Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): I really do have to take issue with the comments about the rights of the child—of course rights were not mentioned—about putting children at the heart. There are no rights of the child if this House does not stand up in legislation and make sure that we protect our smallest community members. This bill fails so many tests and one of them is the rights of the child. We had the most important officers in the land—the Children's Commissioner around rights and the Ombudsman—saying that the bill had failed to consult with children and now we defend parts of the bill that would make children more vulnerable by saying they should be at school when they are 4 years old and that it is all about choice.Well I tell you what this bill reminds me of: shopping and online shopping. What it has done this Government is it has pitched education as a product as something that education providers—because we do not use the word teachers"—are providing to the consumer so the parent as consumer can shop for their choice. Now in this bill one can shop online as well. It is easy; just buy the product! The whole thing is about a product it is about the mantra of choice and the mantra of choice is the politics of distraction if there is any understanding of what is actually going on in the education system today. It does not matter how many COOLs and COLs and acronyms you invent. Education is a powerful liberating process that requires face-to-face interaction with human beings plus digital learning enhanced by a relationship with a school. That is what the learning providers who are experienced in using digital technology tell us. So if we are speaking about communities of online learning (COOLs)—which is one of the more controversial aspects of the bill—people such as Professor John Hattie who are controversial for many reasons but are also established educators are casting doubt on the efficacy of online learning in isolation in terms of achievement. Many of the submitters from the learning networks—and we had great submitters—made submissions saying that the evidence was very shaky when you separate the school from the online learning provider yet that is the point of the COOLs provisions.Pastoral care has not been addressed. We are prepared to abandon our children and our young people in primary and secondary school to the market. It is consistent because the market is God! However we have privatised early childhood to the point that it is making a lot of young children participate in vulnerable education. We sacrificed tertiary education to the market a long time ago; the whole thing is an international franchise. But the compulsory sector which the members of the committee—many of us on the Opposition—have tried to defend is also under the gun through this legislation.It is also weird this legislation because it is contradictory. It tries to suggest that the communities of learning will actually break down the fiefdoms of Tomorrow's Schools at the same time as it is increasing the privatisation opportunity under the choice mantra. The Government cannot make up its mind whether we are a community or a shopping opportunity and it has confused the two. Really Government members do not know what education is actually about because they never talk about learning; they talk only about results. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study said that 15-year-olds in Aotearoa New Zealand are highly vulnerable to anxiety now because of the obsession with assessment. This is from a well-being report attached to the PISA study. I do not think PISA is the be-all and end-all but the well-being of our kids—that made me wake up. Our young people at 15 are highly anxious because the obsession is with targeting and assessment.This bill does nothing to enhance the holistic view of learning. If you look at NELPs the National Education and Learning Priorities they were not formed from an in-depth conversation with the sector. The sector is bewildered and disappointed just as are Opposition politicians and many in the community. We did not decide this stuff. It is not that some of the learning priorities are bad; it is just about what is missing that we would have put in. What about the children in our education system who learn differently? Yes this bill takes the seclusion room Supplementary Order Paper and makes it law to stop seclusion rooms but in exchange for what? How are these children and these young people who learn differently going to be protected? We have banned this tool that needed to be banned—it was an outrage and a disgrace and the Government has to wear the fact that it was not listening or it would have known about it. It was a dirty little secret and there is no alternative to support teachers unless you give them professional development.I was in James Cook High School the other day with a wonderful group of teachers school support staff and students. The stress levels are through the roof because children and young people are dealing with issues that the school system was never designed to fix and all the Government can do in response is come up with a whole lot of rhetoric. Honestly if I hear any more about 21st century flexible modernisation learning priorities—it is meaningless people. You will never meet a group more passionate about innovation than the committed teaching profession. You will never meet a group of people more interested in creative innovation than young people.I would like to thank Adrian Rurawhe MP for mentioning Te Mata Rangatira. The young people whom I encouraged to come to the Education and Science Committee from my rohe—these people are passionate about their self-determination and learning and they said: "We don't want digital learning unless it's linked to a school and we have real support." They have tried it and it is tough. They still want—read my lips people—to talk to somebody face to face in the flesh who understands how their minds work as well as take the opportunities that the digital world offers our young people.But we do not need to talk all this rubbish about modern flexible rubbish. Let us get real about the actual situation that we face in schools. We need a collaborative environment. I do not disagree with that but unfortunately the COOLs are now being limited through this bill—the Minister will decide the priority challenge that they adopt. So we have actually lost ground on communities of learning. We have created a monster without pastoral care and controls to privatise online learning. We have failed in this bill—not we; the Government has failed in this bill—to recognise many issues that could have been successfully addressed. So it is extremely disappointing to stand here after this was supposed to be the bill to end all bills for education and a real purpose statement was supposed to come out of it and find that we are no further ahead. In fact we have gone backwards. It is extremely disappointing.I would like to tautoko the comments of my colleague from Labour Adrian Rurawhe about Te Reo and the Treaty in the National Education and Learning Priorities. Appreciation instil—language is power. Language has meaning. You do not instil appreciation through tokenism; you actually have to do something to educate and uphold in the education system about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and with Te Reo Māori. Appreciation of a language is not sitting watching it; appreciation of a language is learning it. Appreciating Te Reo—we can all appreciate it but we do not understand because we have not learnt it and we are not prepared to teach it to our kids. This bill does not allow that to develop. It still makes it completely voluntary and completely random and there is enough "voluntary and random" in our education system.Lastly I want to just talk again about our kids. Our young people whom I have met many of whom are cooking for their dad because their mum has passed away or they are living in three or four different houses or they are trying to do homework in the back of a car—I talked to these young people and they said: "We do want to be at school but we are really stressed." A forward-looking and passionate Government would try to listen to what teachers are saying what school support staff are saying and what young people are saying about the real pressures and try to embrace a participatory educational model that is brave courageous and public. This bill does not do that. It is incredibly disappointing because our young people are worth it. We all use the rhetoric of fulfilling potential but the young people whom I have met—they do not have the same shot as the privileged and this bill will not help them fulfil their potential. If they are dumped into COOLs because the school system cannot cope with them we have failed them yet again. We need to embrace our young people. We do not need to isolate them and put them into privatised franchises; we need to teach them face to face with the modern tools available to us in a way that works for them. That is what it really means to be an educator. Kia ora koutou katoa."