Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s customary when Ministers move a second reading speech that they thank the members of the select committee who have considered the bill, and I want to do that today with some genuine appreciation for the across the House cooperation that has taken place in bringing this bill to this place. It is an example of, I think, how we can work together when we need to in the House. I particularly want to thank the Opposition spokesperson, Dr Reti, for his cooperation in helping to get the bill through the House. I do want to thank the organisations and individuals who have made submissions on the bill and taken the opportunity to have their voices heard on the matter.

The bill addresses regulatory gaps relating to the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students to ensure that students live in a safe environment and that they have a positive experience that supports their educational achievement. It ensures the consistency and effectiveness of codes of practice for domestic and tertiary students, and it ensures that providers are accountable for the pastoral care of their students.

I want to briefly cover some of the amendments that the Education and Workforce Committee has made to the bill. The Government intends to support the amendments as recommended by the committee. The committee has recommended an amendment to the definition of “serious harm” in new section 238D of the bill. The definition of “serious harm” is relevant in determining whether an offence has been committed. New section 238S introduces a new criminal offence for breaches of the applicable code without reasonable excuse that result in serious harm or death.

The definition of “serious harm” as introduced was linked to a requirement for immediate treatment. A number of the submitters were concerned about this definition. Whether or not an injury or illness has required treatment or medical intervention shouldn’t be what decides whether serious harm has occurred. I welcome the committee’s recommended amendment to remove reference to the types of treatments or interventions that might be required, and I also support the committee’s other recommended amendment to the definition of “serious harm” to make it clear that the definition is not intended to include harms that have a minor or no ongoing impact for the students. The committee’s recommendation is to change the reference to “an event or circumstances that seriously and detrimentally affect the safety or well being of the student,” to “an event or circumstances that seriously and detrimentally affect the ongoing welfare of the student,”.

New section 238G as introduced enables the Minister to issue “a code of practice that provides a framework for the pastoral care of domestic students:” and “a code of practice that provides a framework for the pastoral care of international students.” The committee has recommended this section is amended to clarify that the Minister is able to issue a single code that provides the framework for the pastoral care of both domestic and international students, and I welcome this amendment. It does give additional flexibility.

A number of submitters commented that there should be a more explicit requirement around consultation, particularly with students in the wider tertiary sector. In response, the committee has recommended the insertion of new subsection (4A) into new section 238G. That would require the Minister, before issuing the code, to consult with those parties that the Minister considers are likely to be affected by the code. That includes representatives of students, parents, providers, signatory providers—i.e., those who are part of the international code—and the staff of providers and signatory providers, as well as the Privacy Commissioner. I welcome those recommended amendments, and I consider that the consultation with students, their families, and the wider sector, including the Privacy Commissioner, is, in fact, going to be essential to developing the code and to ensuring that it is robust and effective.

New section 238H gives new powers of entry and inspection of student accommodation to the code administrator as part of their ability to monitor a provider’s compliance with the code. The committee has recommended three changes to these provisions: for inspection of a student’s room, the code administrator must give the student a minimum of 24 hours’ notice that explains the purpose of the intended entry or inspection; the student must consent to the entry and inspection, unless that is unreasonable in the circumstances—for example, if the student has been unable to be contacted—and the student doesn’t need to be present if they consent to the entry in their absence. Now, I support these amendments. The amendments will improve the bill by strengthening the privacy of students, and I think that is a welcome thing.

The committee has also recommended several minor amendments to the bill, which I support, including amending new section 238G to require providers to take all reasonable steps “to maintain the well-being of domestic tertiary students;”, rather than requiring providers “to protect domestic tertiary students;”—that’s a sensible change—amending new section 238I to limit the application of quality improvement notices to matters that are applicable by the code; amending new section 238M by introducing a limitation period for the dispute resolution scheme, so that the student is required to lodge a dispute for resolution no later than seven years after the date of the act or omission on which the dispute is based; and amending new section 238T to introduce a defence of “without reasonable excuse,” and making this provision clearer by removing the need for a breach of regulatory requirements and just referring to a breach of the applicable code.

This bill is vital in improving the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students. It addresses the regulatory gaps that currently exist relating to the pastoral care of domestic students and it ensures that providers are going to have a consistent approach to maintaining the wellbeing of domestic tertiary students. Families and whānau have a right to feel assured that when their young people leave home and they are studying a long way away from home, they’re being provided with the best possible pastoral care in terms of safety and support services. I, once again, want to thank all members of the House for their cooperation on this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, to those with losses today, e ngā mate, haere e ngā mate, haere ki te kāinga tūturu o tō tātou Matua i Te Rangi. Haere, haere, haere. [Go well, oh deceased ones, return to the true home of our Father in Heaven. Depart, depart, farewell.]

It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill, the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill, which has indeed had collegial support across the House for an important issue that came up with some urgency. I want to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee, led by Dr Parmjeet Parmar, and officials and submitters, who were able to bring us to this point today, where we are at the second reading.

We had 22 written submissions and 14 supported the intent of the bill, and I think, for me, the tone was set—maybe it was the second set of submitters—with Universities New Zealand, because they’re potentially the ones who might have been most affected. We need to remember that under the Residential Tenancies Act, residential facilities were carved out by Universities New Zealand or their equivalent, who said “No, leave it with us. We’ll do a voluntary code and it will work.”, and, of course, that’s what brought us to this place, because there were failings. It didn’t quite work as everyone expected.

When Universities New Zealand came in and, in their opening submission, they said “We accept the inevitability of legislation.”, I think it was clear then that we were going to have a good degree of consensus for what this bill needed to do. Furthermore, their submission was so compelling that two aspects of it, which was a seven-year look-back cut-off and some qualification around the words “serious harm”, were actually taken into effect.

Now, when the bill first came to its first reading, Treasury had expressed some concerns—six concerns, actually—and I think that to some degree we have addressed them through the select committee. I’ll very briefly go through them, and then I want to address six areas, the issues that were there, and the solutions that we came up with. The starting issues, if you like, that Treasury had were around defining the nature and size of the problem, asserting that there was a duty of care to all students, that the options were somewhat limited, the scale and impact of the costs hadn’t been assessed. Their fifth item was unintended consequences—should the burden of compliance be so high that providers just withdraw and they’d just say “Oh look, these regulations are too hard. We’re out of here.”—and the sixth concern they had was cream-skimming, if you like—that is, if this burden of compliance is too high, they might only take on what they might perceive as low-maintenance students, and those who do have challenges might be left finding residential accommodation.

So in my mind, the six issues that the select committee dealt with and reached solutions on were as follows. The first was around the development of the domestic code of practice, and the concerns raised were that there was a lack of definition of pastoral care; there were some concerns for what “reasonable” and “so far as possible” and protect the “positive experience” might mean, and we actually then modified the legislation. One of the recommendations from the select committee was that instead of talking about protecting students, we change it to “take all reasonable steps to maintain the well-being of domestic tertiary students;”, and that resolved a lot of those issues. It was also commented that in that definition, words like “positive experience” and “reasonable steps” are already in legislative parlance, so we’re consistent with precedents, and a differentiation from the word “welfare” was not necessary because institutions already have that obligation.

Their scope of practice was a concern because it was also mentioned to us that, look, they were dealing with young people, young adults, and adults, and it’s a continuum of audience, if you like, and there may well need to be some different regulations between those over 18, who have their majority and are clearly in their adult life, with those who are younger and who may need more or less pastoral care. It was commented to us that the Children’s Act 2014 actually covers children under 18, to address the concerns that we had.

There was also some question around whether the contracting out by a residential facility, say, from a university to a third-party provider might remove their obligations for responsibility, and the answer to that was no. The institutions cannot contract out the code of practice, even if their accommodation is contracted out.

I think the second area, then, was around separate domestic and international codes: is there a place to have two codes, or is that just increasing the burden of compliance to actually have two codes, bearing in mind the international code was the one first established? I think we were reassured that this bill itself futureproofs and gives us the ability to still bring those codes in to one. There are some unique features that international students have, and it may be that at some point in the future, we do have a code of practice for children, but this bill does have the flexibility to do that.

Many submitters said that the bill requires consultation with providers in the development of the code, but students aren’t seen, and that was absolutely correct, so we changed it. We said that there should be a requirement for the Minister to consult with students, family, and whānau. There was some discussion around the administration of the code through the code administrators, but we mostly addressed those concerns. A large part of, certainly, the public domain media talked about entry and inspection powers, the ability under the code of practice for administrators to just go straight into a student’s room and the concerns for student privacy, balancing off that supervision requirement that we have. So we made three main changes to that. The first was 24 hours’ notice before inspection of a room, entry and inspection requires the students’ consent, and students can consent for them not to be present for entry and inspection. This is what we’re expecting the code to encompass when it’s formalised, and that was well regarded and well considered by everyone.

The fourth issue: there were some compliance matters around quality improvement notices and sanctions for the breach. They were mostly administrative, and we attended to them. The second to last was around the offence and penalty provisions. The Law Society put forward some very considered thinking around strict liability, whether strict liability as an offence was intended, and I was glad they were able to define that, because it sits a little bit outside my scope of understanding. But we were reassured by officials that it wasn’t intended in the bill, and, as I’ll speak to in a moment, we amended a part of the bill to say “without reasonable excuse”. This helped us reasonably remove a lot of the hurdles that the Law Commission and several others raised of a legalese nature.

Serious harm was also raised by many submitters as a concern, as being too broad. What did it mean to say you would not cause serious harm? There weren’t clear precedents in other legislation for us to anchor on as well. Furthermore, the original bill actually gave examples of types of injuries and illness, and one of the concerns was that if someone did have one of those injuries or an illness of that type and then presented for treatment, as the original bill was written, that by definition met the criteria for serious harm, and this wasn’t what we were intending. If someone had measles, chickenpox—call it what you may—and goes for treatment at an emergency room or an A & E, that by definition was almost going to be serious harm, and it wasn’t what we intended. So we encapsulated all of that. We removed the list of examples of injuries and illness, and we referred to “serious and detrimental ongoing effects for the welfare of the student”. It seemed to be a much better definition.

The final area that we talked about which we reached solutions on was around the cost of compliance and impact on costs, and we were reassured that officials would take this into account when the code of practice was established. We need to remember that’s what this bill does. It permissions officials to establish the code of practice, and what we’ve given them here is, sort of, riding instructions as to where we think the key points for that code should be. Now, in that same context, and reassuringly, this is a disallowable instrument. The code of practice will be a disallowable instrument.

Fundamentally, what that means—because on inquiry to the clerk, just so I understood, furthermore, what it meant—is that any member of the Regulations Review Committee at any time can say they want to disallow the code of practice. At that point, it automatically comes on to the Order Paper and needs to be debated by the House within 21 days. If it’s not, the instrument lapses; the code of practice finishes. So this, in some degrees, is quite a nice safety net, which we don’t use often. In fact, we raised it with the medicinal cannabis bill as being another example of officials doing the regulations—can we have another look at it—and, for one reason or another, that didn’t progress.

But in this instance, we’re passing so much responsibility to officials that I think the fact that this bill enables the code of practice to be a disallowable instrument is a good thing. You might say: what if you don’t sit on the Regulations Review Committee? Well, it turns out that any member can actually disallow the instrument. It’s a much faster process if you’re a member of the Regulations Review Committee, because then it is brought to the House in a period of time. If you’re not a member, it just gets placed on the Order Paper and makes its way as the business of the House makes its way.

So, overall, I think the select committee has substantially improved this bill. I think the submitters have added really good contributions that have helped us shape and guide officials as they draw up the code of practice. We’ve futureproofed the ability for the two codes—because, on one level, it doesn’t really make sense to say, “Oh, we’ll provide pastoral care for international students, but we’ll have something different for domestic.” Why would we do that? There are very, very small nuances as to why we’d do that. I like to think that at some point in the future, we’ll bring it into one code of practice. So a good bill, well managed by select committee, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill will improve the wellbeing and pastoral care of our students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. There’s currently no consistent approach to the wellbeing of our domestic tertiary students, and this bill addresses that. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to start by saying that our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone that has been affected due to the White Island volcano.

I’m taking this call to support this legislation. As the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, I want to say that it was really great to see the whole committee—this is both sides, Government and Opposition—working in such a collaborative manner on this legislation. So I want to thank all members on the committee. I also want to acknowledge all submitters. We received 22 submissions during the select committee process and we heard from 11—actually, 11 plus one. I say “plus one” because we also requested the Privacy Commissioner to appear before the select committee to address some concerns that members had.

We wanted to make sure that this legislation will do exactly what we think it will. We know that this legislation was introduced after that unfortunate incident at Canterbury University, and our thoughts also go to his family. We just wanted to make sure that this legislation will actually provide that intention of providing or ensuring the wellbeing of all domestic tertiary students living in tertiary accommodations. We wanted to balance this legislation for privacy, safety, and then the third factor was the accountability for providers. So there were several questions that we had in the select committee process, because, yes, we want to make sure that they are fine and their wellbeing is looked after, but we also wanted to make sure that their privacy is maintained. So it was really good to hear from the Privacy Commissioner.

One thing that is good to know is that this legislation does not override the Privacy Act, and also the other thing for us that we learnt and is important for us to know is that providers can set up their own privacy policy. In that privacy policy, it will be important for them to disclose what kind of information will be collected and who that information will be disclosed to if they intend to disclose that information.

As the Minister of Education and our spokesperson Dr Shane Reti have already talked about the changes that the select committee made to this legislation, I won’t add too much to that, but I just want to add that the requirement of the Minister to consult with various stakeholders was a very important change that we made in the select committee process. Before issuing a code, we believe it’s really important that the Minister consults with students, their families, these education providers or accommodation providers and their staff, and also consults with the Privacy Commissioner, because that assured us that everything that we were concerned about—that is, the privacy and safety, the balance between privacy and safety—will be taken care of.

We also have changed in the legislation that this legislation will allow the Minister to provide for a framework that would include for both domestic tertiary students and international tertiary students the code of practice that is needed for their pastoral care. When we talk about pastoral care, all of a sudden, international students come to mind, and we understand why that special attention is needed for pastoral care for international students, because of those societal and cultural differences and sometimes even language barriers that international students experience. We want to make sure that when we have international students here in New Zealand, they get the best experience gaining their tertiary education here in New Zealand. But we are also aware now that domestic tertiary students’ pastoral care is also important. So this legislation, we believe, will provide for that.

Balancing the privacy with safety, with checks required for safety of a student, entry to their room or their sleeping area would be required. So we wanted to make sure that students’ privacy is taken care of, and that’s why we introduced a 24-hour notice requirement. But we clearly say that this requirement is there unless this is not reasonable in circumstances. So if it is not possible to get that notice to the student 24 hours prior to inspection or entry, if the circumstances don’t allow it, in those situations, the entry could be done without that notice.

The other thing we made clear in the select committee process was that the requirement of the student to be present at the time of entry will not be required if a consent has been already obtained from the student to do so in the student’s absence. So for me, there were three main issues in this legislation, as I said: balancing privacy and safety, and then the third factor was the accountability of providers. The select committee did a great job of making sure all concerns and wide-ranging views that were expressed by various submitters were taken into consideration, and several changes have been made to this legislation. So I support this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I acknowledge the chairperson of the Education and Workforce Committee, Dr Parmar, and largely agree with everything that she said, which may come as a surprise. The code which has been introduced into this legislation now has enforceability. It arose from a tragedy down in Canterbury. It is something that has been well traversed by the select committee in a spirit of collaboration. I stand to support the bill.

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I, too, join Parliament’s corporate call, acknowledging those affected by yesterday’s tragedy. Of course, this particular bill was brought on by a different kind of tragedy. So we do once again acknowledge here at the second reading Mason Pendrous, the 19-year-old young adult who lost his life in a hall of residence.

It was a privilege to be part of the select committee process that dealt with this bill, and particularly the subcommittee that traversed some of the really quality submissions—noting the varied and wide-ranging opinions that came in, and also acknowledging particularly the rather voluminous number of opinions that proved to be out of scope of this bill. It’s not the first time in the education realm that we’ve had to hear a lot of submissions that stray outside the scope, and we understand why, but this was another case where people wanted to get on to the actual elements of the code and not stick with this particular enabling the bit of legislation.

We are supporting the changes that the Education and Workforce Committee recommended. We want to acknowledge in good faith the decision to pretty much double the time frame, and that was of particular importance to us. We negotiated for that, so we’re grateful for just a slight increase in time frame. We also would like to wish, at this point in the process, to point out that we still have ongoing issues around needing transparency for costs that may come and be associated with this particular legislation.

So the two bits of the bill that I’ll point out—Dr Shane Reti outlined six changes, but the two particular big ones that I listened to in terms of submissions were around changing the definition of “serious harm”. I’d like to commend the Law Commission particularly. They really went to town on that particular point, and we ended up removing references to the types of treatment. If we get practical, the reason—well, one of the reasons—why we did that, and I think this is a good practical comment to raise, is that we didn’t want to disincentivise resident advisers from sending students for treatment. So there may have been a perverse effect by defining certain types of treatment and medical interventions—best to keep it broad so that medical professionals, not politicians, can decide the type of treatment that someone needs. The second point that I wish to raise is changing “safety” or “wellbeing” of the student to “ongoing welfare”. We think that that particular term, “ongoing welfare”, was the right one to take.

I’ll leave it there. We’ve still got a way to go through this particular committee, but what we’re trying to do here is find balance. We want to encourage and incentivise good practice. We know that the current self-regulating approach hasn’t worked. So somewhere along the line, we want that balance to be achieved, and it’s been a good cross-party process so far. Thank you.

The Greens support the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. Every person deserves a safe place to live and for wellbeing to be a focus and a priority. Unfortunately, a gap in care from student accommodation providers and a gap in clear expectations on universities meant that the recent death in Christchurch in a student hall of residence highlighted that this gap has failed to see everyone cared for in a way that they should be cared for. So we are supporting this bill as part of a solution which amends the Education Act and will enable the Minister of Education to issue a code of practice for the pastoral care of domestic tertiary education students. It will set out those expectations that up until now have been non-existent and unclear so providers know that there are standards to meet for students in tertiary student accommodation. We are very pleased to see this bill progress through this House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Please allow me also to add my sincere condolences to those families who have lost loved ones and also those who were injured in the horrific events of yesterday at White Island.

I rise today just to take a very short call on the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. I think it’s been, obviously, clear, at both the first reading and again today, that National supports the bill. The tragic event that led to this bill should never have been able to happen. University is a time for students to experience a level of freedom and independence that they may not have experienced prior, but with this freedom and this independence, and a right to privacy, must come a level of care in what can be a very challenging time for people who still need to be looked after, who are often away from home for the first time.

I must acknowledge the very good work of the Education and Workforce Committee, and also of the Minister for bringing this bill to the House. This bill is good policy that seeks to strike a good balance between that wonderful freedom and independence that university life offers and the care and right level of welfare checks on those who are away from home.

While I didn’t sit on the select committee for this bill, I note that there were some changes that were made around the definition of “serious harm”, as mentioned previously by my colleague Denise Lee, and removing of references to types of treatment. I’m also pleased that the issue of privacy was well traversed in select committee, as well as issues around proper consultation.

This bill should provide parents and families with the assurance that they need that university students and their welfare will be more satisfactorily monitored from here on in, and I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call. I call Greg O’Connor—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was recently lucky enough to be on a delegation to Indonesia and India, and meeting with locals in those places, one of the things they found attractive about New Zealand was the students, and they were very keen to have their family members come here. The reassurance that those people will get from knowing that there will be a regulated overview of their offspring when they’re here will go a long way to ensuring that that industry continues to be a productive part of our New Zealand economy. I therefore recommend this bill to the House.

Simeon Brown—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill at its second reading. I, along with other members from the National Party, will be supporting this piece of legislation, which makes important changes to introduce a code for administrators to inspect, and for student accommodation providers in New Zealand. Currently, there’s already a code for international students, and that’s important because that means that we as a country are upholding our obligations to our international friends, but we haven’t had one in place for domestic students, and what this will allow is for there to be a code for both international and domestic students—something which I think will make a positive difference to New Zealand. Of course, we’ve heard the story which has caused this bill to be brought to this Parliament—the tragic circumstances—and we hope that through these actions we’ll be able to ensure that the young people who do go into student accommodation will be given better pastoral care and that those institutions which are responsible for the care will also ensure they have a higher standard for that. So this bill is an important piece of legislation.

But also we discussed around the committee table some of the issues in regards to the rights of young people to their privacy, and we sought advice from the Privacy Commissioner around this bill and have ensured that there is wording within it to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner is consulted in relation to the code which will be brought into place, and that’s an important piece because it is important also to ensure that young people have their rights upheld when they do move out of home and when they do go into a student hostel or into student accommodation.

The Education and Workforce Committee introduced a seven-year limitation period for students to access the scheme. That’s, essentially, a seven-year limitation on when they can make a complaint against the care or the pastoral care that they were provided when they were in the student accommodation. That’s to allow young people—and I questioned officials around this particular issue—to be able to bring that forward within seven years, if they’ve had a bad experience which they may not wish to share at a particular time. But also it provides a limitation to that so that it’s not something which is going to be hanging over the providers’ heads for a long period of time, because, obviously, we want issues to be dealt with in a timely fashion. This seven-year limitation period ensures that there is a balance between the responsibility for those complaints to be laid but also to ensure that they get dealt with in a timely fashion.

Education providers could be fined up to $100,000 if their breach of the code resulted in serious harm or death of a student, and I think that’s an appropriate fine. It’s important that when you introduce codes of compliance, there are also mechanisms for accountability so that there are some teeth. The committee did introduce a reasonable excuse defence to the fine in the bill, and that was an important amendment to it.

So, overall, this bill is something that the National Party does support. We think what happened at the University of Canterbury was an absolute tragedy and something which should never have happened in New Zealand. We do look forward to, obviously, the full reports and being able to assess that as well, and we do note this bill has gone through the process very quickly, which has meant the committee was unable to be able to look at all of the facts of that case and to look at all the reports, but, regardless of what those reports do find, it’s important that Parliament does take action, and it was also important that this interim code was able to be brought into force by 1 January next year, when students will start leaving home and going to student accommodation at their university of choice for first semester next year. So, whilst we didn’t have all the information, the timeliness was important at the same time to ensure this was put in place.

So we look forward to the development of the code and then, of course, the permanent code as well. We’ll be taking a close interest in that over that period of time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. I rise to stand in support of the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge that this came out of a tragic event. I want to commend the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for his swift action on this and also to mihi to the Education and Workforce Committee. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is derived from a situation which arose in tragic circumstances. Loss of life in university halls is something that everyone regrets, and I just want to extend my condolences to the family of Mason Pendrous during that difficult time that they have gone through.

Now, any young person going off to university who ends up in the halls has a significant change in lifestyle, and whilst that generally is fun and exciting, it can be challenging and daunting and, at times, lonely as well. So what we’ve proposed here is to put in place appropriate measures that will help to reduce the likelihood of any such repeat of the horrific event we saw down at the Canterbury University earlier this year.

In that regard, I think we’ve landed in the right space with this. The balance is appropriate, enabling students to still have a level of independence whilst giving some additional support in that pastoral space, because, at the end of the day, they are still in our university halls. There is an expectation that comes with certain controls and support, as opposed to a flatting situation, for example, in the open market. So on that basis, it’s good to see the position we’ve got to here. We support this bill. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. On the occasion of the Whakaari tragedy, it’s not appropriate for us to take long calls on any bills, actually. Having said that, I do want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins. After listening to his and other members’ contributions, I don’t have anything further to add. I commend the bill to the House.

Amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority agreed to.

Bill read a second time.