Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

on behalf of the Minister of Education: I move, That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider this bill. At the appropriate time, the Minister of Education will move that the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be reported to the House by 21 March 2019, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) amends the Education Act 1989, the Education Act 1964, and the Education (Update) Amendment Act of 2017. The bill ensures that key Education Council decisions are made in the context of Government policy; second, requires private schools to be safe places for our students; third, repeals recent legislation on communities of online learning to provide time for a public debate on the future of distance and other forms of online learning; and fourth, provides more effective and efficient provisions on cohort entry for children over the age of five years old.

The bill will ensure the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand’s decisions on matters relating to teaching professions are made within the context of Government policy. As we know, the Education Council has a range of high-profile functions, including setting standards for teacher education and setting teacher registration criteria. There is a high degree of public interest in these and other council roles, and there needs to be the opportunity for the Government to influence the council’s work on behalf of all New Zealanders.

The Education Council has significant influence over the quality of teaching and the supply and diversity of the teaching workforce. This creates a substantial public interest in its work, which affects all New Zealanders, children and young people in particular. For this reason, it is important that Education Council decisions take into account Government policy for the wider education system. The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) requires the council to consult the Minister of Education before making changes to the standards of qualifications that lead to teacher registration and to teacher registration criteria. It will also give the Minister discretion to issue a Government policy direction relating to one or more of the council’s functions. If the Minister issues a policy direction, the council must have regard to it when performing those functions. These provisions will ensure that the public interest is protected and that the Government is able to respond to Education Council proposals and decisions in a timely manner.

State and State integrated schools are required to ensure their school is a physically and emotionally safe place for all of our students and staff. The Government considers that the minimum standards of safety for students expected in the State system should also apply to private schools. At present, there is nothing in the private school registration criteria that enables the Secretary for Education to consider the physical and emotional safety of our students. This bill changes this so that students’ physical and emotional safety is considered by the secretary when assessing a private school’s application for registration. A private school’s registration may be cancelled if the secretary has concerns about the safety of the school students, and the Education Review Office can review the private school’s safety policies and procedures.

The Education (Update) Amendment Act of 2017 introduced a new regime to expand the provision of distance education through communities of online learning. These provisions allowed for distance education for part-time and full-time tuition, and enabled accreditation of distance education provision by public or private providers through a statutory accreditation system. The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) repeals these provisions. In so doing, there will be more time to consider the future of online learning in Aotearoa New Zealand with all affected communities in the context of wider education sector reviews. Existing providers such as Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu The Correspondence School and the virtual learning networks will continue to offer distant education on the same basis that they do now.

Before 2017, State schools had to allow children to start school on or after their fifth birthday. The 2017 amendments to the Education Act of 1989 enabled schools to adopt policies where children could start school on the first day of term closest to their fifth birthday. This, effectively, means that some of our four-year-olds can currently start school, which is inconsistent with the recommendations of the 2015 Advisory Group on Early Learning. Under the proposed changes, if a school adopts a cohort entry policy, only children over the age of five years would be able to start school in a cohort. There will be two entry points: on the first day of term, and at the midpoint during a term. The two entry points per term will give parents more flexibility to determine when their child starts school. Parents and the Government will not have to pay as much in fees to keep their children in early childhood education for longer, and schools will have more manageable cohort sizes. To ensure that schools have time to consider and make new arrangements, any existing cohort entry policies will expire on 1 January 2020 and new policies will be able to take effect from that date.

In conclusion, this bill will continue to improve education in Aotearoa New Zealand. In particular, it will protect the public’s interest in Education Council decisions, it will require private schools to be safe places for our students, it will provide time for a public debate on the future of distance and other forms of online learning in the context of wider education sector reviews, and it will enable school boards to adopt a cohort entry policy for children at least five years of age and will now not allow four-year-olds to start school. I now commend the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) the House. Tēnā koe.

Look, I’m pleased to be able to speak in this debate, but I am also not pleased for the future of education. The reality is that we know that this Government is intensely ideological in terms of education. We’ve seen that through the scrapping of partnership schools, we’ve seen that through the scrapping of national standards, we’ve seen that through the scrapping of the Aspire Scholarship for many Māori and Pasifika students—a snuffing out of opportunities. And that is why it is no different when it comes to this Education Amendment Bill (No 2).

The first point, which I want to start with, is actually on the back of a previous bill that we’ve had. The reality is that, for tens of thousands of teachers in New Zealand, this bill enables the Minister to be able to direct the Education Council on aspects of policy. It will lead—and this is actually put in the regulatory impact statement of this bill by the Minister of Education. It says, “This is likely to lead to a limited independence of the Education Council.” The reality is that this is about ministerial control and State control of the profession. That’s the first point.

The second point that I want to make is that the heart of this bill is anti-choice for parents and anti-choice generally in terms of education, and we can see this in cohort entry. Fundamentally, the reason that National put the cohort entry policy through previously was that we saw the research and the evidence. What it showed is that there is huge disruption happening at year 1. There are a whole lot of teachers who are dealing with different kids coming in—their ability to form long-term relationships. That’s why we put through that cohort entry policy. All it did was preserve the right of every child to start school at the age of five, with a view that, in order to do that and implement cohort entry, there would be a small group of students who might start weeks—potentially, at the most, eight weeks—before their fifth birthday.

What this bill does, make no mistake, New Zealand, is rip up the concept that every child in New Zealand could have the right to start school at their fifth birthday, because what it says is that, for schools that adopt cohort entry, there will be a group of children who will be held back because of the nature of the way that this cohort entry has been designed.

I apologise to the member; the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.