Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Chairperson Williams. Look, obviously, this is a bill that has been developed by the previous National Government and much of it we support—in particular, a number of measures designed to strengthen the ability of the agencies responsible for maintaining the integrity of the system. There are a number of changes in this legislation that will make it easier for the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to maintain and ensure the quality or the integrity of, particularly, the international education sector. We support that. We see it’s an incredibly important sector to the New Zealand economy—$4.5 billion worth of export revenues—and we think the logical response to inevitable areas of poor performance in part of that sector is to ensure that we’re giving the parties responsible for maintaining the quality of the sector every ability to do that properly. So we support the Government in doing that.

What we don’t support is the removal of the section that was in the legislation that asserted the principle of equal treatment of all tertiary education providers. I have Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 17 here, which reinserts those two clauses, because we think it is, essentially, a piece of ideology on the part of the incoming Government to just simply remove that assertion, which really is a very hard one to understand. What we have, and had for the last five or so years in practice, is that if the Government is purchasing a quality piece of education and looking for an outcome, it doesn’t matter who delivers that piece of education; it’s the outcome and it’s the quality education that is delivered that counts. I think most people would understand that. If you’re getting a particular degree in a particular area of study, it doesn’t matter who delivers that; it’s the quality of the education that counts. That’s been the practice over the past five years or so, and the bill as introduced by National asserted that principle.

I can’t understand why the new Government—I’d be very keen to hear from the Minister what the rationale is for pulling this away at this stage. You know, I would have thought—again, we’re seeing in a number of instances bills that have gone through select committee processes and then, at the last moment through an SOP, Government is making changes, and not necessarily going back and giving people an opportunity to make a contribution on that.

So, overall, we’re about to start through this committee stage, and this bill is an important one in terms of giving the enforcement agencies the ability to do a good job, particularly in that international education sector. We see that as important, but we are disappointed with what we see as just a piece of ideology that the new Government has stamped on it, and we’d hope that they would reconsider.

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

I’m delighted to have the opportunity here to talk to Part 1 of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Part 1 deals with clauses 4A and 5 through to 8, and I’m particularly interested in talking to this part. I’ve got a few points that I want to make, and I do have a few questions that I would like to ask the Minister. This part of the bill is a really important part. It’s not the tertiary part, even though that’s really important too, but this is the term “Other Matters”. It deals with the international students and our care of international students and schools’ management of the misconduct of these students.

The reason I’m so passionate about this, and have become so in the last few weeks, is that I have been on the select committee—the Education and Workforce Committee—that took over this bill from the last Education and Science Committee in the 51st Parliament. It’s well-known in this House that I’ve got a strong education background and have been a principal, but one area that I had—up until I had taken and worked through this bill—very little knowledge of was international students. Some of the work that came from this bill—and because of the amendments that we’re making, through here—has actually surprised me, and that’s one of the reasons why I want to focus on this area and make sure that we get it right. We have this one opportunity now to make certain that we are not only protecting the students but protecting the schools, as well.

In the past, schools have recognised the limitation of the Education Act 1989 and have created a second line of enrolment contract to supervise students’ conduct in other areas. This was recommended by the Ministry of Education in guidelines that were set out in the code of practice. But incidents happened in schools where the students showed misconduct out of school time and their enrolment in schools was ended. Schools were then taken through to the High Court, and at that point it was shown that just having the enrolment guidelines as related to the code of practice wasn’t enough. So we have to therefore address that here at this level. It’s really important that schools are able to maintain the responsibility for international students outside of schools, but, at the same time, the code of practice is important to outline protections for international students.

So my first question to the Minister relates to the code of practice in relationship to the definition of enrolment that we have put into this Act. With the changes through the bill, I’m presuming that the code of practice will need reviewing and, as the time frame of this bill coming into effect is quite tight, what will the time frame be around reviewing the code of practice, if that’s the case? I believe that the code of practice is still a really, really important part of this piece of legislation, because the code of practice gives both the school and the international students surety around the fact that for the schools, they can protect themselves around the misconduct of the student, and for the student, they’ve got due process in any issues that they may face.

I guess another question that I have on that is that if that’s the case and you’ve got students whose enrolment has been stopped, is there going to be a pathway for those students to question the decisions made about their enrolment? So that is looking into what future pathways going forward will they have in those areas.

When this part of the bill came before the select committee, there were only two submissions that were made on it. One was from the Nurses Organisation, but the other one was from the Schools International Education Business Association—or, as I’ve already said in the House, the acronym is SIEBA. Now, SIEBA works on behalf of those schools and is supporting the schools in those situations. SIEBA questioned why there wasn’t a definition of the enrolment contract in the Education Act—which was why this was amended going forward, to put that definition into the Education Act.

So I do have another question for the Minister going forward here, because SIEBA said that it wasn’t just important to deal with the misconduct of students outside of school; the changes were also needed to support schools with their decision to return students if they found out that there were non-disclosed conditions when those students turned up at the school. Now, one thing that was a surprise to me was that those non-disclosed conditions are actually quite common, or, as they said, not uncommon. Often that was made because parents back in the home country were scared that if they did disclose those conditions, those students wouldn’t be accepted for enrolment. So SIEBA believed that the changes needed to be made to support the schools’ decision to return those students to their home countries as well if those non-disclosed conditions were found out. I guess my question here is: does this definition of enrolment contract that we’re putting into this Act ensure that schools have that ability as well, going forward?

On that, the last question that I have on this is on the distinction between the international students living here with their parents and international students living with a host family, and just ensuring that we have that covered in the Act. Being someone that has had many—I think I counted five international students myself over the years. So, having been a host mum to five international students, there is quite a big distinction, even though the same conditions exist for those students when they are in enrolment in schools, and I’m wanting to make sure that this is dealing with the students who don’t have their parents here and are not living with their parents. We’re actually looking at the distinctions there for the overseas students living with host families.

I think that’s about it that I have on that particular clause, so I’ll be interested to hear what the Minister has to say around those. Thank you.

I call Erica Stanford—no, sorry. I beg your pardon. I should know my own—Denise Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson Tolley. I appreciate the chance to take this call and speak to this particular bill. I’m going to speak and briefly touch on three matters here, all related to Part 2. The first is clause 16, which inserts the catch-all words “(c) conditions that the Commission considers [are] reasonably necessary to enable the Commission to”—and here we go—“effectively monitor the performance of organisations and the tertiary education sector generally.”

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I don’t like to interrupt the member, but I think you’re on Part 2 when we’re still on Part 1.

I do apologise, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Part 1 is quite narrow, on clauses 4A to 8.

All right. Can I—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): You can continue as long as you talk about Part 1.

I can continue, but I’m sorry, Madam Chair, I do want to speak to Part 2.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Oh, that’s all right. You can take a call there.

So excuse me in the interests of being a new MP, and I’ll let someone else speak to Part 1.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson Tolley. On the whole, this is a good piece of legislation introduced by the National Government. I’d like to take a look at Part 1 of the bill, in particular—similar to Jan Tinetti—at clause 5(2), inserting new subsections (2A) and (2B) into section 4, relating to the international student conduct.

As an electorate MP for East Coast Bays, I have many schools in my electorate that have international fee-paying students. In fact, almost every single school in my electorate has these students, including Long Bay College and my old school, Rangitoto College, with students from all over the world offering international perspectives, an introduction to new cultures, and some long-lasting international friendships. The income provided by these students to our schools is not insignificant, and provides opportunities for these schools that they would not otherwise have had. But with these opportunities comes responsibility. Our schools know they have a responsibility to provide for the welfare, the well-being, and the safety of these students for this and for the reputation of the export industry. A collapse in numbers of these fee-paying students in our schools would have a very negative impact. As such, ensuring the safety of those international students and protecting our international reputation is of vital importance.

Any increase in an ability to further look after the well-being of international students would be welcomed by our schools. This bill plays a really important part in doing this. It responds to a recent High Court ruling that a school had no rights to manage their international students’ misconduct outside of the school. This ruling found that schools could not stand down, suspend, or exclude international students for misconduct outside the school, even though their enrolment contract allowed for it. This has massive consequences for international students’ safety and their well-being. So schools are currently unable to effectively manage that risky or potentially harmful behaviour. This bill will ensure that schools manage international student misconduct outside the school so they can uphold their contractual duty to ensure international students’ health, safety, and well-being, and, therefore, protect the reputation of our export education industry.

We believe that enabling the State schools and State integrated schools to manage international student misconduct outside of the school is a change that schools will absolutely welcome. I understand that the Regulations Review Committee raised concerns around the fact that international students would be excluded from sections 13 to 18AA of the Education Act, which are those provisions around exclusions and disciplinary actions. I understand I wasn’t part of the Education and Science Committee or the Education and Workforce Committee, but I read their report and I understand that they were satisfied that the disciplinary action against international students being governed solely by the code of practice would be a cleaner and more effective way of managing that rather than legislation, which has been specifically designed primarily to protect domestic students’ access to schools.

We’ve been a constructive Opposition. While there are some things in this bill that we’re not happy with, overall, we’ve taken a constructive approach. We worked, as I understand it, in the select committee, to ensure that these international students, their conduct outside of schools, is able to be regulated to ensure their welfare and their safety.

I understand there was agreement between the committee members as to the changes made in the Education and Workforce Committee to these clauses. I note there were some changes made at the select committee that were agreed upon unanimously, and I know that the schools—certainly in my electorate—will be very happy with these changes.

The only question that I would have for the Minister is around these international students being excluded from sections 13 to 18AA. Because I wasn’t part of the select committee, I’ve read the report, but if the Minister was able to provide some further clarifications around why they aren’t able to be included in that part of the legislation, that would be helpful, just for my benefit. There wasn’t a huge amount of notes in the select committee report that I read around that for my own knowledge, but if you could address that, that would be ka pai. Thank you, Madam Chair.

It gives me great pleasure to speak to the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I took an earlier call—I think it was on the second reading—talking about how this bill strengthens the education system, brings in more accountability, and also provides additional student protection.

Now, I have some notes prepared on Part 2 of the bill. Are we able to speak to Part 2, or is it just on Part 1?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): No, we’re on Part 1 at the moment. We will come to Part 2, so there’s plenty of opportunity.

Right, right. OK. In that case, I’ll see if someone else wants to seek the call on Part 1.

Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson Tolley. I’m very happy to answer some of the questions that have been raised on Part 1 of the bill so far. So the question that was raised by Jan Tinetti—

💬 Andrew Bayly: What questions?

If the members listen, I’ll happily review the questions for them, as they seem to be having difficulty keeping up. There haven’t been many questions, so I’m surprised that they’re having difficulty keeping up, but I will answer the questions that have been raised.

So the first question was raised by Jan Tinetti, which was what will happen if these provisions are inconsistent with the existing code that relates to international students. Now my understanding is that they’re not inconsistent but that the code will be reviewed once these provisions have been brought into force, as you would expect when there is a law change. So it’s not a question of there necessarily being great inconsistency at the moment, but when the law changes, of course, the code should be reviewed and that will happen.

The second question that Jan Tinetti raised was whether or not the students who have been subject to a disciplinary action would have some ability to challenge that decision. I think that’s a very good question, because the consequences for these international students of being subject to the disciplinary action are obviously very high—potentially very high—and, therefore, it’s very legitimate to ask what they could do to challenge that. There are some existing provisions within the code that will, of course, continue to apply. They can make a complaint via the code of practice administrator, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and the dedicated international student contract disputes resolution scheme. So there are a number of potential avenues already available, and if an international student feels that they have been treated unfairly, they’ll have the ability to do that.

The other question that Jan Tinetti asked was around international students who might be living in New Zealand with their own family. They are treated differently to international students who are living with a host family. The reason for that is the international students living with a host family will be subject to, basically, a contract with that host family, whereas the students living with their own family, of course they’re not subject to that. So, therefore, those provisions that relate to the contract will, of course, not apply to people in their own home.

So what does all that mean in plain language? It means that if you’re a domestic student and you do something wrong outside of school hours, the school doesn’t have an ability to discipline you regarding that. If you’re an international student—as of today—and you do something wrong outside of school hours, the school doesn’t have the powers at the moment to undertake disciplinary action either. With the change, they will have the ability to take disciplinary action for those students who are living with a host family. But the provisions relating to those students living with their own families, of course, will not change. So I think that clarifies that.

The other issue that was raised by Erica Stanford—a very legitimate question—is why different provisions will now apply to international students rather than to domestic students. I think that’s simply for the case of clarity. Those provisions that apply to domestic students apply only in so far as they are in school time, in school hours. So the school doesn’t have an ability to discipline a domestic student outside of school hours. As the new powers are going to be broader than outside of school hours, it was deemed appropriate that that be the subject of separate provisions, rather than extending the scope of existing provisions to some students but not to others.

I call Marja Lubeck. We’re still on Part 1.

💬 Marja Lubeck: OK—no.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call the Hon Clare Curran.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson Tolley. Can I take a short call on Part 1 of this bill regarding the schools’ management of international student misconduct. Can I thank the Minister in the chair, Chris Hipkins, for the clarification around the contract of enrolment and misconduct. My question to the Minister in the chair goes alongside that, which is essentially around how this bill allows schools to more effectively manage international student misconduct—not only misconduct, but pastoral care. So my question is around pastoral care and around how that can be manifested and improved under this legislation, while alongside disciplinary action—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: What pastoral care are you getting?

I would ask the members on the other side of the Chamber to take this seriously because the contribution of schools and our tertiary institutions to international students is considerable in this country, and I would hope that they would take that seriously.

This Government stands for balance, because alongside disciplinary action and the ability to take disciplinary action comes the pastoral care element and the importance of that. In Dunedin, in my city, international students play a considerable role in the education ecosystem, whether it’s at the secondary school level or tertiary level. There was a report earlier last year—I think in March—where there was a contribution from international students of $117 million to the secondary and tertiary economy. Maybe in Auckland terms that might not seem that considerable, but in Dunedin terms it is. Not only that, but it’s actually seen as being an absolutely critical part of the way that our school system and our tertiary system runs that we treat the international students with respect and we have good processes around them.

So I’m particularly interested in the pastoral care aspect of that, because I think that, again, this Government stands for balance. While it’s important to clarify the contractual arrangements between the host families and the international students and their families, and that there are stronger protections around that, the pastoral care environment is critical. Speaking for the school system in particular, when these young people are coming from countries and into an environment where they have cultural differences and where they’re on their own, they’re young people, they’re teenagers, and they’re thrust into an environment that is not within their own family and not within their own culture, and obviously issues arise. So alongside any disciplinary or misconduct process goes the pastoral care process.

I’m very keen to hear from the Minister in the chair around the importance that is placed in this piece of legislation on that particular process. Thank you.

I just make the point that the member might be very interested in a reply from the Minister, but that’s not actually what Part 1 is about.

Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson Tolley. The point I’d like to raise in the brief speech that I’ll give tonight is the one, I guess, of equity or discrimination. We’re talking about foreign students here.

I reflect on my own personal experiences of being a foreign student—not in a tertiary institution, but actually in a secondary one. I, as a West Coaster, went to Canterbury for my secondary education, so I was very much a foreigner. The issue and the parallels I draw here are the differences in the way that I, as a foreign student, was treated compared to the domestic one. The domestic one was a student from Christchurch, and I was from the West Coast, and believe me, they saw us in a different light. It was, in fact, around discipline.

In fact, I can recall a particular incident with my good friend and colleague. I’ll mention his name: Pete Verhall, who’s now very unwell. Both of us got caught smoking at lunchtime. The discipline dealt to both of us was quite different—absolutely. I got five of the cane and he got nothing. So the consequences of that—because I felt very, very unfairly treated—was that he went on to have some, I guess, challenges and I learnt that discipline was dished out fairly bluntly. It was fair, I thought, but in a way that was different from the domestic student.

The point here is that if we are going to, and we have done, welcome foreign students into our country, we’ve got to make sure that we treat them with equity and that the discipline that we are bringing here—and the question I ask of the Minister in the chair is: can he assure me that the domestic students and the foreign students will be dealt with fairly? Because in my experience, as a foreign student in Canterbury, I wasn’t dealt to fairly, I have to say. Some may blame a lot of things on that. I’m not going to pass judgment, other than to say that as we move forward and learn from our own experiences, I would hate to be part of a Government that passed a law that was going to discriminate unfairly against foreign students.

So the question I have is: what will be in the contract of enrolment? One of the particular issues that we’ve referred to—and, as Minister of Agriculture, there are a number of foreign students who are helping out a number of our horticultural producers, I have to say. If the contract of enrolment makes reference to attendance at courses, then the foreign students may be unfairly disadvantaged if they’re not allowed to scarper off and do a bit work, but the domestic ones are.

It’s a legitimate question, because the foreign students pay quite a lot of money to come to a school. In my experience, I was paying $150 a term, which wasn’t a lot of money—just to pull it back to my own personal experience. But the point is that the contract of enrolment, while dealing with this issue of foreign students—and I accept that they have a privilege to come to our country and learn, but there will be a fine line somewhere in here that means that we’ve gone too far, and in which case we’ll be discriminating against them. Or we may be drawing the line in a fair way that says, “Well, it’s OK for a domestic student to go and get a bit of work and not turn up at a course, but for a foreign student, maybe they have to turn up to each and every one.” Without seeing the contract in front of me, I can’t work out which particular areas may be problematic, but knowing the Minister, I think he will be doing everything he possibly can to ensure a fair regime, and I applaud him for that. But the devil’s always in the detail.

Drawing once again on my experiences, sad as they were at times—discriminated against unfairly as a West Coaster—I have to say that I’d hate to then impose that discrimination on anyone else. So it’s a legitimate part of any contract. I think you do need to ensure that someone who comes here as a foreign student is going to adhere to the reasons they came to New Zealand. There has always been this option of a year’s work permit, along with a student permit. Whether that then complements or contradicts what we’re doing—maybe the Minister can answer.

Kia ora, Madam Chairperson Tolley. Thank you very much. Just to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill, and just to the speaker Damien O’Connor, who resumed his seat—we don’t have foreign students anymore; we have international students. Just so you know, “foreign” is a very old-fashioned word, associated with colonialism, and now we have international students. So you wouldn’t be considered an international student, sir—and I do not mean you, Madam Chair.

If I can speak to Part 1, “Amendments to principal Act”, can I first just compliment the Minister on clause 4, which amends section 60A(1)(ba) to remove the requirement that the Minister publish national standards. Can I compliment you on having the courage to deliver that for New Zealand children, quite frankly. Can I also compliment you on clause 5, which amends section 61(4)(a) and means that a school charter is no longer required to include—the wrong bill. I do apologise, ma’am. I do apologise.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m frantically looking through to see where this is!

I may have to actually give over the floor while I—this is what happens when one is a hard-working Minister. One finds that one has more pieces of legislation to speak on than one would like.

So if I actually do go to Part 1 of this particular bill, which is the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—and I still wish to actually compliment the Minister, Chris Hipkins, because there are amendments that he has made right now that are very pertinent to today’s school environment. And I take on board the rarking up from the Opposition members, because, of course, what we’re undoing is some of the silliness that they put into place.

So if we go the provision after section 4(2), in clause 5, we see new section 2A, which says that if an international student’s conduct is in breach of the contract of enrolment, the board of the school may take appropriate disciplinary action against the student.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: We knew you were thick, but we’d think filibustering would be a bit more effective than this.

Having, in the first person—Mr Finlayson, please stop. One wants to speak about education, not necessarily about your failings. So if we take into consideration the first person in this, what we have had is we’ve had schools having to deal with international students that have breached several levels of their contract, and mostly—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Why is she in Fletcher’s seat? Didn’t she get the memo?

—that is around drug taking or other offences that a domestic student would be held to account for, would be suspended for—Mr Jami-Lee Ross—and possibly excluded from the school because they have broken the school rules. And what we are trying to do here, and what the Minister quite rightly is trying to do here, is make sure that when international students—which are a large part of the market for our secondary school environment. It’s a positive thing for New Zealand society. It’s the interaction between our young people and young people from other nations, and the strength inside that interaction is that it is much more difficult to make a decision—that you believe you know a country from what is portrayed to you in the media when you individually know people from that nation, and that is the strength of the international student industry inside our secondary schools.

But the schools must have the opportunity to make sure that their school rules are followed, and that is what gave rise to this sort of piece of legislation—to make sure in circumstances where an international student, or the agent, actually, that made money from them, was able to take the school to task or was able to actually stop the school from implementing the school rules that any domestic student would have to follow, because, supposedly, by paying money there was some exemption to that. That is why this is a very important piece of legislation from that perspective.

I know many schools are looking forward to this piece of legislation passing through into law so that they can be confident that when they manage their international student body, that when they market overseas, and that when agents who make a commission off seeking those students, and they can be held to account in the same way that domestic students are held to account.

So I, again, compliment the Minister. I endorse the bill on behalf of New Zealand First. We recognise that this is something that has been needed and that schools have been calling out for, and so we’ll definitely support the bill going forward.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam—

💬 Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I’m just interested, in terms of the closure motion that my colleague Jami-Lee Ross has just put forward. It seems that speakers opposite are struggling with your repeated direction around Part 1, and then to have a speaker speaking completely on the wrong bill seems to indicate that there are actually insufficient things for them to debate. So I would seek your guidance on the decision not to accept a closure motion.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Speaking to the point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I don’t need any help, thank you. It is entirely in the hands of the Chair to make those decisions. I will say to the Government that it is getting repetitive, but I decided not to accept the closure motion at this stage. Tamati Coffey’s been seeking the call for quite some time. Ministers have stood ahead of him, which means they have to get the call, so I am now giving him the call.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson Tolley. I’m happy to take a very short call on this particular bill.

💬 Alastair Scott: Something new. Add something new and fresh.

You want something new? I’ll give you something new. How about this: I think that it’s, first of all, timely that we’re talking about this. I just saw three toga-wearing students outside, and, as students all around the country are preparing for their first week of university, I think this is very appropriate that we’re debating this.

Let’s talk about Part 1, because the part that I’m interested in is the use of allowing wānanga to apply to use the protected term. This has been a debate that I’ve had in my electorate for quite some time—about the ability for wānanga to apply to be called universities, basically.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the member is speaking to Part 2 of the bill at the moment, and we’re still on Part 1.

Is he?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): So you could continue, if you speak to Part 1—[Interruption] I don’t need any help, thank you—or else you can sit down and allow another speaker, and seek the call for Part 2.

I’ll allow another speaker.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments to principal Act and other enactment relating to tertiary education