Tolley Anne: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Tolley Anne: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10856] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. The Education Amendment Bill amends the Education Act 1989. The changes in the bill will improve efficiency in the schooling system reduce compliance costs for schools and early childhood education services and improve the quality and effectiveness of education legislation. 
The first significant amendment relating to police vetting will reduce compliance costs and streamline administration for schools. The changes will minimise the risk that some non-teaching staff and contractors may have unsupervised access to children in early childhood centres and schools before they are vetted by the police. Schools and early childhood education services will continue to be required to obtain a police vet for all non-teaching staff. The police vet must be requested within at least 2 weeks of the person concerned starting work and it must be obtained before that person can have any unsupervised access to children and young people. Only contractors who have or who are likely to have unsupervised access to children must be vetted by the police. 
The bill makes police vetting of household members mandatory when children enrolled in a home-based service are being cared for in a home other than their own. This provision applies to all household members who are 17 years of age or older. During the Committee stage there were some fond reminiscences from members opposite of the previous education amendment bill which was brought into the House by Labour. Those members conveniently forgot that that bill contained some Draconian vetting requirements that according to the primary teachers union “could seriously impact on community and family involvement in schools and centres”. It went on to state that it could include parents grandparents or any adult who helped with sports teams at lunchtime who came in to listen to an individual child’s reading or who helped out during a gardening or a clean-up project. No one talked about that in the Committee stage with any fond reminiscences. The bill also removes the New Zealand Teachers Council as the conduit for the police vetting of all non-teaching staff and contractors. Schools and early childhood education services will now apply directly to the New Zealand Police for that service. Again in the Committee stage it was interesting that an Opposition member who clearly had not read the bill or had forgotten what the bill did talked about the extra costs for early childhood centres in particular of the police vetting that is proposed in this bill. That service is of course currently provided by the police at no expense. 
The second significant amendment to the Education Act 1989 allows for information matching between the New Zealand Teachers Council’s register of teachers and the Ministry of Education’s payroll database to identify those who are teaching in schools without registration. That will provide a more reliable and efficient method of monitoring teacher registration and tracking the employment of teachers to ensure that they are meeting current teaching and safety standards. 
The bill makes a range of other amendments to the Education Act 1989. It clarifies that when a person is appointed as a limited statutory manager or commissioner for a school he or she can be appointed as being from a named body corporate. My original proposal was changed at the Education and Science Committee in a bit of déjà vu from the Hon Trevor Mallard and Sir Roger Douglas. I have gone with the change and I am prepared to try it. But I will just point out in this House that the hysteria from some members both in the Education and Science Committee and in this House about the possible privatisation of schools as a result of this measure comes from sheer ignorance—there is no other explanation for it—of the complex issues involved when the Minister of Education or the Secretary for Education has to put in place a statutory intervention. My desire was to enable the Minister of Education or the Secretary for Education to appoint a number of people with differing skills because we need a wide range of skills—employment skills education skills and skills relating to communicating with communities—and sometimes it just not possible to get one individual who is capable of carrying out that task. So my desire was to have the ability to appoint a number of people who might have differing skills. However I am willing to work with what we have and to make sure that we can be of assistance to schools. Of course any appointments of limited statutory managers or commissioners will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis to ensure that we get the best fit of skills and expertise and we strive at all times to keep those interventions to as short a time as possible. 
The bill allows for the retrospective validation of Crown payments following changes of proprietors in integrated schools when those changes did not follow current processes. The Minister of Education can change the timing of elections for school boards of trustees so that the elections can be held later in the school year. That will reduce the pressures that schools face at the beginning of the year and will make the election process more efficient and manageable. For schools that are about to close school boards will be exempt from triennial board elections which would be a waste of money time and resources. 
The Minister of Education can establish a combined board to set up two or more new schools and will be able to stagger the opening of the new schools. We have wished we had the ability to do that with the two schools in Papamoa that are currently under construction. We had to establish two separate boards to manage the establishment of those schools. Special schools can apply to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority for accreditation in their own right to assess against the standards on the national qualifications framework. The bill provides the Education Review Office with discretion over the frequency of its review of private schools to give it the same flexibility to review less frequently private schools that are doing well as they are doing with the State system. 
The bill streamlines functions relating to the independent disciplinary bodies overseen by the New Zealand Teachers Council enhances the efficient administration of student loans and allowances and introduces a small number of minor remedial amendments to clarify certain definitions and to correct some drafting errors in the Education Act 1989. We have not forced schools to keep students in school by repealing the ability of the Secretary for Education to provide the enrolment exemptions that the previous Labour bill required. 
I must conclude by saying how disappointed I am that during the Committee stage the Opposition spokesperson on education the Hon Trevor Mallard admitted to the House that Labour had conducted a filibuster to try to force the hand of the Minister of Education to make a change for a particular school that two previous Ministers of Education in his own previous Government had refused to make. The filibuster held up the passage of legislation through the House a major purpose of which was to ensure the protection and safety of young children in education. At long last this bill is now proceeding and I commend it to the House.