King Colin: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
King Colin: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2640] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to be speaking to the Education Amendment Bill. I recognise the chair of the Education and Science Committee and the work that has been done over the period of time that this bill has come forward; it is now in the Committee stage. I take on board Judy Turner’s comments with regard to embellishing and broadening out. But in a sense I will talk about something that was discussed within the essence of the select committee process around adding a bit of comfort and safety to our teaching fraternity recognising that they do perform their very very best in a safe environment. 
I believe that even since the introduction of this bill into the House things have moved progressively in the wrong way. When I was speaking to a number of my teaching friends in Blenheim it was quite clear that they are aware they do have systems in place that are actually very negative towards the school as a whole in handling abusiveness intimidation and suchlike. But there needs to be more structure around those issues. 
So I am proposing that we make an amendment and ask for the support of members in the Committee. Supplementary Order Paper 26 recommends that people under the criminal age are not subject to those requirements but those who are over 14 years may be charged with offences of insulting abusing or intimidating a teacher or a member of staff of a school and that it is clarified that such an offence may also be carried out by electronic means. I believe this is very important. 
This afternoon at lunchtime we enjoyed rewarding 20 of the very best teachers we have in New Zealand. There were 560 nominations for the ASG National Excellence in Teaching awards. I was absolutely delighted to see that one of those 20 was in fact a lady teacher from Fairhall School Pauline Graham. It is great to see them being recognised. But I do believe there are very solid grounds for students to face charges—even though the select committee through the process decided to go with the flow that in actual fact a student would not have to face a charge for an offence such as insult and abuse. I would like to see this strengthened. That would show that we take our teachers seriously that we treat their profession honourably and that they are professionals. So I really beseech members to be supportive of that amendment because I think it is long overdue and we have to empower our teachers to be excellent. 
With regard to the measurables of education my expertise comes from the point of view of dealing with the failures of literacy and numeracy. So I am greatly enthused when I see that there is the potential for the Minister of Education to be able to set literacy and numeracy standards. We do not know just how serious this situation is; we do not know just how much it is costing our country. I can understand the sensitivities around the issue but I believe it is as important as a good health system. A dollar invested wisely shows a maximum return. So I would very strongly support those recommendations put forward by way of amendment in new clause 5A “National education guidelines”—that there are national standards for literacy and numeracy applicable to all students of all ages and year groups. That would be very important. The expectation that schools will report on those standards will engage parents and give them the absolute confidence that their children are not dropping through the cracks. 
I have noticed that there is growing dissatisfaction and a growing movement towards looking for excellence in education. I discovered with some sorrow when I approached the Minister on behalf of the Richmond View School which wanted to move from a primary section into secondary up to year 13 that there was not the scope or capability within the ministry to see the wisdom of this. In Blenheim we have only a girls’ secondary school and a boys’ secondary school. There is a strong voice in the local community supported by the mayor and many leading citizens that we need the choice of a coed school. Those sorts of things I think are very very important. 
The Education Amendment Bill focuses very much on regulation and process and I think there is too much concentration on that. It was interesting to see reported in the  
Press 
 that there was surprise at where we are actually at in this process of the Education Amendment Bill. There are a lot of teachers out there who do not know that it is just about to be passed through the Committee stage. So from that point of view I think the new sets of eyes that have come on board with the Supplementary Order Papers—not overly expanding on things but actually fashioning the bill so it will take us forward in a constructive way—are very positive.