Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

It is my pleasure to continue where I left off on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). One of the points I was making when I was last speaking was my confusion, and this side of the House’s confusion, that these particular changes weren’t absorbed into what I would call the “Education Amendment Bill (No 1)”. It’s not called that, of course. But, in fact, this week has been confusing for me, whether I was going to speak on this on Tuesday or Wednesday and now here it is Thursday—what a confusing week. The way the House has been run or “mis-run” if that’s a word—it has been a real shambles this week to try to understand what’s been up, what’s been out, with urgency, with extended hours, and 15 minutes a pop here. It has been a real dysfunction junction—there are no two ways about that.

I also want to pick up where I left off on two words I used, “confusion” and “hypocrisy”, in regard to one primary purpose of this particular bill, and that is in regard to giving the Minister of Education direction over the Education Council. So what this bill does is it requires the council to consult the Minister prior to making changes to teacher qualification requirements or registration criteria, and, of course, the Minister—him or her—can issue a direction relating to the Education Council.

Now, the hypocrisy with this is—and everyone on the Education and Workforce Committee will know this—there was huge, vigorous debate, the rallying cry from the other side of the House, around the independence of the Teaching Council and how much they should be honoured and adhered to and looked after and debated and nurtured, and here we are in the first reading for this bill which does the opposite. It gives the Minister the ability to issue a direction to that same council. How can you have that on the one hand and increased independence on the other? How can we have gone through hours of debate, nurturing and fostering this so-called independence, when here we are doing the exact opposite?

I query why a Minister of this Government feels the need to do this, and I also would like to ask the question: where’s the trust in the profession? Where’s the trust in the Teaching Council—because we now know it’s named the Teaching Council. And I’d also like to ask a third question: how do we think the unions feel about this? Will the unions look forward to another Government of another hue and will they still continue to like the fact that a Minister can issue a direction in relation to the Education Council? Let’s see what the unions say in the select committee process, should this pass. I’ll be sitting there listening very closely to what they might say in regard to this bill.

I would also like to point out that we had two members on the other side—Mark Patterson and Jamie Strange—when we were in that Teaching Council debate refer to what they said was a conspiracy theory around, on the one hand, giving independence and, on the other hand, taking it away. Well, again, here we are this afternoon doing exactly what they called a conspiracy. It’s not a theory; it’s a reality, it’s a fact, and that’s what we’re doing here right now.

I will touch on two other points that the bill brings into play. One is making student safety a registration criteria for private schools. So what the bill does is it amends the Education Act 1989 to include a new registration criteria for private schools, which requires that they are a safe physical and emotional place for students. Now, while we here on this side of the House would support logical and reasonable criteria and limits around student safety—of course we would do that; that’s just the right thing to do—it’s not clear to us at all what has led to the Minister progressing these changes. It’s not clear at all why these changes have been drafted into this initial take on this bill. We’re potentially supportive of having the Education Review Office provide greater scrutiny, but we’re also very cautious around how it looks like cancellation of registration of private schools will become—with the passage of this, should it take place—too easy. Why and how has that come about? Where is the evidence that this is actually an issue for private schools?

Now I want to switch over to the regulatory impact statement in regards to this point, where it states that there is “no evidence”—this is in the impact statement—“of harm arising from the status quo, unless changes could result in unnecessary cost.” So you’ve already got a caution there. It says in the impact statement there is “no evidence of the level of bullying and other forms of physical and emotional harm that it is better or worse in private schools.” So we’ve got some serious caution being laid here—again, something else that we’ll be paying attention to through the select committee process, should this pass. If there is no evidence for this, where have these changes come from? What is behind the Minister’s intention to insert this in the No. 2 bill?

The third thing that I want to touch on is the cohorts around 5-year-olds. So whereas the National Party allowed changes for a small group of students to start school a maximum of eight weeks before their fifth birthday—we saw that as allowing flexibility and choice; it was a pragmatic and a practical, flexible arrangement for parents; it made sense—this particular bill allows cohorts but only after they have turned five. Where’s the flexibility in that? It’s not there.

The other thing that this bill does is, basically, take backwards communities of online learning. There’s going to be reduced options for students currently enrolled in distance learning and much reduced options around accrediting providers offering that valuable online tuition. These changes are unnecessary and we do not support them. We’d like to know why they’re here.

I understand this is a split call—Jamie Strange, you have five minutes.

Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. This is another excellent bill around the area of education. Building on the trilogy of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill, the national standards bill, and the Education (National Education and Learning Priorities) Amendment Bill, we now have the Education Amendment Bill (No 2).

While the Opposition flounders around conspiracy theories on this bill, this Government has been busy this week passing a number of bills through this House, bringing about positive changes for New Zealanders. Some of the key objectives of this bill are: (1) to ensure that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand ensure that their decisions on matters relating to the teaching profession are made within the context of Government policy; (2) to require private schools to be safe places for students; (3) to remove provisions due to come into force on 31 December 2019 that will enable communities of online learning to be established, while the future of online learning is considered in the context of a wider education sector review; and (4) to ensure that school boards cannot adopt a cohort entry policy that enables children to begin school as part of a cohort before the age of five.

I’d just like to elaborate on a couple of these points. The first one I’d like to talk about is starting school before the age of five. The previous regime put in place a series of legislation which would enable the option for children to start school at the age of four.

💬 Simeon Brown: Ever heard of the word “choice”?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Mr Brown, please.

Now, the question here is, is the age of—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! If you have an interjection, may it be witty—but not a continuous barrage as we’re getting from the member on that side of the House.

If the member would like to listen carefully, I will elaborate on some of these key points. So, the question is: is four too young? This Government believes four is too young. Let’s have a look at what age some other countries have their young people starting in school. Let’s particularly look at the Scandinavian countries, who, without any doubt, regularly achieve at the top of the international field: Sweden, age 6 to 7; Finland, age 7; Norway, age 6; Denmark, age 6. We are undertaking a review of the education system to see what the right age might be, but we are convinced that four is absolutely too young.

One of the key aspects here is around the importance of play: creativity, social skills, being ready for formal education. We believe the age of four is far too young to be sitting down in the classroom with formalised education. As Fred Rogers once said, “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning … Play is really the work of childhood.” There’s lots of learning that takes place within an environment of play—the environment of creativity. We believe that the age of four is far too young to start in a formalised schooling system.

The second point is around online learning. There’s certainly a place for online learning at school. But the issues we have around here are that if we take the teachers out of the education system and people can just learn at home, solely online, the students miss out on key social aspects and face-to-face aspects with the teacher.

The final point is around school safety. Bullying is a real issue. It’s important that all schools, whether they be public or private, have strong standards around protecting their students.

This is another excellent bill in the education field. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I have to say to Mr Strange that, far from being an excellent bill, this is another appalling one. This is a particularly bad week for a Government that has passed some shameful legislation and, in this case, some pointless legislation that goes against the best educational interests of the children of this country.

I want to pick up on the final point that my colleague Denise Lee was making in her excellent contribution. I’m a February baby, and I started school when I was 4 years old, as part of a cohort entry. No, I don’t blame my long-suffering mother for wanting to shove me out the door at the earliest opportunity; looking back, I’m sure I’d have done the same thing. But I am glad that I did, because I started school with a group of friends, many of whom remain friends to this day.

I recall my first day at school very clearly. It might not surprise some members to know I got into trouble on my very first day at school. I’m sure that pointed to a subsequent political career. I was sitting in the front row in an assembly, and the principal was up on stage pontificating. I didn’t find him as fascinating as he evidently did, and I took out a plastic aeroplane that I’d got out of the Weet-Bix or the Corn Flakes packet that day, and I started flying it around. The next thing, I was summoned up on to the stage to atone for my sins and to be publicly humiliated. But the person who was most humiliated was my older brother, who was sitting near the back of the assembly that day. It’s his birthday today, so I feel it’s a particularly appropriate time, bro, to say, after all these decades: I apologise for the shame and humiliation I caused you that day.

But there is an important point to make here. As our society changes, for many parents this is a necessity. There are many single-parent families, where the parent who is the caregiver has to go out to work, and being able to send a child to school—perhaps just a few weeks before the child turns five—makes a huge financial difference. That’s the point that Denise Lee was alluding to before, when she pointed out that we’re only talking about a few weeks; it’s not as if we’re sending a child who’s three.

I have to say, personally, I’m not a fan of sending four-year-olds to school, but I think for Jamie Strange to say it’s an appalling thing to do flies in the face of reality for many New Zealand families. I would hope that we would look at the welfare of the children, and the needs of the parents to provide for their families—and I salute all those parents, the length and breadth of this country, who are doing just that. Let us never forget: this is a fabulous country, where the vast majority of parents love and care for their children and want only the very best.

Here we have another ideological provision that will mean that no child will be able to start school before he or she turns five, regardless of the conditions that may make that the most appropriate thing for that particular family. When the last National Government was in office, we introduced that opportunity entirely to give that choice and flexibility to parents. I cannot believe that the Labour Party and their coalition partners are taking that choice away from parents when the evidence is clear that this is what is in the best interests of many of those families.

The other thing I want to turn my attention to—because there’s much in this bill that I oppose—is the illogical decision to repeal the start-up of communities of online learning. This flies in the face of technological advances, and it’s another blow to the regions, in particular from the New Zealand First Party, which claims to be a champion of the regions.

When one looks at who communities of online learning can really benefit, in many cases it’s people who live in isolated rural and provincial communities. It’s also the children who are attending schools where there is a small roll and there’s no ability for those schools to employ teachers in the school to deliver the subject that the child—particularly at secondary level—may wish to be studying. I think of subjects like Mandarin, but there are so many languages now where it’s really desirable for us to be able to offer them to New Zealand schoolchildren but it’s not economic for a single school to do that. So it makes perfect sense to suggest that online communities of learning should be able to deliver those programmes in a way that is able to be accessed by a child from north of Kaitaia, down to Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands, or wherever.

I know the Government will say, “Oh, well it’s all part of a review of Tomorrow’s Schools.” But why do it when it is such an illogical thing to do? Why do it when it’s actually a cruel thing to do to the children who benefit? I have only a five-minute speech, so that’s all I can cover, but those are two very important reasons why I oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, I, for one, am pretty happy to be standing here and taking a call on what I believe is actually a really effective bill. It is going to address a few things that I don’t think were thought-out that well previously. I want to talk, firstly, about the requirement for private schools to be safe places for students. I don’t think that there’s any underlying evil here, that—as we’re hearing from across the House—it’s going to be the start of having the ability to close these private schools down if they don’t adhere to this. I actually think that in this day and age, when we know that our teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the OECD, it’s really important that we ensure that our students feel safe, physically and emotionally, at school.

I note that one of the members opposite said previously—I think it might have been Denise Lee—that there is no evidence to say that whether you’re in a private school or a State school means that you’re more likely to be bullied or not. I think that, regardless of that, it’s really important that our schools—regardless of whether they’re State or private—have to ensure, to the best of their ability, that our students are kept safe from physical and emotional harm, particularly with the rate of bullying. I was actually really surprised when I read that private schools weren’t required to have something in place that ensured the safety of their students, and I’m not too sure how many parents out there would be aware of that, too. So, yeah, that is something that was quite a surprise to me.

I want to move on to the communities of online learning (COOL). Now, we know that it is really important to have really high-quality online learning, and I do acknowledge that there are those who might live in remote places that do need to participate in some form of online learning or correspondence schooling. But I think the risk here, if we went to these, I’ll call them COOLs—and it was raised by several educational professionals—is that we run the risk of having students who have additional learning needs, who perhaps have ended up being pushed out of public schooling or private schooling, ending up having to participate in these COOLs, and depending on their situation, it’s not necessarily the best place for those children.

So I think that by repealing this, it does allow us the time to consider what the future of online learning systems might look like in New Zealand. I think that we need to be really careful in that space and take a good look at it so that we do take a pragmatic approach to ensure that when we do provide these sorts of options for schooling for our children, that actually they are the best and will stand up to any sort of criticism.

I want to talk about the cohort entry for children over five years. By repealing this, again, we’re not—there is no underlying evil here. I think, you know, it goes against best practice, actually, to allow children under the age of five to start school. And I still think that, by the change in this legislation, it does still give schools the ability to have a choice, by allowing cohort entry twice a term. So it’s still allowing choice for parents and schools; it isn’t taking it away. I think it does help those children develop friendships and keep their friendships from early childhood education or prior to schooling, moving through. So it’s not actually taking that choice away, just ensuring that the age stays at five for children to start school. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I rise to speak on this, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). Here we are with another “Back to the Future Education Bill”. This is not about moving the education system forward; this bill is about getting rid of recent innovation, because this is a Government who knows what it is against but not what it is for. The member who has just resumed her seat, Jo Luxton, told us that the Government needs more time, and isn’t that just a theme of the way that this Government is approaching policy in New Zealand—wherever in doubt, form a working group, put a review together, and give it more time. Well, that is not good enough.

So let’s look at what this bill actually does. The first thing it does is it fixes up the problems that the Government created with the last education bill we passed in this House, which was to change the Education Council to the Teaching Council. And what the regulatory impact statement for the bill we are discussing today, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2), says is that: “In making changes to the process for appointing the Board of the Teaching Council, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill will reduce government’s ability to protect the public interest in the work of the Council through membership of the Board. This increases the risk that the Council could exercise its functions in ways that do not align. Given the breadth of the Council’s functions, this could have implications for the safety of children and young people, teacher supply and diversity, the quality of teaching, and government’s fiscal commitments.”

So what that is, for me to translate, is a very clear statement by Government officials that the legislation we passed in this House but weeks ago put at risk the public safety of children and young people. And it did that because it overturned what currently exists with the Teaching Council—it changed it—out of the Government’s desire to have political utu and change the name of something, and, in doing so, it put at risk the public interest.

So here we’ve got the tidy-up. Here we’ve got the tidy-up bill to tidy up the mistakes that were made recently, and here we have the tidy-up which is to introduce new measures to give the Minister the ability to direct the Teaching Council. So isn’t this an interesting situation? We have members opposite getting up and speaking passionately about how they wanted to give teachers autonomy, they wanted to change the council to give teachers more ability to make their own decisions, and then, two weeks later, here we are discussing a bill which seeks to give the Minister a new power to direct the Teaching Council on matters of Government policy. And it does that for the very serious reason that there would otherwise be risks to the public interest, as defined by officials.

So what I would say to members opposite is that I think it’s time that you went and spoke with the Minister and said, “Look, let’s stop it with the political utu. When we do these bills in the House that are just getting rid of things that National did, what it does is it creates more complications, and we find ourselves back in the House doing other things in the following weeks.”

So what we also see with this Teaching Council decision-making section of the bill is that it allows the Government to direct the Teaching Council in various ways. And we would ask why it is, in particular in this bill, that it is made explicit that these Government policy statements that are now able to be issued will not be disallowable instruments—that is, that they will not be available to Parliament to scrutinise. That is a question that we will be able to address at further readings of the bill.

So what else does this bill do? Well, this bill also takes a totally retrograde step when it comes to communities of online learning, because here we have another innovation that the previous National-led Government put forward. The National-led Government could see that we are in a time of digital revolution, where the ability to create online teaching resources is greatly enhanced and better than it has ever been in our history. We have, for example, the Khan Academy, and if anyone listening hasn’t seen the Khan Academy and the great work that it can do to teach maths to people all over the world, I encourage you to go and have a look on YouTube right now. What we have seen is innovations like that that allow children and young people, via a digital device, to be taught from distance.

Now, of course, this is not ever going to replace the great work that happens face to face in classrooms and that must continue, but there is a place for online learning, particularly in a country where we do have provincial areas that are not served by large schools with vast staffs and subject selection and in a country where often students’ choices are restricted because there isn’t the subject choice and curriculum choice that there would be at a larger school. So what the National Government recognised was that it was time to allow for communities of online learning—to allow for new institutions to grow up and to provide services to schools. And this was a regime that was being embraced.

But no—Labour, in this bill, says, “We’re getting rid of it.” And what’s the reason for getting rid of it? Well, I’ve looked through the bill’s purpose statement. I’ve looked through the bill, and the best explanation I could find is to provide “further time to consider the future”. I would suggest to you that just putting off these things is not good enough. The New Zealand public have a right to expect that that party opposite would have come into this Parliament with a plan for the future. If you’re sitting in the seats of Government, you should already have a plan for the future.

Instead, what we have is, particularly, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu—the Correspondence School, but also the virtual learning networks which currently exist, now put under incredible pressure by this bill, because they now don’t know what their future looks like. What officials warn us about in the regulatory impact assessments is that, in fact, these virtual learning networks are under pressure to grow but may disband if arrangements become too difficult to manage. So that’s potentially the impact of removing the communities of online learning. Not only does it take away potential for innovation in future; it jeopardises the innovation that already exists.

And why? Oh, because the Government needs more time—and I’d suggest also because the Government is intent on overturning every single innovation that National brought in to try and lift the achievement in our schools. Whether it’s partnership schools, whether it’s communities of online learning, whether it’s the way the Teaching Council functions, this Government is taking us back to the future in education.

What else does the bill do? Well, we’ve had quite a lot of discussion in this debate today about cohort entry for children over five years old. We had an interesting discussion from Jamie Strange about Sweden and children not having to learn till they’re six and the virtue of play-based learning, and all of those things are interesting, but none of them are reflected in this bill, because this bill doesn’t say, “Here’s the innovative new way we’re going to support young people to learn.” This bill doesn’t say, “Here is the new way that we’re going to encourage learning to happen in new entrant classes.” No, it does none of that. All it does is it says that the cohort entry policy that’s currently in place is going to be tipped upside down and changed.

And mark my words: what is going to result for New Zealand parents is confusion. It is incredibly confusing for me to even step you through right now what’s going to happen, but I’m going to give it a great go. Until 1 January 2020, schools’ current cohort entry policies may remain or they may be terminated, but after 2020 they have to have new policies which are enabled by this bill, and that will require more consultation.

What is the impact of this for an everyday mum and dad? The impact is they don’t know when their child’s going to start school, because the Labour Government is so intent on changing things that National put in to give parents choice and to empower schools that, in fact, all we’re left with is a very confusing situation where parents do not have a clear idea about when their child can start school. One thing they can be clear on: they can be very clear that not all children in this country are guaranteed any more to be able to start school at age five. It used to be a guarantee that when you turned five you could start school. Well, that is no longer a guarantee, thanks to the measures in this bill.

So we have those three measures, and then we have the measure around private schools’ registration criteria. I want to be very clear that schools providing a safe physical and emotional place for students is important. It is essential. But forgive me for asking whether or not giving the Minister of Education the broad discretion to close a private school is a good idea when we have seen that very same Minister of Education prepared to show callous disregard to the students in partnership schools whose lives have been transformed by those schools, whose well-being has been enhanced, and whose learning has been enhanced. That Minister was prepared to close those schools, and so I question whether he is the kind of Minister that should be getting expanded discretion for the future. This bill is, simply, a step back to the future. Where are the new ideas? You have none. Have some vision for education instead of—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be the final speaker for this first reading on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). However, it does probably come to mind that it must be about 5 o’clock on Thursday of the fourth sitting week, because I’m sitting here and I’m wanting to engage with the Opposition’s position on what is actually a fundamental reform of our education system. It has grown out of, I guess, a collective movement by educationalists, young people engaged in the education system, experts, and all and sundry particularly engaged with the education conversation—that they’ve wanted to see some fundamental changes. And this bill is a part of doing just that.

So, when we’re listening to the great things that will occur as a consequence of this bill—for example, ensuring that private schools are required to ensure that they are providing a safe place for all students and their staff—I think for most ordinary New Zealanders who sit back and reflect, if you have your child enrolled at a private school, they should be entitled to a safe and secure environment like every single other student is that is enrolled at a public school. Again, this Government—this side of the House—is merely fixing up absolute anomalies and, in some parts, some atrocious, I guess, misalignment of values. And this bill goes towards that.

As we have been sitting here—and I’ve been sitting here for the last, well, few hours listening to the Opposition—it doesn’t matter what we put up. It doesn’t matter. Even where it fundamentally makes sense—like ensuring that all schools in New Zealand are safe places for all students—the Opposition is calling doom and gloom and that this is the end to everything that’s positive about New Zealand.

The last speaker spoke about political utu. Political utu, I guess, I would say, may just be awaiting a party that sits here and negatively espouses rhetoric day in and day out without actually putting up a vision for Aotearoa New Zealand—sits here and plays politics with our kids, sits here and plays politics with our schools, sits here and plays politics with our communities, and won’t even have the gumption to come to the party and say, “Actually, guys, all right. Yep, we are in Opposition, but that makes sense. It makes sense to ensure that all kids, regardless of the school that they’re enrolled in, deserve to be in a safe and warm environment.” So, without taking up too much of this House’s time, it’s an absolute pleasure to commend this bill to the House.