Sutton Jim: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Sutton Jim: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1345] 
Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of State) 
: 
 I move  
That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. The bill contains two areas of significant policy change. Those are to establish a new regulatory regime in the early childhood education sector and to extend the national student number to both the early childhood and compulsory education sectors. This bill also implements a number of changes to reform and improve the state of education legislation in order to make it more workable and less out of date. The chair and members of the Education and Science Committee in the previous Parliament deserve our thanks for their careful consideration of this bill and for the constructive amendments they have recommended. 
This Government has undertaken major reforms in early childhood education. Our 10-year strategic plan is increasing participation in quality early childhood education improving quality and promoting effective relationships between all those involved. The Government intends to implement a new regulatory regime for early childhood education to underpin that plan. 
The bill replaces Part 26 of the Education Act 1989 with a new Part 26. Existing provisions contain ambiguities; the new amendments will give the early childhood sector more certainty about the standards they need to meet in order to become licensed and receive Government funding. Under the new requirements all early childhood education and care centres will need to be licensed. Exceptions are home-based education and care services and hospital-based education and care services. Those services can choose to be licensed. Play groups can also choose to become certificated play groups in order to receive Government funding. New regulations will set out the minimum standards that early childhood services and play groups will need to meet in order to become licensed or certificated. Those new criteria will ensure greater consistency in licensing standards than is currently the case. The new regulations will be phased in over 6 years—giving everyone time to meet the standards—and follow extensive consultation. 
New Zealand is one of the first countries in the world to have a nationwide early childhood education curriculum. Including reference to it in legislation shows its significance to quality early childhood education. This bill enables the Minister of Education to prescribe a curriculum framework for licensed and certificated services after thorough consultation with all those involved. All these new proposals were the subject of consultation with early childhood sector representatives throughout the country in June and July 2004. 
The bill amends the Education Act 1989 and the Education Standards Act 2001 to enable kindergartens providing an all-day service to meet the same registration requirements as other early childhood services providing a full-day’s service. Kindergarten contract negotiations have resulted in kindergarten teachers’ performance being assessed against agreed professional standards. An amendment to the State Sector Act 1988 allows the Secretary for Education to prescribe guidelines for kindergarten associations to use when assessing their teachers against those standards. Amending the Act will ensure national consistency in the application of standards. 
The second significant amendment to the Education Act 1989 will see the existing National Student Number extended throughout the whole education sector. The National Student Number is already used in the senior secondary and tertiary sectors to keep students’ academic records correct and to ensure the efficient and accurate funding of our education institutions—to stop people double-dipping I suppose! Extending the National Student Number is necessary to improve the data-management processes for the education sector. The National Student Number will enable information in different systems to be linked together for more efficient analytical use. Researchers will be able to obtain statistical data for longitudinal research on student achievement. This data will identify trends but not individual students. 
This new legislation has been developed in consultation with the Privacy Commissioner and safeguards will be in place to ensure that extending the National Student Number will not expose it to misuse. Authorised uses of the National Student Number are specified as early childhood services schools tertiary education organisations the Ministry of Education the New Zealand Qualifications Authority the Tertiary Education Commission Career Services and any other body or body agency declared by regulations following consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. 
Authorised users may use the National Student Number for only one or more of the approved uses. All other uses are prohibited. Approved uses are monitoring and ensuring a student’s enrolment and attendance ensuring education providers and students receive appropriate resourcing statistical purposes research purposes and ensuring students’ educational records are accurately maintained. A maximum fine of $15000 is provided for any instance where the national student number is misused. 
Other amendments in the Education Amendment Bill are designed to improve administration efficiency and to transfer and update sections of older legislation that is still in force to the Education Act 1989. Sections that are no longer necessary are repealed. The sections covering the powers and duties of the Teachers Council have been amended to enable the council to handle the process of registration and discipline more efficiently. This includes a penalty for breaching the disciplinary tribunal orders relating to confidentiality so vulnerable witnesses are better protected. 
A number of amendments are designed to recognise the practical working environment for boards of trustees. Boards will no longer be required to hold an annual meeting. The current requirement serves little purpose and most boards find it irksome. Similarly the time that a board has to decide how to fill a casual vacancy has been extended from 4 weeks to 8 weeks. 
The bill contains amendments to ensure that international students enrolled with adult and community education providers are covered by the same legislation that applies to international students enrolled with other education providers. The bill also gives effect to Cabinet’s decision that international students in the early childhood sector do not receive Government subsidies. The bill allows the Crown to share revenue from applying the international student levy to integrated schools with the proprietors of those schools. That recognises the contribution that proprietors make to capital costs at those schools. Minor and technical changes to improve administration efficiencies are made in the tertiary sector. Other provisions including the offence of wilful disturbance of a school or early childhood centre school transport provision and bonded scholarships for entry to teaching are updated and transferred to the Education Act 1989. 
A similar process has been followed for the Education Lands Act 1949; provisions applying to leases and licences of school property have also been updated and transferred to the Education Act 1989. 
I will be circulating a Supplementary Order Paper proposing several amendments for consideration during the Committee stage of the bill; for example the ability to use the Student Loan Scheme Act 1992 to recover any money owing if the recipients of bonded scholarships default on their obligations and some corrections and minor changes to the bill that will improve the drafting of some sections of the bill. 
In conclusion the bill continues the Government’s commitment to raising the standards of our education system and to tidying up and streamlining education legislation to make it easier to follow and more efficient to implement. I commend the bill to the House.