Parata HekiaEDUCATION LEGISLATION BILLThird ReadingHon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I move That the Education Legislation Bill be now read a third time. This Government has great ambitions for the children of New Zealand. We have focused on continuously improving the education system: all the levers that contribute to supporting principals and teachers; boards made up of parents; and providing the best education possible for our young people. We want to make sure that they leave our education system connected confident lifelong learners who are able to both foot it here at home and to participate internationally if they so choose. So it is important that legislation supports that ambition of ours. This bill in its third reading today is an example of how we are giving structure and force to that ambition. I would like to thank the individuals and organisations who took the time to make a submission on the bill the Education and Science Committee for its attentive consideration and the officials who worked on this bill.There are a number of elements that are described in this bill and reflect the policy intent we have as a Government which can be succinctly described as parents having choice; schools early learning providers and tertiary institutions having flexibility such that the provision they offer suits the personalised and diverse needs of our young people; and that those young people are getting real results in real time. You can see that set of policy imperatives in the provisions within this bill.For example we are providing for principals to be in charge of more than one school at one time. We are not requiring that that occurs; we are simply providing an option. There are circumstances around the country where that option is necessary. Those circumstances are primarily rural and amongst smaller schools. Of the 2500 schools we have across the country about 40 percent have rolls of 100 to 150 or fewer. That means providing leadership—exemplary leadership—of teaching and of schools for our young people in every one of them. There have been times when that option has not been readily available or it has not been as successful as we might have wished because the particular principal available may not have been if you like fit for purpose for that particular community. The provision in this bill is very much about how where these circumstances arise there will be an option at law for boards that agree to do so to appoint a principal to more than one school—and clearly where the principal herself or himself wishes to do that. Again I want to reiterate this bill it is not requiring that this occur but that there be an option.Another area that reflects this Government's investment into quality of leadership in teaching is in our provision for a new trainee teacher category. It is providing for a mix of both academic training—which we have through our initial teacher education—and where there is a period of employment for a trainee who has not yet finished their qualification we want to make it lawful for them to be able to practice in a school. A really good example of that is the Teach First NZ programme that we are funding where people with great qualifications who think they might like to be teachers—and we think that it would be great if they were—have the opportunity to blend both academic training and practical experience teaching in schools. We want to make that possible and this law does that. We have seen great success out of that practice; Tāmaki College for instance springs to mind.Another example of the flexibility imperative that I mentioned earlier is that this bill provides for more flexible hours around schools. It is not about schools to be offering fewer hours of teaching but it is saying that the two 2-hour blocks that schools are required to offer—which by the way does not mean it has to be a minimum either—can be offered at different times to the conventional model of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. With 21st century living all of us as parents and some of us as grandparents have found greater diversity and flexibility in the way we learn the way we work and so forth. We want to make sure that our education legislation underpins flexibility of choice—where in a community the board having consulted with its parent community and anyone else affected could look to change times. That may become more desirable as more and more of our schools and early childhood centres form the fabulous communities of learning and work together to make sure that that whole pathway is organised as efficiently and as effectively as the families in those communities would like. So we are providing for that.Another example of flexibility of choice for parents and of opportunities for providers is that this bill provides for home-based early childhood education providers to also offer out-of-school care opportunities for young people. That means that parents with differently aged children—as all parents are who have more than two or three children who are not born at the same time—are able to find a carer who can provide for kids who are at an age before going to school as well as for those kids who are already at school. Again we are just providing for that. We have also anticipated that online learning—online access—is going to be a growing part of the reality of young people's educational experience and in this bill we are providing for the National Student Number to be used as one credible access online rather than require multiple entries by the same person. We know that in practice this will be welcomed by students.The other thing we are providing for in this bill is for tertiary education institutions to apply to become sponsors of partnership schools—kura hourua—and in addition there are provisions for their investment in related entities. We are very keen to see that we get the greatest utility out of all of the educational providers and institutions that we have available to us. What this does—again it does not require tertiary education institutions to do either of these activities but where that choice is made by them then this law will support that to be the case.There are also some administrative matters that we want to clean up if you like or make more administratively effective and this bill provides for that. In particular there is an outdated provision that we are improving that requires the Ministry of Education to make provision for financial reporting and support for schools. We are clarifying how that should actually occur by providing for it in this bill. Here it is here: we want to make sure that operational specifications relating to the provision of payroll services to school boards" that are unnecessary are removed; and in addition that the State Services Commissioner "can approve generic or specific terms and conditions of employment that are additional to but not [contrary to] those that have been agreed to in a collective agreement" but that out of time may be necessary. Finally there are a multiplicity of provisions in other Acts. Not all things that relate to education are in the Education Act and this bill updates outdated aspects of those statutes while ensuring the original intents of the Acts are honoured appropriately.Those are the main provisions that are set out in this bill. I think that having run through what the specific provisions are all members of the House can see how they support our policy intent of providing choice to parents. Parents have the greatest interest in their children as do grandparents in their grandchildren and we want to ensure that the choices available for them are supported at law. Equally we want to make sure that educational providers have as much flexibility to design services that meet the different and personal needs of those young people who are in their care as is possible. Finally of course the whole purpose of this updated legislation is to make sure that our young people are getting the best opportunities available to them whether in their earliest learning years whether at primary school whether through the use of out-of-school care or whether at secondary schools and going on into tertiary options. I think this bill admirably sets it all out and I now commend the bill to the House."