Salesa JennyEDUCATION (TERTIARY EDUCATION AND OTHER MATTERS) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Education: I move That the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I thank the members of the select committee who have done a lot of work on this bill. I would also like to thank the over 2000 individuals and organisations who made submissions during the select committee process. Their suggestions have helped to improve this bill. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the Minister of Education the Hon Chris Hipkins in advancing this bill.I want to focus my comments tonight on three key themes of this bill: first I want to talk about increasing provider accountability and strengthening monitoring and compliance; second I'd like to discuss supporting fair treatment of tertiary education providers; and third I'd like to talk about broadening student protection arrangements as proposed by this legislation.I now turn to the first—increasing provider accountability and strengthening monitoring and compliance. This legislation balances a more flexible system with appropriate accountability and monitoring to ensure that our providers can focus on delivering better outcomes for all of our students.Firstly the Tertiary Education Commission TEC will be able to recover costs for an investigation when a provider is found to be at fault. We know—we have read in the news in the media—of many instances where this has been the case here in Aotearoa New Zealand. This legislation we're introducing will actually address that issue. This provides a strong incentive we believe for our providers to cooperate with our investigations and to ensure that the investigations conclude quickly.Secondly this bill will allow the Tertiary Education Commission and the Minister of Education to make funding approval subject to conditions that they consider reasonably necessary for effectively monitoring the performance of the system and the tertiary education sector overall. This can be useful to quickly address any unforeseen issues and it should help prevent potential misuse of public funding.Thirdly this bill aligns record-keeping and inspection requirements for tertiary education institutions with those of private training establishments. All tertiary education organisations will therefore be required to maintain records of their use of Government funding and how they are complying with funding conditions. This will ensure that the Tertiary Education Commission is able to access important information when required.This bill will introduce a new offence provision for making false representations on a student's record of achievement and it will significantly strengthen the offence provisions by increasing the penalty for such offences concerning falsification of student records from $10000 as it is up to $50000. These changes will provide a strong incentive we believe for providers to act honestly and with due diligence in their maintenance of student records. And again we have read many media coverages of instances where this has been the case where unfortunately some of our providers have falsified some records and it does not help Aotearoa New Zealand's international standing when this happens.And what we know is whether it is private training establishments whether it is a polytechnic or any other institution when this actually happens it actually unfortunately smears the reputation of our tertiary education institutions internationally and it is not in any of our interests that this kind of behaviour continues in the future. So we believe that overall these changes will increase provider accountability that it will strengthen the system and that monitoring and compliance of tertiary education providers across the system will be so much more improved.The second theme I would like to discuss is the fair treatment of tertiary education providers. This Government is committed to supporting a better and fairer tertiary sector. That is why we have listened to the submissions of over 2000 individuals and organisations when they presented to the select committee when they have told us that they would like fair treatment especially in terms of funding.We are introducing a new term. Currently we have what's called the private training establishment—PTE. This legislation will introduce a new term called community tertiary education provider—CTEP. The current term private training establishment" or PTE does not distinguish between for-profit and not-for-profit education providers nor does it accurately reflect their intentions. In our opinion this is not fair. When you cannot tell whether a provider is a not-for-profit or whether it is for profit it is not fair and so we will be addressing this.This bill will also allow wānanga to seek consent to use of a protected term—terms such as "university" or "polytechnic" which are currently protected in legislation. Currently only wānanga are disadvantaged because they are not having their own title protected in law and we don't think this is fair to wānanga that they face difficulties in finding an appropriate English translation of their own institutional title or the fact that they cannot put in an application to use a protected term. We believe that allowing wānanga to use protected terms such as "university" or "polytechnic" will be treating our wānanga fair.There will however be a tough test for applicants to use protected terms. The Minister of Education will have to be satisfied that consenting to the use of protected terms such as "polytechnic" or "university" must be adhered to and for this to happen the Minister will also have to consult with experts in Māori education who have the knowledge. We are confident that in consulting with experts who have the knowledge of who should be able to use the protected term of "polytechnic" or "university" with the advice of specialists in Māori tertiary education the term will indeed still be protected. So I'm comfortable with the use of the term and the fact that wānanga will now be able to apply to use these two protected terms.The third and final theme that I would like to discuss tonight is broadening student protection arrangements. To fulfil the pastoral care responsibilities to international students schools need to be able to respond to situations especially those where an international student's behaviour puts themselves or puts other people at risk. This bill clarifies that international student enrolment is governed by the enrolment contract.What this means is that we will ensure that the contract relating to international students under the age of 18—that the Contract and Commercial Law Act of 2017 as well as the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice will apply to those who are under the age of 18. The change that we're proposing will allow schools to move effectively to manage international students' misconduct by taking appropriate disciplinary action if students breach their enrolment contracts. This bill will extend the coverage of the export education levy to international students enrolled in private schools. This will protect those students in the same way as PTE students are currently protected. The bill also aligns entitlement for domestic students enrolled in a short programme at a PTE. In conclusion I would like now to commend the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you."