Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Today is a great day for the tradition of a free education in New Zealand schools. The passing of this bill represents a significant step towards our goal of removing financial barriers to participation in education in New Zealand at every level. This bill delivers on the Government’s commitment to restore the right to free schooling for New Zealand school students, be it at primary school, intermediate school, or secondary school. This bill goes a long way to delivering on that commitment.

The Government recognises that for some time now, parents have been under significant pressure to bridge the funding gap that schools often find that they are experiencing. They have been saying for some time that the funding they’ve been receiving from the Government isn’t enough and that parents need to dip into their pockets in order to make up the difference. Parents feel under enormous pressure to pay those donations. We know that for some schools that is leaving them at a serious disadvantage because the parents in those schools simply cannot afford to pay those donations.

I think of some low decile schools where I go into them and I’ll speak to the principal and the principal will say, “We ask for a $50 donation, and we’re lucky if 10 percent of our parents will pay that in a given year.” I then go into some of the other schools who are in a more fortunate position who are asking for very large donations and they get in a very high proportion of those. We know that the reliance on donations across the schooling system is creating a significant inequality in our schooling system, and our Government is committed to addressing that. That is why we are starting with all decile 1 to 7 schools and making an extra $150 available to them if they do not ask for donations.

The analysis that we have done in implementing that policy is that the vast majority of decile 1 to 7 schools would receive on average less than $150 per student per year in school donations; decile 8, 9, and 10 schools—that’s not always the case. In fact, probably the significant majority of those would be receiving on average more than $150 per student per year in donations from parents. We know that those lower decile schools in particular will find the playing field significantly levelled as a result of this policy.

We also know that schools face significant uncertainty when they’re having to rely on revenue from what are donations. These are voluntary donations, they cannot compel parents to pay them, and yet the schools are finding that they are reliant on those in order to make ends meet. This policy is going to deal with them.

This comes on top of other moves that the Government has made to restore the rights to free schooling in New Zealand. Abolition of NCEA fees will help 168,000 secondary school students and 150,000 former secondary school students to meet the costs of their education by removing those fees that they have to pay for their qualifications.

How will this scheme work? First of all, we had to create a way of getting schools the money with the conditions attached to it. So this bill allows a new form of grants to schools called discretionary grants that can be recovered if the school doesn’t meet the condition of those grants. The school board will have to opt in to the extra funding in lieu of donations by way of a resolution of their school board. We’re asking them to consult with their parent communities before they make that decision.

The Minister will be able to place conditions on the payment of those discretionary grants, and that funding will be able to be recovered if a school does not comply with those conditions. It’s important that when we go to schools and say, “You can have this extra money if you don’t ask for donations.”, they shouldn’t then be able to turn around and keep that money if they continue to ask for donations. This bill will allow the Minister to recover the funding if they deliberately don’t follow the rules.

There are some issues that this bill has surfaced. The issues that the bill has surfaced are actually to do with the current rules around a free school education, not with the changes this bill implements. For example, we’ve made it clear—and I’ve made it clear as a Minister—that I will be exempting school camps from the requirements imposed on schools who take the extra funding and agree not to ask for donations. But the issue here is that many schools have been charging a fee for a school camp. The reality is that under the current rules—the rules that exist today, before this bill is passed—schools cannot charge a fee for a school camp that is part of curriculum delivery. They can ask for a donation towards the cost of that school camp, but many schools have been calling that a fee. The reality is, under the current rules, rules that have been in place a long time, including under the previous Government, they cannot compel parents to pay a fee for a school camp.

The exemption that we’re putting in place will mean that the status quo when it comes to school camps—in terms of the rules, not necessarily the current practice—will continue in force, which means that they will still be able to ask parents to make a donation towards the cost of a school camp. They will not be able to charge a fee. They cannot charge a fee now.

Questions have been asked about what’s the definition of “a school camp”, so let me clear that up once and for all. A school camp is something that involves an overnight stay as part of the activity. That’s pretty clear. That’s a camp. So if it’s a trip to Wellington, where they do some activity—they might go and visit the Reserve Bank; that was an example that was used—then, if they’re staying overnight in Wellington, it’s a school camp and they can ask for that. If they’re doing a day trip somewhere and they’re not staying overnight, it’s not a camp, therefore they can’t ask for a donation to cover the cost of that.

There are some things that schools also won’t be able to charge a fee for: swimming lessons. They can’t charge a fee for swimming lessons at the moment; they can ask for a donation towards that. If they opt in to this scheme, they won’t be able to ask for a donation towards swimming lessons.

It’s pretty clear to understand. What is clear also is that under the current rules and under the new rules, non-compulsory, voluntary, optional activities that schools currently charge a fee for, they’ll be able to continue to charge a fee for.

💬 Alastair Scott: A fee or a donation?

No, a fee. If a student is participating in a sporting activity in the weekend, for example, a school right now can charge them a fee for that, and, if they opt in to the donation scheme, they’ll still be able to charge them a fee for that. It’s a voluntary activity. It’s not directly related to curriculum delivery. It’s not done during school time—although school time is not the only requirement here, because some sporting activity happens during school time, for example, and the students make up that time elsewhere. The school can still charge a fee for that, providing it’s not a compulsory activity that everybody needs to take part in.

So parents can choose whether or not they pay donations now for most things that happen in school. I guess the other point that I should point out is that where there’s a materials fee involved for a take-home component—so students who are doing technology, for example, they might make something that they take home—parents can be asked to pay for the materials for a take-home product. They can be asked to pay for those materials now under the current rules. They’ll be able to be asked to pay for those materials under the new rules.

I’ve also been very clear that the decile 1 to 7 targeting for the first roll-out of this policy is not the end of the matter. Our Government’s objective is to remove financial barriers to participation in schooling in New Zealand at every level. That means that decile 8, 9, and 10 schools will have to be a little more patient, but we are going to be working with them about how we can make sure the funding system is equitable for every school in New Zealand.

I want to finish, in the last two minutes, by covering some of the reaction to the policy, because the policy has been very much welcomed. I think of schools like Masterton Primary School, for example, with its 300 pupil roll, where they get about $2,000 per year in donations. They’ll get $45,000 under this policy. Solway Park school principal, Mark Biggs, estimated that his school is going to be $20,000 better off. “As a decile 6 school we’re piggy in the middle. We do not get the considerable extra Government funding like decile 1 to 4 schools, but our families are not wealthy enough to ask for large donations either. The biggest winners will be the children and our average hard-working families struggling to pay mortgages and meet the rent.” I think about Kuranui College principal, Barbara Caldwell, who said, “The Government donation scheme is another step towards equity and education.” or the Whareama School principal, Darren Kerr, who said, “It’s a system that will see more income for us to use on students and makes the need for voluntary payments a thing of the past. It will also remove the stigma for parents who cannot afford to pay the donation.”

This one story comes from the Wairarapa, and it covers the reaction of principals over there. There have been stories like this up and down the country from school principals who have welcomed this extra funding. They have welcomed the extra equity that this will put into our school system, because it says to every student in the country that they deserve a quality education regardless of their parents’ ability to pay. We know that at the moment, for low- and mid-decile schools, that’s a real struggle. They are reliant on parental donations. They shouldn’t be reliant on parental donations, and this Government is doing something about this. This is a great day for the tradition of a free school education in New Zealand, and I commend this bill to the House.

Look, it is with a heavy heart that National has to oppose this bill, and I want to set out the reasons why, but first I’m going to start with a quote from a school, because we’ve just heard from Minister Hipkins with some quotes about schools. Kaharoa School: “Rotorua does not have any rich suburbs. Our decile 10 [schools] do[es] not equate to Remuera.” Another quote from a school opposing this bill: “Maybe Minister Hipkins can explain this to our families who have just seen their husband or wife die and leave behind three children, or the solo Māori mum in an over-crowded house.” Equity, Minister—equity. This, from another school, Oropi School, who has raised concerns regarding the bill—Andrew King: “The Budget announcement seems to perpetuate a lack of collectivity, providing a band-aid, using a simplistic tool from the past, which is in hope of addressing the issue of inequity in our system.” This from another school, Amuri Area School: “All or nothing, Minister.”

So our first point on this side of the House is that we absolutely believe in reducing costs to parents. That means petrol at the pump, that means lesser rents, that means higher wages. When it came to this bill, we supported it to select committee, but what we found was a shambolic process. We were blocked, actually obstructed, from information. We had a two-week submission process involving 800,000 students affected by this, but also potentially several million parents and grandparents that are subject to this bill. Why would you put such a shambolic process for this bill when, actually, this affects 800,000 students and potentially a couple of million parents? We had the farcical situation of the school camp issue being amended in the House, when it’s a very complex issue, this bill, and we absolutely don’t agree with the process.

But the second biggest reason that we have opposed this bill is actually the issue of equity. Now, I was the Minister in the short period that I had, where I proposed to scrap the decile system, and what we heard throughout the select committee process was, actually, there’s a need to deal with the fundamental issues of inequity in our education system. So the concept, as has been highlighted in the quotes from many of the schools to our select committee, was: deal with the fundamental issues of inequity. Don’t put over an inequitable decile system another mechanism that will see inequity. So 95 out of the 139 submissions said, “Please deal with these issues of eligibility. Deal with the fact that in decile 8, 9, and 10, there will be disadvantaged children that will not have the same opportunity.”, and it’s very much highlighted by that quote from Kaharoa School—completely unfair and inequitable.

We will not hear that Minister say “free education”. We heard, and we’ve heard, the shifting sands from Labour MPs. They now talk about “cheaper education”. Why? Because we’ve got 37 broken promises, and what we know when it came to donations was that a year ago, we heard that the Minister was going to bring this policy; it then landed in the Budget and it was scaled back. So, fundamentally, a flawed process. We would have thought that he would have tried to have brought the Opposition on board with this. Instead, a truncated select committee process, but then inequity on top of an already inequitable funding system.

The next issue is it’s very unclear about the policy. Now, the Minister has said, “Look, this is very easy. That’s why I had to, basically, put an amendment to the House around school camps.” But I want to ask some questions which I’ve been trying to get answers to through this legislative process. We have now this complicated manual—that’s all it can be described as—by the Ministry of Education around you can charge for some school lessons but you can’t charge for other school lessons or ask for a donation. You can ask for a donation for some work books but not for other work books. You can ask for a donation for some music tuition but not for other music tuition. A “school camp” is an overnight school camp, but, actually, if you go on a school camp in the daytime—so our other point about this bill is we now have this incredibly complicated process that we’ve had to literally define “parents” in legislation.

What some principals are saying to me is that not only is it inequitable, it’s also built on this fact that Labour promised free education, and it’s also incredibly complicated to the extent—if members opposite don’t believe me, go and read the guide and then ask the question: why did the Ministry of Education tell our select committee that they would need eight people to police schools on this donation issue? Because we’ve created a bureaucratic nightmare.

The other issue that has been raised by many a submitter is this issue of we would have been much better to deal with the fundamental issues in terms of inequity of our funding school system. That would be a much better approach, because, effectively, this is an operational grant subsidy. I want to also say to the Minister that I would bank my reputation right now that there is not going to be every single decile 1 to 7 school that will take up this policy. Because I’ve heard from them, and they’ve said, “We’ve done the maths. We’ve now done the maths with this complicated guide, and it doesn’t work for some of us.”

So what I would say to the Minister is that it is a broken promise. It is a massive scale-back. People expected that donations would be ended, scrapped, under Labour. That is not the case. People expected free education. That is not the case. But also, from an argument of fairness and basic equity, there are children and families that will not have access to this policy because the Labour Party chose to scale this back, and we heard that loud and clear throughout the select committee process.

So from National’s perspective, we absolutely believe in reducing costs to parents. We absolutely believe we have to do a lot better around equity of funding for schools. That’s why we propose to put more money into schools’ budgets and to reform the decile system. That is a much more intelligent and fairer way to provide schools the funding that they need so they don’t have to charge parents for some of these costs. But the reality is that what Labour have created, in my view, is massive expectation. They’ve put principals in a situation now where there’s a number of parents that think that they won’t be charged any form of costs in terms of schooling. That is simply not true, as we know from the complicated guide by the Ministry of Education.

The second thing that they’ve done is they have broken a promise. The third thing that they’ve done is they’ve embedded a more inequitable education system, and we on the other side believe in paddling in a different direction. That is about reducing costs to parents, but it’s about travelling in a direction that is fundamentally about more equity in our country, because that is one of the single biggest issues that we have. So we, with a very heavy heart, are not able to support this bill to the House and we are very sad about that.

It’s always a pleasure to follow that speaker, Nikki Kaye, in this House. I find—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Because she gives you so much material to work with.

I was just about to say “because I get so much material to actually speak on”. I find that argument quite hollow, considering that we are in the third reading of this particular bill, and during the committee stage it took roughly 10 minutes to move through the committee stage—an opportunity the Opposition had to be able to put up their Supplementary Order Papers, and they didn’t put up arguments in that particular stage. A bit hollow, just like their nine years in Government. When they could have made a difference for parents, in their education, and made a difference to free education at that point, they didn’t, but now they stand there in a huge rage saying that this bill is a bad thing.

Well, this might be a simple bill, but it has huge positive implications for the education sector—absolutely massive implications. We are putting money into schools that are not going to be charging donations any longer, voluntary donations, to their parents. That is a good thing. We have heard here this evening that those schools who are going to be making an increase in funding that is going in to their school, that is making those principals and those people, those whānau in those schools, incredibly happy.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.