Ardern Jacinda: Urgent Debates — Educational Achievement—OECD Programme for International Student Assessment ReportText is subject to correctionArdern Jacinda: Urgent Debates — Educational Achievement—OECD Programme for International Student Assessment Report[Sitting date: 04 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15230. Text is subject to correction.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): Can I take National’s one? I am going to go for 10 minutes Mr Assistant Speaker. If you buzz me at 5 then I will know it is split and if it is not then I will sit down.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): You have got a split call with the Mana Party.JACINDA ARDERN: It is my pleasure to rectify some of the absolute rot that has been flying around this House not least the last call taken by someone who purported to be a part of the education system and who claimed—Tim Macindoe: Attack me personally because you don’t want to deal with the issues.JACINDA ARDERN: —that there was no testing in our education system under Labour. That is an absolutely ridiculous statement.Tim Macindoe: I’ve talked about the issues and you attack me.JACINDA ARDERN: If he was a teacher he would know that I have not made a personal attack. I have simply pointed out that if Mr Macindoe was a member of the education system under Labour he would know that there was testing and there was.My second point is that we heard within 10 seconds of Mr Calder’s speech and within MrMacindoe’s speech blatant attacks on the teachers of this country who have taken it upon themselves to raise their concerns about the teaching environment. That was absolutely legitimate that they did. To be vilified as union hacks in doing so is an absolute disgrace.The point I want to come to is this: the environment that that Government has talked about has been solely isolated to the teaching environment. We on this side of the House have raised our concerns with what has happened in the last 5 years but what that Government refuses to acknowledge is that a child does not go to school and exist in a bubble. In the last 5 years that these children and these young people have been attending and been part of our education system there have been other things going on in their lives that affect their educational outcomes.The OECD acknowledges that—the OECD acknowledges that. I want to refer to the section from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment report that has not been talked about yet. It talks about the impact of inequality on educational outcomes. It states this: “New Zealand and Chinese Taipei are the only two high-performing countries/economies with below-average levels of equity in education outcomes. Targeting low-performing and/or disadvantaged students is a policy option for both of these countries as the steepness of the gradient suggests that low-performing students could rapidly improve their performance if their socio-economic status is improved.” Chinese Taipei and New Zealand virtually get their own graphic indication of the fact that young people who are growing up with economic disadvantage are alsoperforming badly and that inequality is having an impact on the kids who are tested in this report.If that Government wants to stand there and say that the last 5 years have not mattered it clearly has absolutely no idea about the reality that these kids are growing up with. To assume that the economic environment of their parents and of their families has no impact on their educational outcome is to turn a blind eye to the environment that they are living in. If the Government needed any more evidence in the equity and outcomes section of the report there is also more discussion about disparities and performance related to socio-economic status where again New Zealand is isolated as one of only two schooling systems where there is a complete disconnect given the fact that we have a well-performing economy but children who are living in absolute disadvantage are not performing—are not performing.This is part of the problem. There is a lot more going on in our education system which has been talked about by Chris Hipkins but for that Government to ignore that its 5 years of government has not had an impact on those children is an absolute disgrace because what kind of outcomes does it lead to? Well we know from the reports that have come out of the Ministry of Social Development that material deprivation includes lack of access to educational tools. Kids without computers in homes kids who cannot afford to go on school trips—these are all measured and we are failing them. Kids for instance who do not have more than two pairs of school shoes kids who do not have uniforms and therefore do not go to school because they cannot afford them and they are ashamed children who do not have enough food to take to school and sometimes stay at home because of it as well—if this Government was serious about improving educational outcomes it would supportMana’s Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill. It would support that bill to demonstrate that it is worried about the environment that these children are growing up in but clearly it thinks that it is all down to the fact that teachers are part of a union and that somehow that has been the failure of our education system. That Government needs to acknowledge the environment that young people are experiencing and then perhaps we might see some educational improvements.