Carter Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Carter Chris: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14262] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Approximately 13 weeks ago I had the amazing privilege of being made the Minister of Education. I assure this House and anyone listening and particularly the National member who has just spoken Jonathan Coleman that I am full of energy and enthusiasm about my job. I am incredibly proud to represent our Government as Minister of Education and I am really enthusiastic about the amazing programmes we are bringing into our schools not least the programme that the Prime Minister introduced in her statement to the House earlier this week which is realising youth potential—Schools Plus. Schools Plus is about revolutionising our secondary school system. The Labour Government in its 8 years in office has been an amazing provider of resources to schools. 
One can never do enough for education. Education is not only the future of our nation because of the skills of our young people which will ensure our ongoing prosperity but it is the ladder that individuals can climb to realise their own individual potential. Labour Governments have always been committed to education. Every Labour Government we have ever had—from our very first one which introduced free schooling—has been committed to education and none more so than the Government we have now. Right from 1999 when we came into Government we have poured resources into education. We have put over $4 billion extra into education. For example we have increased the early childhood education sector by 180 percent and we have added 20 free hours of early childhood education so that every 3 and 4-year-old in New Zealand can go to a preschool centre for free. 
We have also built 36 new schools since we came into Government. That is amazing. Our population has been going up so we have needed extra teachers but we have recognised that schools could actually do with more teachers above that roll growth. After 8 years of a Labour Government there are over 5000 more teachers in our schools today than roll growth justifies. 
We have also built 1400 new classrooms around New Zealand and in my own electorate of Te Atatu all 27 schools over the last 8 years have had major building projects and every one of the members of Parliament—Labour National and whatever—will be able to say that the schools in their areas are building new classrooms employing more teachers and are better resourced. Of course there is always more we can do but one of the most exciting things we will be doing is Schools Plus and I would like to share with the House some details about this amazing exciting and revolutionary programme for our secondary schools. 
The House has just finished question time for those who have just switched on the radio or television and one question I was asked as Minister of Education asked what the Government was doing about truants. Actually we have done heaps about truants. We have introduced a new electronic enrolment system—it cost us a bit over $6 million—so that for the first time ever we will be able to know where kids are. But there is a problem with truancy in this country. There probably always has been but we do not want any child leaving school who should be at school. But most particularly we do not want the 40 percent of our young people who are leaving school at the moment without achieving at least the equivalent of National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 to be doing so. We want those young people to have better skills when they go into the workforce because of course their skills their energy and their participation in the workforce is critical not just for the economic well-being of our country but for their individual growth as people to fulfil their own potential. Our new programme is designed to catch those youngsters. It is also designed to catch the 30 percent of young people who are leaving school before the age of 17 some of whom are going into work others not. We want those children to stay in education because that leads to lifting their skills. 
What does Schools Plus involve? Well it involves looking at Youth Apprenticeships. We have a pilot programme going this year in 10 schools—from Whangarei Boys’ High School to schools in the deep south. We are trialling channelling children into Youth Apprenticeships to see whether this is their career. We are working with private industry and with industry training organisations to see whether this is a pathway that those young people can pursue connected to the school but also connected to the industry. We want to see how well that programme works what sort of resources we need for it. We want to look at that pilot and see how we can expand it out to every school in New Zealand. 
We have introduced Gateway which is a sort of teaser programme for work where students at a school choose an occupation—it might be early childhood education working in retail or even working here at Parliament or whatever—and they have a work experience while they are at school. So the school provides guidance but the student gets a taste of employment. I was at Wellington East Girls’ College yesterday meeting a group of young students who are incredibly enthusiastic about the jobs they were going out to in the next few weeks. Every secondary school in New Zealand is now in the Gateway programme. Is that not fantastic? The programme has been rolled out over 8 years. 
Lynne Pillay 
: It is working. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: It is working and the employment outcomes are fantastic. But we want to broaden that much beyond the Youth Apprenticeships much beyond Gateway. We want to provide alternative paths so that every young Kiwi up to the age of 18 is in a learning experience that is lifting his or her skills. 
A report to the OECD is about to be released which will state that although New Zealand has done fantastically well lifting the literacy skills numeracy skills and science skills of our students we still have this big problem of these 40 percent who are just not achieving their potential. Schools Plus is all about dealing with them. This is the only way we are going to keep kids at school; the only way we are going to lift their potential. That is about a Government with a programme that is ongoing and is actually revolutionary and although we have done so much to repair the disasters of the 1990s under the previous Government where we had bulk funding at schools lifting the zone requirements around schools so we had winner schools and loser schools developing we have had to spend so much time repairing the basic infrastructure at schools. We are all set now for that next big leap. 
We have revolutionised early childhood education: we have introduced the 20 free hours’ early childhood education policy which is an amazing development. It has been expensive but it is an investment in young children. We have also had the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health just last week announcing a programme where every 4 and 5-year-old will be tested to see whether we can identify the specific learning needs or behavioural needs of that child so that at the very beginning of the programme we can address the situation of inappropriate behaviour and failure. We have designed a sort of seamless education system from early-childhood education—with 20 free hours’ education those early checks and a 180 percent improvement in funding—that then moves on to the primary school. 
A new curriculum for primary schools was launched just before Christmas and it gives schools flexibility to design programmes. They must have core competences in literacy numeracy science behaviour environmental consciousness which are all important things for surviving in the modern world but schools also have the flexibility to design their teaching programmes around their local circumstances. That is amazing for primary schools. That has modernised our system. 
Moving into secondary schools the NCEA has rolled out and it is working well. We now have an assessment system that is modern contemporary and records everything the student has done. Employers have been very positive about it. It had a few teething problems at the beginning but we are getting there. People understand it; it is very positive. So we have early childhood we have primary we have secondary and now we are going to have Schools Plus. That is designed to provide that net to catch every one of those students to see that they realise their full potential. 
I know I have very little time left but I just want to mention a conference I went to last month in London. I went to an education Ministers conference in London during the holidays. I was happy to give up my holiday time to go to this conference because I went with a great deal of pride. I spoke before 61 education Ministers from around the world. I showed an audiovisual presentation of what was happening in New Zealand schools and I am telling members that it was with great pride that I was able to show that New Zealand teachers have created an environment of great professionalism where success is happening. 
Of course we can always do better. Schools Plus will help us to do better but parents this Parliament and the community should be very proud of what is happening in our schools. Some fantastic things are happening. New Zealand students are doing really well in international scores like the Programme for International Student Assessment put out by the OECD. But we can always do better and we must aspire to the best possible outcomes we can. Education is something the Labour Government values it is something we have invested in and it is something that we are developing further because we certainly have not run out of energy or run out of ideas.