11. Question No. 11—EducationNICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 11—Education11. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of Education: When are the more than 200000 year 1 to 10 students in Auckland likely to return to school and what risks if any to students has he been warned of that could result from missed time in the classroom?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Government has not yet made a final decision on when years 1 to 10 students in Auckland will return to learning on a school site. I would note that since our current restrictions have been in place students have been supported to learn from home and I want to thank our teaching community for the enormous amount of work that they have done to ensure that those young people are supported to continue their learning when they're unable to be physically on the school site. The Government is aware of the risks of having students away from the school site for a prolonged period of time. That is one of the reasons why we have worked very hard to ensure that schools can stay open over the last 18 months and have up until recently had one of the lowest rates of school closure in the OECD. We do have to balance up the risks to children's education with the risks of COVID-19. We are acutely aware of the fact that for primary school students in particular when those schools reopen they will be the highest concentrations of unvaccinated people in the country.Nicola Willis: What analysis if any has he sought to measure the likely impact of schools reopening to years 1 to 10 students versus the harm to achievement and family wellbeing that will occur if schools don't open this year?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Those things are very difficult to measure. In fact some students continue to learn very successfully using distance learning technology or other means of distance learning. And in fact there is evidence to suggest that for some children they do slightly better in their academic achievements through distance learning than they do from face-to-face teaching. However there are significant social benefits in terms of kids' social development of them being back on a school site. It is difficult to quantify those things though. The Ministry of Education the Education Review Office the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research have all looked at the impact of the disruption on children's learning last year where there is some data available and it found it would be fair to say that the overall analysis is variable. Some students did better and some did worse. But we are of course aware that—well we are committed to getting kids back on to school sites so that they can resume a more regular schooling pattern as soon as it's safe to do that.Nicola Willis: Does he anticipate that ongoing school closures will increase inequity in students' educational achievement given the vastly different home circumstances children are now expected to learn in and the likely impact that this will have?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes that is a very real concern. Absolutely that is a concern. It's one of the reasons why the Government has over the last 18 months gone to great lengths to try and level some of that playing field but it is true to say that equity continues to be a significant concern. So we've connected homes that weren't otherwise connected to the internet. We've provided digital devices to children who otherwise wouldn't have access to them. We've produced hard packs of materials that have been posted out to young people across the country when they've experienced disruption to their schooling to ensure that they can continue their learning. But it is absolutely true to say that the social and cultural capital of a child's home does have an impact disproportionately on their learning when they are having to do learning from home.Nicola Willis: Has he heard concerns from Tangaroa College Principal Davida Suasua that many students will not return to school following ongoing closures saying They said 'We're not coming back.' … It's really disheartening because … these students are very academically able their pathway was to go to university their pathway was to a career [and now they're not coming back]"?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes I have seen comments like that and further comments that are similar to that and those comments are very concerning. I don't want to see young people missing out on their education and the future opportunities that that provides them. One of the reasons that the Government has made the decision now to allow senior secondary school students to return to learning on site from next week is that we do want to decrease the chances of those young people disengaging from learning and not coming back to school and we are aware that the longer the schools remain closed the more students there will be in that category. So yes that continues to be a concern.Nicola Willis: Does he expect all secondary schools to reopen for years 11 to 13 students on Tuesday 26 October and what will he do if he learns that some schools have chosen not to reopen on that date?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes I do expect them to reopen; however within that schools do have some flexibility because schools will have to be open for the required number of half days that they have to be open. So there will be a prorating of the number of half days that they won't have to be open based on the recent level 4 and then level 3 restrictions that have been in place. But once that requirement to be closed is lifted they will need to comply with the requirement to be open for a specified number of half days between now and the end of the year."