Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

I am very happy to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) in this Committee stage on Part 1. I want to turn particularly to the submissions on clause 38 of the bill, particularly new section 382(1)(i). That particularly relates to the new functions of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) in carrying out audits of teacher registrations on an annual basis. It requires the council to audit 10 percent of all of the practising certificates issued in any given year. It is a 3-year cycle, so roughly one-third of the teaching profession will renew their practising certificates each year. That means that 10 percent of that third will go through an audit process.

We received through the Education and Science Committee quite a range of submissions about this. Overwhelmingly, submitters felt that this was overly heavy-handed. First of all, I want to acknowledge that I understand what the Government is trying to achieve here. It is basically looking at some comments that have been made, particularly by the Education Review Office and others. Judith Aitken, for example, a former Chief Review Officer of the Education Review Office and a member of the review committee, noticed that there is huge national inconsistency and some weaknesses in teacher-appraisal processes. This has come through in a lot of research that has been done around New Zealand, and that is very legitimate. So I think what the Government is trying to standardise here is a greater performance appraisal system or feedback and appraisal system for the teaching profession.

But the real challenge is to make, if you like, best practice common practice without making it standard practice. If the Government makes it standard practice, then it would actually no longer be best practice, because it will turn into a form-filling exercise where teachers basically spend a lot of their time assembling portfolios that are based on compliance rather than on good educational outcomes. So what we want to do is encourage every school in the country to be adopting best-practice systems when it comes to the appraisal of their teaching staff without turning it into a compliance exercise. The real risk of this 10 percent audit function is that it will actually undermine the purpose of the bill, which is to raise the status of teaching and raise the quality of teaching in classrooms.

I want to point out here too that this is paper-based. So this is a group of people, potentially sitting in Wellington, looking at the portfolio of paper that has been presented to them. This will not result in one additional person sitting in a teacher’s classroom and saying: “These are the things you’re doing well and these are the things that you could improve on.” It is not actually going to result in a tangible increase in teaching practice, and that should be our goal. If the goal is to raise student achievement, then tangible increases in teaching practice is what an appraisal system should be all about. A paper-based review in Wellington based on a form-filling exercise, which is what this could well become, is not going to achieve that.

We have had some very compelling submissions from the profession itself and from many others saying that what is intended here is not going to work. We are talking here about potentially auditing 10,000 teacher appraisals. How can that be done through a central administration by EDUCANZ in a quality and meaningful way? It would be an enormous administrative exercise, and someone is going to have to pay for that. Who is going to pay? Ultimately, the teachers themselves will pay because it will be their registration fees that cover that cost.

Is that the job of the registration? No, it is not. This is actually a function of their employer. The employer, making sure that they get quality appraisal, should be covering the cost of that, not teachers in the form of the cost of their practising certificates. So I think that although I understand the objective behind this particular clause—I understand why the Government is trying to raise the standard of teacher appraisal throughout the country—I think that the mechanism it is using to try to do that is very, very flawed.

I want to just reflect here on some of the comments from some of the teachers who submitted to the select committee. They were very concerned that the evidence that they would have to produce to renew their practising certificates—in order to justify the renewal of their practising certificates and to meet this 10 percent audit requirement—would actually divert them away from their teaching job, which, of course, is what they are there to do and what they are passionate about. So best-practice teacher appraisal is actually based on in-classroom observation, which is best done within the school rather than by—

Kia ora, Mr Chair. Can I just pick up around the problem I had when I last spoke. It is in clause 38, in Part 1, and in the Minister of Education’s Supplementary Order Paper 21, which wants to delete new section 353(2) from Part 1. This is around the removal of natural justice. It is around the removal of natural justice with regard to the registration of teachers. I believe—and the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nathan Guy, might like to confirm this—that the answer the Minister of Education might possibly give me is that this is a duplication of natural justice in other parts of the bill.

If I could just speak to that, natural justice is mentioned in new section 176D in clause 9, which has to do with the governance of tertiary institutions—so nothing to do with the registration of teachers. It is also mentioned again in new section 398(7) in clause 38, which is around disciplinary functions. However, what we are talking about is the removal of new section 353(2), which is directly around teacher registration. It is important that this be repeated in this area around teacher registration because there are two parts particularly that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand must satisfy itself with regard to the registration of any applicant. These are very subjective. New section 353(1)(a) is that they be of good character, and (b) is that they are fit to teach. Those provisions are very subjective. They are not based on qualifications. They are not based on any other measure but a subjective measure. Therefore, in our view, it is important that natural justice applies and can be seen to apply when those subjective conversations are taking place.

We again request the Minister to either outline clearly why she feels the need to remove natural justice from this particular section of the bill or remove it from her Supplementary Order Paper—remove it from her Supplementary Order Paper. In our view it is necessary when it comes to the registration of teachers and the subjective nature of the Teachers Council when it decides whether to allow a person after their training and so on to be registered. So that is the first thing that I hope the Minister will address.

I want to address another part of the bill. There are two other things that I need to address while I have the opportunity. The first one is that the Minister has actually spoken in the Chamber before and talked about—well, she has never really spoken; she has kind of shouted across the Chamber, really. When we the Opposition have raised the difficulty we have with the changes to the education—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Shouted back.

Hey, we all shout from time to time, Mr Foster-Bell—mind you, not you, not often. When we have raised concerns about the changes to the Teachers Council, so that it is down to only nine members from 11 members and the removal of democracy from teachers where they could elect their own members of this council, the Minister has shouted across the House like I do now—like I do now. I am not sure whether the Minister actually understands that right now there are 11 people who are elected or appointed to the Teachers Council. One is nominated from each of the following: the New Zealand Educational Institute, the Post Primary Teachers Association, and the New Zealand School Trustees Association. The Minister appoints four and then registered teachers elect—elect—the other four members. Not only is there now a minimising of the council—there seems to be a thing of shrinkage over on the Government benches; it seems to enjoy shrinkage—and a shrinkage of the number of members here but there is definitely a removal of democracy. It is not as it is now. This is definitely a concern that should be addressed. It is no different than Mr Finlayson deciding that strategic planning is not necessary because that requires some form of democracy, etc., when he is talking about the arts and culture portfolio that he used to have.

Lastly, we come back down to the change of the name for the new professional body. If we go to the revised departmental report, the reason that they have given for the change of name is: “The name of the new professional body differentiates it from the current NZTC. It reflects the need for a shared emphasis on teaching and leadership across the entire system from ECE through to secondary-tertiary transition”—

I am pleased to take another call on this Education Amendment Bill (No 2). In particular, I want to concentrate on the clauses that cover the limited authority to teach, so clause 38 inserting new sections 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, and 370. These new sections of the bill fundamentally change the very notion of a limited authority to teach as we understand it in New Zealand.

At the moment, before this bill is passed into law, a school that has a particular gap in its workforce can apply for someone who does not have the necessary qualifications to be a teacher to have a limited authority to teach. There are all kinds of rules around what they are allowed to do. This legislation that we are debating tonight utterly expands out this provision. Instead of a school being able to apply because it has a gap that it is not able to fill, an individual can apply for a limited authority to teach. Instead of the 1-year authority that is granted to a school, an individual will themselves be granted, essentially, a 3-year ticket to rove around the country teaching at will without the necessary qualifications. We can see how these provisions change this.

I want to turn to a number of the submitters who came in and addressed this part of the legislation throughout the select committee process. We had a number of school principals come and address the Education and Science Committee. We made a point of asking each of the principals who came to the committee: “Are you having a problem in terms of fulfilling some of your positions, and do you see it necessary for there to be this massive expansion of the limited authority to teach so that you can fill gaps that you are not currently able to and get good teachers in front of your students?”. Almost 100 percent of principals told us that it really was a completely unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem.

In fact, the number of people teaching under the limited authority to teach has drastically reduced in recent years. Actually, around 70 percent of the people who are currently teaching under the limited authority to teach provisions are, in fact, itinerant music teachers who move around the country supporting music programmes in secondary schools. The way in which this was operating was absolutely adequate as far as the principals were concerned. They came from a mix of urban, rural, and provincial schools to address the select committee. Nobody saw the need for the change that is being proposed in the legislation that we have been talking about.

What we are seeing in these provisions to expand the limited authority to teach to individuals and to expand it to a period of 3 years is mirroring what we have seen in previous legislation in education from this Government in the last Parliament. It is a continuation of what we have seen in the charter schools, where unqualified individuals are able to stand in front of our classrooms and teach our children without having the necessary or requisite qualifications. We do not ask that anybody in this country goes to see a doctor who does not have the necessary qualifications. On this side of the Chamber, we think it is vitally important that our children are being taught by someone who does have the necessary qualifications.

If we go through each of these provisions and look at new section 365, which amends the 1989 principal Act and amends the notion of the limited authority to teach, it tells us: “The purpose of granting a limited authority to teach is to enable employers to have access to skills that are in short supply and to enable those with specialist skills but not a teaching qualification to teach.” This notion of skills being in short supply is indeed what the principals did talk to us about when we asked about the need for these provisions in this bill. When we asked whether there is a need for this—whether this is something that would benefit their school and would benefit the students in their school—they said no, as I have mentioned earlier in my contribution. But they did say that if there was a problem, the problem was actually with the Government’s lack of workforce planning in the teaching profession. They said that if the Government really did perceive that we had such gaps within our education system, instead of saying we should just warrant unregistered and unqualified people to stand in front of our classrooms—

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Paremata i tēnei pō. I was very pleased to join my colleagues in discussing this bill at the select committee stage because that stage was, as they have shown, very interactive. There were a lot of people who came before the Education and Science Committee with a big background in the teaching profession. They had a lot of things to say and they answered a lot of questions that we asked them about the issues that have been covered so far tonight, including the limited authority to teach.

I want to touch on a couple of Supplementary Order Papers that the Green Party is putting up, because we have some fundamental concerns about the purpose of the bill that we never got clarity on at the select committee, no matter how many times we asked. So I have got Supplementary Order Papers 31, 32, 33, and 36, which are all about the functions of this body. The last thing we need in this country in education legislation is more loose and confusing rhetoric that does not tell the person reading it what it means. We never got answers from anybody about the reason for changing the functions of the Teachers Council. I could also expand at length about the reasons for changing the governance structures at universities, but I think the first contribution will start with the issues relating to the functions of the Teachers Council.

The changes that have been made were, basically, changing a body that was set up to oversee the quality of initial teaching education courses that lead to registration; to manage registration; to issue practising certificates; and to manage conduct and competence processes. These are the functions that are appropriate to a registration body. If the Government wants to change that and has some vision, why do we not understand what it is? Why did we sit through days and days, weeks and weeks, and thousands of submissions and never get clarity about why the Government had decided to change this body? The clarity we got was that the Minister will decide who is appointed.

And then we are going to change the functions to do things such as raise the status of the profession. What does that mean? I think the very least that we need to know is what is meant by “raising the status of the profession” that the profession itself is not doing, or is not capable of doing, and why a non-elected body would be fitting to do that.

It is very bewildering—that is a very polite way to put it—because we already have these agencies that are under direct Government control, such as the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office, which look after quality in schools and, supposedly, support and help to raise the status of the profession and ensure quality education. There are a number of other research groups that also contribute to that, but now we have got another one. So instead of having a registration council with clear functions, elected by teachers for teachers, we now have a Minister-appointed organisation with broad powers that will be paid for by the registration fees, in some part at least, of the teachers themselves, who do not actually get to choose, and we do not know what it is for. We do not know what it means to talk about these things.

A number of submitters raised issues about what was going on and how ensuring safe and high-quality leadership teaching and learning in all settings was going to be achieved with no information and no backup. We tend to support the submitters who said that the council needed a narrower function and that, actually, a narrower function is clearer.

Like most professional bodies that are run by the professionals themselves, it is about registration. It is about competence, it is about safety, and it is about maintenance. If the Government believes that is no longer important and that what is important is to muddy the waters and have a huge, broad set of functions that no one really understands, it has done a great job—if that is what the purpose was.

Of course, nothing is context-free. We have to look at the clauses that the Green Party has put up in these Supplementary Order Papers in terms of the political context in which these clauses have been introduced. It is a low-trust model, as I said in a previous contribution, and it is not based on listening to the people who want to raise the status of their own profession. It is quite concerning. It is about a confusion of roles. The long list of functions in section 382 enables all kinds of things but, basically, does not clarify the reason for the changes that are being introduced. Why is the registration body needing to morph into some kind of status-lifting, best-practice profession? I will give you an example of a statement. The functions have been—

Before I proceed, and I have worked out who I am going to call, Catherine Delahunty has had her four calls on this part of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and that is the limit of it. One of the disadvantages members have now is that I was in the Chair previously and I do know who has spoken, and also what has already been said. I would like now for members to focus on the clauses of the bill. The principles have been accepted, and I think we can focus on the clauses of the bill.

I would like to focus on clause 6 of the bill. Clause 6 repeals sections 171 and 173 and goes to the issue of the governance of our tertiary institutions.

This is the first opportunity that I have had since picking up the tertiary education portfolio for Labour to address myself to these issues. Of course, I acknowledge and defer to the experience of my colleagues who have done the work on this previously. But good sense teaches me that when you are new to something what you should do is ask the stakeholders. In this context that, of course, includes students, teachers, professors, and university and tertiary institution management and vice-chancellors. That is the logical thing to do. As I was reflecting on this bill, it struck me that it is doing the opposite. It is turning away from a tradition of inclusiveness and representation. It is turning away from having the voices of students and staff and institutional governance all represented on the councils so that any tensions, trade-offs, and disputes can be transparently aired and good process put around the governance of those issues.

I ask myself why would it be that a Government would seek such a radical departure from the status quo. To hear from the New Zealand University Students’ Association and from the Tertiary Education Union, the first issue is there is nothing broken here. There is no obvious problem to be fixed that would require such a radical solution.

I turned then to the records of the submissions, which I note that the departmental regulatory impact analysis describes as mixed. It was 1,600 to one—1,600 opposed to the Government’s measures and one in favour. That is described as mixed. I then turned to the analysis in the regulatory impact statement that supports clause 6 of the bill, and it went through the typical and meritorious options analysis process. What it did up front was put in place the principle that the Government sought to serve, which was quite simply to shrink the councils, and then it tested a range of models against that determinant of shrinking the councils. Guess what? It came up with a model that shrunk the council. That is very different from what at least two-thirds, or by the sound of it three-thirds, of the sector—the students, the staff, and the management of universities—all want.

So why is this occurring? Is it international benchmarking? Well, the regulatory impact statement cannot confirm that. What it does say is that one notable study—and I will quote from the statement—says that “Smaller, shorter Australian and New Zealand studies find that larger board size is correlated with better firm performance.” That is interesting, is it not? The bigger boards actually perform better, most logically because they integrate the various issues through one governance process. We are left not wondering, but quite clearly opposing this clause, and that is why Labour is introducing Supplementary Order Papers that would essentially delete clause 6 and leave in place the representative nature of university governance.

As I have been around campuses during orientation weeks and during the election campaign, this was one issue that virtually nobody agreed with. Virtually nobody on campus supports clause 6 of this bill. This is a Government railroading change on the sector, and not listening. It is somehow appropriate, starting off the third term of this Government at the end of 2014, the election year, that it is demonstrating already that it is not listening. It is a Government that is not listening. The sector is unanimous in its objection to the fundamental nature of this part of the bill. The sector wants a representative university council structure, and this bill takes it away.

I would also like to talk about clause 6—the governance of tertiary institutions—and I think Mr Cunliffe outlined it brilliantly. These institutions are not like corporates. These institutions are places of higher learning, but also places where students come to grow, to experience life, and not just to study academically but to become productive members of society.

I have a real concern that section 171, “Membership of council”, says: “The council of an institution must have a total of 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 members,” in total. I worked in a very senior position in a university and attended a number of the council meetings of this particular university. I can assure the members of this Committee that it was an incredibly diverse council, but it was one that was incredibly empowered and did a fantastic job of the governance of the institution. In fact, it is now the fastest-growing university, and has been for about the last 8 or 9 years. That is not in spite of the council; it is because of the council.

When I look at section 171B, “Matters to be considered when appointing members”, or, actually, throughout clause 6, there seems to be a number of clauses that tend to contradict each other. I cannot quite see the logic. Section 171B says—and I would not mind knowing what sort of weight this carries. It does not say “must” and it does not say “has to”, but it says: “It is desirable …”, which obviously means Parliament is sending a signal to those who are appointing members on to a university board. It is not compulsory, but it is sending a very strong signal. But I would not mind knowing how strong the signal is.

Section 171B says: “It is desirable that the council of an institution should, so far as is reasonably practicable, reflect—(a) the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of the communities served by the institution; and (b) the fact that approximately half the population of New Zealand is male and half the population is female.” Really? Do they have to state that in statute? I suppose what I am saying here is of course that is important—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What if it changes?

Good question. But the thing that is most important is competency. The appointment of a council that reflects the community within which the university or the tertiary institution serves of course should be an admirable goal, but it should not be a constitutional requirement.

Then it does talk about competency. New section 171B(2)(b) states that the Minister or council “must appoint people who (in the Minister’s or council’s opinion)—(i) have relevant knowledge, skills, or experience;”, but then it goes and talks about—and I am sure, Mr Chairman, that you will not like this—the limits on the number of occasions that people may be appointed as members of the council. So what it is actually saying here, Mr Chair—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): You are not bringing me into the debate.

No, I am not at all. The Chair is a former Minister of Education, and I am aware of that. The thing that concerns me about this is that what it is saying is that if there are competent members who have been around for a little more than one or two or three times, then that is a very good reason to remove them. To me, someone having been in a position for a set period of time is not a reason to remove them if they are highly competent, because the last thing we want to see is competent members being replaced by those who lack a level of competency simply because they have been there a while.

But then to reflect this we look at new section 171E, which is entitled “Membership of more than one council” and which states: “A person who is a member of the council of an institution may be appointed a member of the council of another institution (whether or not they are institutions of the same kind).” So, to me, what this recognises is that there are actually not that many people in our country who have the skills, who have the time, who have the energy, who have the competency—everything needed to sit on a university or a tertiary council.

I know for a fact that most people who do sit on these councils do so out of a sense of community service. I think that the chair of a university council gets paid something like—I do not know—$23,000, $24,000, or $25,000, compared with the chair of a major corporate, who may get $150,000 or $200,000. The budgets controlled by these councils are substantial. In fact, I could be wrong, but I believe that the University of Auckland is the largest employer in Auckland City, and I also believe that Auckland University of Technology is the second-largest employer in Auckland City. So if you combine those in the tertiary education sector together, you have a massively powerful organisation, and yet what we are doing is limiting the ability of certain members through section 171D. This bill places limits on the time length that people can stay on a council. That makes no sense to me.

Let me reflect on the Auckland University of Technology board, for example. As mentioned, I was in a senior position at the Auckland University of Technology. A number of people on that board, and certainly the Government-appointed ones, also sat on corporate boards. So these were people who knew about governance. These were people who also got paid a substantial amount of money, which reflected their high level of governance competency, but they were sitting on that council because they believed in education, and in a way I suppose it was their way of giving something back. Yet what we are doing here, in a way, is seeking to limit the time or the description—well, actually, anything that limits people from sitting on a tertiary education council I do not think is a particularly sound move, and it is not a way to move forward.

At this stage that is my contribution, but it is something that does concern me greatly. Thank you very much.

In this contribution I want to refer to a matter that was raised by the Labour Party in its minority report. It concerns one of the amendments introduced by clause 38 in Part 1, which is provided for in the new proposed section 382(1)(i). This is related to the functions of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, or the Education Council, as it is shortened to in the bill. The proposal is that the Education Council, amongst other things, has the obligation to issue practising certificates and set criteria for the issuing of practising certificates of different kinds, including renewals.

Paragraph (i) states: “to ensure that appraisals made by professional leaders for the issue and renewal of practising certificates achieve a reasonable and consistent standard,”. The legislation is going to impose an auditing and moderating requirement for those appraisals for at least 10 percent of the practising certificates that are issued or renewed. So one in 10 practising certificates will have this more complex process that includes moderation or audit—in fact, audit and moderation, not either/or, but audit and moderation. The point that was made by the Labour Party in our minority report was that we do not think this additional cost is justified. I know that National Party members like to think of themselves as being the party that stands against unnecessary compliance costs, but this seems to be an obvious case where they are adding to compliance costs in a way where there has been no justification given.

As was stated by my colleagues, the research suggests that the best teacher appraisals are those that are conducted in a collegial manner in a high-trust environment, rather than in a rules-based system, where you have audits and moderation. So I would be interested to hear from the Minister in the chair, Nathan Guy, as to why he thinks the cost, which is going to have to be borne by someone if you are employing auditors or moderators to do again what has already been done by the Education Council, is justified. The Education Council, of course, is quite a large body and it has the obligation to appoint lead people on its behalf to issue these practising certificates. I would have thought that that was enough—that you could rely on the education authority to come up with its own systems. It might want to have an audit occasionally, but why it should be specified in statute that one in 10 of the practising certificates that are issued or renewed in any one year should always automatically have to be checked seems to me to be a bit over the top.

I do not know why we cannot just trust the Education Council to actually decide what is appropriate. If it comes across a problem, it might think that to tidy things up it needs to test one in 10. But I cannot imagine it needing to test one in 10—to put through moderation or to audit one in 10 of the renewals of practising certificates for teachers, for example, every year. It just seems to me to be a waste of money and a waste of time, and frustrating for everyone involved. So I would like the Minister to answer that. I do not know of other examples where we have other professionals who, when they apply for renewal of their practising certificate—whether they be a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, or whatever they are—for every one in 10 they automatically have someone acting as a moderator or an auditor in respect of those functions.

I am not going to traverse again the issue as to appointments to university councils, but one issue that I did not have a chance to address is the other end of the process, which is removals. My understanding is that the removals power in the legislation has been changed so that the Minister—[Bell rung]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Hon David Parker—on the basis of loudness.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I will not take the full call. I am not sure what the justification is for the Minister having the power of removal not just of the members of university councils who have appointed by the Minister but of all of them. As I understand it, until now the university council controlled its membership in respect of the removals. You would then expect that the ones whom the university council appointed would be the ones who would exercise a right of removal. But I am told—and, in fact, I have read the provision in the legislation; I forget the proposed section just offhand but I did have a read of it—that the power of removal is vested in the Minister in all instances, including in respect of appointments that are not made by the Minister. I would like some explanation from the Minister as to why that is necessary as well.

I rise to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill will amend the Education Act 1989, and I would like to talk about sections 380 and 382 in new Part 32, inserted by clause 38. New Part 32 is about the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ).

Teachers have a very important and challenging task in Aotearoa. As a new member of Parliament I have spent the last few weeks visiting local schools, meeting teachers, and talking with principals, and it really brings home just how challenging the task of teaching our children is for many of our low-income schools across New Zealand, especially in many of the schools in the electorate I come from, Manukau East in South Auckland. Most of them are decile 1a or decile 1. I can tell you very clearly that this amendment bill does not support our teachers. This is not a bill that puts the interests of students or our nation’s future first. The point of this policy should be to support our teachers to become highly functional and autonomous professionals at all levels in the education sector, but in order for this to happen, teachers must actively participate in the process and have their voices actually heard, rather than just being told by Government appointees what to do.

Teaching is one of our most important professions. Teachers spend thousands of hours a year with our children and young people. Teachers have an important role in building the future of Aotearoa New Zealand. We trust our teachers to be, after parents and families, perhaps the most influential people in our young people’s lives, but this Government will not trust them even to democratically elect their own representative members on to their own professional body. The knowledge, training, experience, and expertise of teachers are to be silenced by this bill—squashed at the whim of this Government. It is crucial that teachers and principals are democratically elected on to the proposed Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. After all, we live in a democracy. It is only through a democratic process that we will end up with a council that is representative of the profession it is supposed to represent. This is only fair, particularly given the fact that teachers are expected to pay a registration fee to this body. It is only fair, if these fees are to be paid, that teachers should be democratically represented on the council. As it stands, teachers will be compelled to pay the fees to a body that is hand-picked and appointed by the Minister. The same lack of concern for value, expertise, and knowledge, and for democracy is also apparent elsewhere in this bill, and I will speak about this—about wānanga and universities—if I have time.

When the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) was first introduced, the Minister of Education stated that the bill was the result of a 3-year conversation and widespread consultation that began in 2010. According to the departmental report on this bill, 1,525 submissions were received. Of those, 1,032 submissions commented on the proposed establishment and functions of this new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, which can be found in section 382 in clause 38, and the majority of those submissions were opposed to the amendments proposed in this bill. If this Government had actually had a conversation about this bill, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), we would be looking at a very different bill. What is really telling about just how much this Government actually listens, care, or understands is the fact that although there has indeed been wide consultation, this is not a conversation as most New Zealanders understand it.

You might say that this has been more of a one-way conversation, rather than a conversation as the majority of us would see it. A conversation involves listening, and it is pretty clear that this Government did not listen to the over 1,500 New Zealanders who made submissions on this bill, because most of them were opposed to the establishment of EDUCANZ in this form. It is not a conversation when almost everyone who makes a contribution opposes it and this Government is still intent on implementing exactly what it had initially planned on implementing anyway. It is not a conversation when this Government progresses the bill without actually addressing and taking into account most of the over 1,500 submissions that have been received from teachers, from schools, from universities, from wānanga, from parents, from academics, from students, and from the public in general.

I will now turn to section 171, “Membership of council”, inserted by clause 6. The governance changes proposed in section 171 will diminish the voice and representation of staff and students on university and wānanga councils. Staff and student representatives are key stakeholders at universities and wānanga, and they should be required participants in council decision-making. Removing staff and student representatives will have a negative impact because both offer valuable skills, knowledge, and experience to councils. In addition, students and staff have a democratic right to serve on tertiary education institution councils. Many of my esteemed colleagues on both sides of this House cut their teeth as student politicians—students who have represented other students—and some were on tertiary institution councils.

The report from the Education and Science Committee clearly shows that the changes proposed by the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) are strongly opposed by most of the submitters. In fact, of the 1,525 individual submissions and 298 oral submissions to the select committee, only five—only five—supported these widely condemned reforms. We may hear about the 1 percent but this is taking it to the next level—less than 1 percent. The changes proposed by this bill are universally opposed by the sector because the proposed changes are not based on any evidence or any real arguments, and the entire sector says they will have negative consequences.

One of these negative consequences includes a reduction in academic freedom and autonomy. Increasing the number and proportionate influence of Government members to up to 40 percent, appointed at the choice or the whim of the Minister, will indeed give politicians unfair and undue influence on Aotearoa’s wānanga and universities. Universities have the role of being the critic and conscience of our society. Our tertiary education institutions are supposed to be free from political pressure. The changes proposed by the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) will undermine the independence of our wānanga and universities.

There is a need for this House to focus on raising the quality of education in Aotearoa, and we can begin this by acknowledging, by affirming, and by supporting our teachers and our academics in the crucial role that the teaching and academic profession have in setting and maintaining the standards for the profession. This bill does not do this. Labour strongly opposes the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). Kia ora tātou katoa.

Kia ora tātou. I thought it would be useful if I got up and clarified some of the understandings that are reflected in the contributions that have been made this evening. In fact, it is true that there has been a 4-year process, and there has not been selective listening. In fact, the first part of the process was a sector-led group that went around and had discussions with its colleagues in 2010. In 2012 there was another review and it was based around who could or could not safely teach in schools, and that was followed in 2012 by a further review of the Teachers Council as a whole, and that went around and consulted. Then, in 2013—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: How many submitters supported this?

Well, there are 102,000 teachers registered, and I will submit to you that far more than—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: What proportion of submitters supported this?

Well, a big number of those were consulted.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: A big number?

I cannot put a specific number on it, and I do not propose to. But if members would just like to listen—as opposed to suggesting that I do not—I will tell them that what happened was we then had a ministerial advisory group, which then held consultations all around the country. So it is absolutely true to say that a 4-year process of consultation—of listening—went on, which culminated in the select committee. It is not true to say, then, that we have not listened to the select committee, because a number of the recommendations made by that select committee have been incorporated into this bill.

Members are very exercised by the idea that there will be nine members appointed to the council. What will occur then—what has been indicated from the outset—is that the competencies and capabilities expected for the governance of the institution will be publicly known and transparent. And it will be democratically possible for every individual teacher to nominate into that process if they choose to, unlike the process we have now, where it happens through particular organisations. Parents can nominate. What is required under this bill is that a majority of those appointments must be teachers who are registered and hold current practising certificates—that was a recommendation of the select committee, and that has been taken up—and they have to be able to demonstrate through the final appointment that they meet all of the competencies required to govern this new entity.

One of the questions that has also been asked has been about the proposition that there has been the removal of natural justice from this bill. I think that is just a small confusion; in fact, it has moved to a different section. So although it was in section 353(2), inserted by clause 38, it is now in section 382(3), inserted by clause 38. So this bill provides for natural justice; it is just in a different section.

This bill is absolutely focused on how we support the teaching and leadership of the education sector and the profession to have a professional body that is about them, about standards that underpin their particular roles, and about a consistent and moderated process that appraises whether or not those standards are being met. The 10 percent provision is to ensure that there is consistency across the country. Analogously, this is what the New Zealand Qualifications Authority does when it ensures that we have consistent marking of our examinations. In fact, I think that this provision enhances the quality provisions that are within this bill.

I think that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is a sound reflection of the characteristics that are necessary for a 21st century professional body. This bill has certainly been through rigorous scrutiny, as it has been tonight, and I am very pleased that we have had the opportunity to clarify some of the concerns that have been raised during the debate. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Otirā, e te W’are, tēnā tātou. I want to speak on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), in particular on new sections 365 to 372 inserted by clause 38, under the heading “Limited authority to teach”.

When I was the chairman of Te Kura o Rātana school board of trustees and we were dealing with these matters, the limited authority to teach, from our perspective, was not the first option that we would go for. It was definitely a secondary option. The limited authority to teach was used in a way that supported the overall teaching in the school, but our preference was always to have qualified and registered teachers. And so I stand to express my concerns about these particular provisions, particularly from a Māori perspective, because I think sometimes that the expectations on ourselves as Māori are lower than they should be. I think that these particular sections elevate the status of the limited authority to teach and, in a way, kind of devalue having a qualification and being registered. I absolutely believe that there is a better way forward than these new sections on the limited authority to teach.

The other thing—and I am happy to be corrected on this—is that there is no clear reason as to why these changes are being brought about. From my perspective it seems to be that they have been brought about to make it easier, I guess, for some staff members to be able to teach in schools without being qualified. I think there are some situations where a limited authority to teach is the correct thing to have, and that there are situations where you do not always need a qualified or registered teacher, but I think that should always be the first option. That is the main point that I want to make in speaking on this Education Amendment Bill (No 2).

The other thing from a school board of trustees’ point of view—and I have certainly spoken to my share of teachers and principals and, indeed, members of boards of trustees—is the whole process for the registering of teachers. The structure that has been put into this amendment bill around teacher registration seems to me to again diminish their role, and I think that reducing the numbers will reduce the diversity—or the potential for diversity—of representation on these bodies. That is my contribution to this amendment bill. Ngā mihi nui.

I move, That the question be now put.

The amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 34 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 38 is out of order because it is inconsistent with a previous decision to an amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 22 to delete new section 382(1)(i).

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 22 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 38, to replace references to “code of conduct” with “code of ethics”, be agreed to.

Catherine Delahunty’s amendments replacing the word “conduct” with “ethics”, as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 35, are out of order as they are inconsistent with a previous decision on Supplementary Order Paper 22 in respect of replacing references to “code of conduct” with “code of ethics”.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 35 in the name of Catherine Delahunty to clause 38, to delete new section 387(6), be agreed to.