. That is why this Government will be introducing legislation very shortly to transform the New Zealand Teachers Council into a 21st century professional body that is fit for the demands of the 21st century. That is why we have invested the $359 million that I have just talked about. That is why we are hosting education festivals in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch so that schools can showcase to each other and to the public all of the great things that they are doing within schools. That is why we have launched an inspiredbyU website, so that each and every one of us gets the opportunity to thank those teachers who have made a difference in our lives. That is why New Zealand went in to bat to host the International Summit on the Teaching Profession.

At the end of March we will be hosting in Parliament nearly 20 Ministers of Education from around the world, because they want to come to New Zealand to see what the particular levers are within our system that are making a difference but also how we can confront together the challenge that is a challenge to many education systems, which is how we deliver both excellence and equity to all of our children and young people. Our Ministry of Education, our Vote Education, and this Government are absolutely committed to backing our system to win and to putting our money where our mouths are.

Speaking of that money, we are also investing in the platform of schools.

That means school properties, which have been dismissed by previous speakers here. Modern learning environments really do create the context within which these quality teaching and quality leadership practices can make magic with every one of our New Zealand students. Network for Learning, the connecting up of schools to the ultra-fast broadband, has been a $700 million investment by this Government, because we know that the 21st century demands new ways of learning and we want every New Zealand child to be successful New Zealanders operating on a global stage. That is what this New Zealand education system is committed to.

There was some scaremongering about privatising our education system. How five partnership schools out of 2,500 schools can somehow characterise a privatising agenda is beyond me, Chicken Licken. The sky has not fallen. What this Government is prepared to do is trial other alternatives, invest in other options, to make sure we do get the five out of five of our young people succeeding. We cannot keep doing everything we have always done or we will keep getting the results we have always got. Instead, the result we are getting is a 2.5 percent increase in National Certificate of Educational Achievement overall, a 4 percent increase in Māori achievement, and a 7 percent increase in Pasifika achievement. In terms of getting under-fives into early childhood education, we have seen a rise to nearly 96 percent, when our target is 98 percent.

Look, our numbers, our performance, and our track record speak for itself. The $9.7 billion that has been entrusted into Vote Education is being spent wisely. That investment is showing a return. When I use language like that, it is not about privatising; it is about proving to the taxpaying parents out there that what we are doing in education is making a difference for each and every child.

Mr Chair, I can and will go on. I will go on and talk about all the wonderful things that we are doing across the education system. In terms of early childhood education, one of the key principles of the New Zealand education system is to provide choice to parents, whether it is playcentre or kindergarten, whether it is parent-led or teacher-led, whether it is home-based or centre-based. Those choices are ones that we profoundly believe parents in New Zealand have the right to make on behalf of their children for what they think is the best learning opportunity. That is equally true of our formal and compulsory education system. We have small rural schools. We have large metropolitan schools. We have faith-based schools. We have coed schools. All of these choices are available to our parents so that their children can have the education they deserve to create the best possible New Zealand we can have.

Report noted.

Crown Law Office

Report noted.

Vote Treaty Negotiations, Non-departmental appropriations