Foster-Bell Paul: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5181. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National):It is a rather intimidating prospect to follow on from that very learned and literate member one of the most distinguished alumni of not only Otago University my old university but also Harvard. Mr Cunliffe is a very literate man. Does he love words? Yes he does. Does he love the sound of his voice saying those words? Absolutely. But we here tonight are talking about Vote Education in this appropriations debate. I think that this Government is doing an excellent job in improving the educational standards offered in the New Zealand public system.Mr Cunliffe asked a couple of rhetorical questions in his contribution this evening. I will concede that he gave us the benefit of the doubt in thinking that we were motivated from a position of taking the best interests of New Zealand’s learners children and students to heart and that is the case I can assure Mr Cunliffe. But he did raise the question as to whether our policies would implement the goals of achieving what we set out to achieve and I think the added investment made in Budget 2015 in the education vote will go a long way towards providing better services and better outcomes for New Zealand learners. Take for instance the $244 million for new classrooms and schools—that is seven new schools four major expansions of existing schools and over 240 new classrooms for New Zealand schools. This will provide modern learning spaces for children in the New Zealand compulsory system.I am particularly proud of the extra $62.9 million that my colleague Minister Nikki Kaye referred to. This is for special education: those children who have the highest needs and are the most vulnerable. This will include services such as additional teacher aide support and the provision of speech and language therapy to those children who need that little bit of extra help to be able to achieve and succeed. I am pleased to see an extra $42.3 million going into school operational grants in order to help the smooth running of our local schools.The question that I guess we could also ask is: what do people in this system actually think of this? Well I want to quote from a message I recently received. It is an email and unlike the Opposition I am not going to name the gentleman but I can assure them that he is not Gene Simmons and he is not John Kerwin who was also referenced by the Opposition this evening. This is a real person—a staff member at the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association. I do not want to quote it in full because well I am a humble person—he is very complimentary. But he goes on to say: “Minister Parata has been great recently with her support for teachers and I am really pleased to see it’s a message that others in the National caucus are taking to heart. You also showed a really good understanding of the educational success programme which as you know the PPTA supports. It’s a pity that there are still people mistakenly characterising it as some form of competitive performance pay which has meant that we’ve taken flak from some of our more usual allies.” I presume that they are referring to the Labour Party and the Greens.So the post-primary teaching profession is in support of our programme which implements our targets of achieving 98 percent of early childhood education enrolment; particularly around the 85 percent of 18-year-olds who we want to graduate with NCEA level 2—that is the equivalent of the old Sixth Form Certificate—and also our target of eventually getting 60 percent of all 25 to 34-year-olds accredited with an NCEA level 4 qualification. That is a post-compulsory qualification.In the local context here in Wellington we are going to see a new information and communications technology graduate school added to the existing high-quality tertiary institutions we have: Victoria University Massey University WelTec Whitireia Community Polytechnic and other private training establishments such as the Campbell Institute which brings valuable export education dollars into Wellington and provides a useful experience both to those international students who come here and to the New Zealand students who are exposed to the opportunities of having colleagues who come from China from Viet Nam from Japan from Europe—in fact from all over the world. This Government is doing a lot in the education sector. There is a lot to be proud of. There is work remaining to do and the feedback that I am getting both in the Wellington Central electorate and around New Zealand as we visit on Education and Science Committee visits is wholly positive about the efforts this Government is making.