Donnelly Brian: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10410] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to page 424 of the Estimates of Appropriations which refers to performance measures for primary schools. In particular it talks about schools remaining open for the delivery of curriculum in terms of the national curriculum education guidelines. The performance standards for 2007-08 are the equivalent of 394 half-days per annum in the 2007-08 financial year. I raise this point because that will be an absolute impossibility for achievement by the schools themselves. Already the Minister has gazetted that instead of schools having to be open for 394 half-days in 2007 they will have to be open for only 386 half-days. In 2008 they will have to be open for 384 half-days. Over the next 4 years in fact 16 full days of primary education will be lost to primary students in this country. 
I raise the point because there is a huge body of evidence that shows that engaged academic learning time is a critical criterion in educational achievement. I know that the Minister will respond by saying that compared with our OECD partners we have a very good record etc. In fact our school day is not a long one largely because we established it back in 1877 so that the children could go home to do the milking or allow mum to go off to do it. We still have that “qwerty” problem within the system as it stands. But we need to be comparing ourselves not just with OECD countries but with emerging economies and certainly with the emerging economies of Asia. I can assure the Minister that in our schools we come nowhere near to having the sorts of hours of engaged academic learning time achieved by those economies. I believe that this is a considerable point of interest because parents would be horrified to know that 16 days have actually been knocked off their children’s learning time over the next 4 years. 
On the other side there are some positives in terms of keeping children at school. There is an almost half-million dollar increase in district truancy services and ENROL the school student enrolment register will be extended to all schools. This will certainly pick up many students who presently fall through the gaps. However continued concern has to be raised about the extremely high number of early school-leaving exemptions that are taking place. They have skyrocketed. One of the reasons mooted for it is the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) league tables. In fact schools knowing full well that they are going to confront the NCEA league tables on the basis of the number of students enrolled and that they have a number of students who are not achieving too well are actually taking the step to go for the early school-leaving exemption. We consider that that needs to be looked at very carefully. 
On the other side of the picture the Government is saying that we need to increase participation in early childhood education—while it is cutting down participation or engaged academic learning time in the early childhood education sector it is trying to increase that. A lot of noise has been made about the 20 free hours policy. But we have to think back. Our free education policy has been in place since 1877. Schools still ask for donations from parents for optional extras. I have to say that National was more than happy to bounce off the policy of New Zealand First in relation to free health care for under-sixes which in fact was not free in the sense that doctors were able to ask for additional costs as well. But National still used that policy and praised us for it. 
But here is the point: in terms of performance standards we have gone from $586 million for early childhood education last year to $755 million. That is a big increase and one would hope that with that big increase would come an increase in the number of hours that students receive. In fact in 2006-07 we budgeted for between 120 million and 128.2 million hours of participation. For the additional funding we have actually reduced that predicted amount to between 118 million and 125.4 million hours. In other words we are getting less output as a result. However for those people who are still saying that there is nothing in this 20 free hours policy I point out that some of the figures have increased the rates quite significantly.