Tinetti JanEDUCATION AND TRAINING AMENDMENT BILL (NO 3)First ReadingHon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3).DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon JAN TINETTI: I move That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill and at an appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.In August 2020 the Government passed the Education and Training Act. The Act was a landmark moment for education in Aotearoa New Zealand bringing together different education legislation into a single Act. The bill before the House today continues the Government's programme of improving and strengthening the education system and ensuring that our system delivers equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.There are important and necessary policy changes within the bill. Most significantly this bill establishes a new legislative framework for wānanga to better recognise their mana and rangatiratanga within legislation. My colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis will speak to these changes in detail but I also want to note the importance of what is in front of us today. This new framework reflects the relationship between the wānanga and the Crown a relationship that is centred on the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. By introducing bespoke accountability arrangements we are enabling wānanga to consider how to best fulfil their aspirations and the aspirations of their ākonga communities kaimahi and iwi. I will now turn to other significant policy changes included in this bill. The bill strengthens the school board member eligibility criteria. As many of you in here will know concerns have been raised during the recent board election processes about the suitability of some members of the public who have stood for election. In response the Ministry of Education undertook a review of the current eligibility requirements for school board members to consider whether they are fit for purpose. The review found that the current requirements do not adequately reflect the role that a school board member has in providing for a school to be physically and emotionally a safe place for students and staff. A majority of stakeholders and members of the public that were consulted also agreed that the eligibility requirements needed to be strengthened. This bill will amend the Education and Training Act to ensure that people who are convicted of an offence listed in Schedule 2 of the Children's Act 2014 are not eligible to serve on a State school board. An exemption to this can be approved by the Secretary for Education. The secretary will also be able to conduct random audits on school board members to check whether they meet eligibility criteria. Board members will be required to permit the secretary to obtain any relevant information needed to complete an audit. These changes to school board member eligibility criteria align the standards for board members more closely with those for teachers and other school staff. With these changes boards can better fulfil their role of keeping our schools safe. In a continued move to strengthen school governance the bill makes changes to school board election provisions. These include a one-off amendment to shift the timing of the next mid-term school board elections to November this year putting elections back on track to the usual timetable after a timing change in 2022. This amendment will give our boards more time to prepare for elections this year. The bill also expands and modernises the school board member co-option criteria. School boards must have regard for these criteria when deciding to co-opt a board member. The bill updates the criteria to ensure that boards take into account the genders sexualities and sexes of students and school community as well as the disabled students and the school's disability community when deciding on members to co-opt. This change reflects this Government's commitment to upholding equity and diversity within our schools. The bill will also enable school boards to fill the student representative position if a student is not elected at the annual September elections rather than having to wait until the next election. This supports our commitment to strengthen the student voice on school boards.These three changes to school board election provisions will work to ensure that the governance of our schools is representative and efficient. As part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring the safety of students we have progressively strengthened police-vetting requirements for non-teaching employees and contractors in early learning services and schools. Last year through the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) we removed a two-week grace period for police vetting to ensure that non-teaching employees were vetted before they began work or in the case of contractors before they had unsupervised contact with children. This bill adds to last year's change by making it explicit that employers at schools and early learning services must consider those police-vets once they have been received and assess any risks to the safety of children before employees begin work or contractors have unsupervised access to children. While most early learning services and schools are already doing this this amendment ensures there is no uncertainty in our expectations. The bill also supports the further development of the early childhood equity index. The new equity index will provide more accurate and up-to-date data on the distribution of Aotearoa's socio-economic disadvantage so that the equity funding will be better allocated to support children in early learning services. To develop and then apply this index to fund services the Ministry of Education needs to use data held by Statistics New Zealand. This bill amends the Act to permit the ministry to use this data enabling us to progress development of the early childhood equity index. The bill also strengthens accountability and transparency within our education sector. It will require universities and wānanga to publish information about employee remuneration of $100000 or more and will restrict the appointment of the chief executive of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu to a term of five years with the ability to reappoint for further times. The bill separates establishment provisions for kura kaupapa Māori and designated character schools within the Act. As with the changes for wānanga my colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis will speak about these provisions in more detail. The bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Education and Training Act. These amendments include amending the definition of domestic student" in the Act so that holders of a residence class visa studying overseas are required to satisfy criteria set out in regulations removing the requirement to present a separate annual report on the export education levy removing the requirement for tertiary education institutes when not bound by any collective agreement to consult with the Public Service Commissioner when appointing senior staff ensuring that members of Te Pūkenga the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology council can remain in their roles until a successor is appointed and broadening the regulation-making powers in the Act to allow regulations to be made that empower the Minister of Education to specify school opening hours. I look forward to seeing this bill progressing and I commend this bill to the House."