Stanford EricaHon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I say finally we have a Government that is putting educational achievement back at the heart of our education system because we are aspirational for our kids. In the face in the last six years of declining results 42 percent of our kids at the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement not at curriculum for mathematics; half of our kids not able to pass a functional literacy and numeracy assessment at NCEA; three consecutive years of dropping NCEA results; Programme for International Student Assessment Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study results dropping like a stone. The question has to be—with all of these warning lights flashing with the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree with the console screaming at them Pull up! Pull up!"—what did they do in six years in education? I'd be very surprised if anyone in this country can think of anything that this last Government did let alone their priorities in the education agenda in six long years of education and declining results.Because as education Minister in this Government we have a purpose and clarity and we are working at pace to raise achievement and to close the equity gap. Underpinning all of this is our goal of getting 80 percent of kids to curriculum by the time they reach high school to give them a chance at getting a meaningful qualification and going on to live the life that they want. We've outlined six clear priority areas: the curriculum the teaching practice the fact that we need to assess our kids along the way that we are investing in our workforce that we're investing in learning support and we're using data and evidence to guide us.We saw in the last few weeks that our maths results of those young students who are measured at year 8 against the curriculum benchmark—only 22 percent of them were at curriculum for mathematics. This represents as the Prime Minister said a total system failure. High schools know it because as soon as I walk in the door they tell me that they're having to catch their kids up that they don't know their timetables and their basic facts. Parents know it because after-school tuition is full and maths and literacy and Kip McGrath and NumberWorks'nWords are all full which is exacerbating the equity gap that we have in this country that we are trying so desperately to close. Primary schools know it as well: they have been awaiting a structured maths programme following on the very successful structured literacy programme that we're rolling out next year to every single school. A feature of our very quick turn around with our maths approach is to introduce our knowledge-rich curriculum next year aligned with resources and teacher guides and workbooks and resources for kids in the classroom so that our teachers can successfully implement this new curriculum. We are ensuring that the teaching practice in the classroom is based on structured literacy and maths mastery—explicit teaching a sequenced manner and a structured manner of introducing material mastery before moving on and an understanding of concepts and an automatising or recalling of basic facts. We're making sure that we're assessing our kids twice a year so that we can pick them up before they fall and so that every parent in this country will know where their kids are at and how they are doing.We are investing in our wonderful workforce—our amazing passionate teachers. We're making sure they have all of the resources that they need to support this new curriculum. We're making sure that before they go into initial teacher education that they have the requisite level of maths to be confident in teaching it. We're making sure through the Teaching Council that initial teacher education providers are properly teaching teacher trainees the math that they need to be confident—we're investing $20 million into professional learning and development to do this. We're also investing in learning support in class for those kids who are falling behind with small-group interventions. This is a Government that has high aspirations for our kids. We are not prepared to wait another single year to put these system changes in place—we have to raise student achievement. My message to all parents is this is a Government who takes your children's success at school very very seriously. It was really telling today in the House that the questions from the other side were around a letter that was written to an Australian Minister in English rather than using te reo when 20 percent of our kids are at curriculum for mathematics and 12 percent of our Māori kids and yet nothing from the other side on these really important issues. It shows why in the last six years they achieved exactly nothing in education."