Tolley Anne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tolley Anne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Sitting date: 01 July 2008. Volume:648;Page:17032. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
12.  
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Is he satisfied with the performance of the Ministry of Education; if so why? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Associate Minister of Education) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Education 
: Yes but I am sure that it like all of us can always do better. 
Anne Tolley 
: Does the Minister support the Auditor-General’s report on the ministry’s monitoring of schools’ board of trustees and the Auditor-General’s claim that he “cannot be confident that [the ministry] is consistently identifying all boards at risk and that it is offering timely support to these boards.”? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The Auditor-General’s report has been noted and the Ministry of Education is continuing to ensure that all boards are supported. 
Anne Tolley 
: Why does the Minister defend his ministry when despite it having information to identify schools having difficulties it sat on its hands for up to 5 years and did not intervene in three schools that were clearly in financial trouble and in dire need of the ministry’s help? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I would be interested to know which three schools those are. On getting that information I will ensure that the ministry follows it up 
Anne Tolley 
: Is it acceptable that a whole cohort of students can spend their entire time at a secondary school that is ignored by the ministry which knows full well that the school is in dire financial straits and negatively affecting the students’ learning but takes no action to arrest the school’s financial decline? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I would need the member to name that school so that I could understand clearly where she is going with this questioning. 
Anne Tolley 
: Does the Minister accept the Auditor-General’s conclusion that the ministry in many instances “took too long to put a statutory intervention in place to assist boards who were experiencing financial difficulties”; and will he apologise to the students of the three schools identified in the report as having been deliberately neglected by the Ministry of Education for up to 5 years? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: In response to the first part of the question yes there could have been better delivery. In response to the second part of the question the member did not allude to those three schools being part of the report. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Madam Speaker. Kia ora tatou. Has the Minister read the submission from the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand to the Ministry of Education that identifies that funding to provide for children with learning disabilities is noticeably absent from the Schools Plus proposal; and does he agree with the foundation that “Schools Plus is fundamentally flawed the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff for underperforming school leavers who are already disengaged and disenfranchised and have had years of inadequate support.”; if not why not? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The Government officially recognised dyslexia in April 2007 and significant progress has been made in incorporating work on teaching students with dyslexia to read working with groups such as the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand and SPELD. We are spending $57.8 million on literacy and numeracy programmes which have been reviewed and now include a specific focus on dyslexia. As to the second part of the question Schools Plus is certainly about ensuring that youngsters stay in some form of education to the age of 18. That is the Labour Party’s policy. I ask National members what their policy is; I am quite certain that National has no education policy. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Has he read the letter of May 2008 from the Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft which stated that robust research suggested that the route to offending may start with classroom difficulties caused by undiagnosed learning problems; and when will the Ministry of Education consider that learning difficulties are a priority for education funding? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That same judge is very supportive of B4 School checks and of ensuring that something is proactively done about those teenagers who tend to drift out of school. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What assurance can he give the Principals Federation that additional resourcing will be invested in schools to help principals cope with the increasing demands of policy and of children with special needs and behavioural issues as well as administrative support principal development and other funding issues? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: All of those issues are well covered in the policy of the Labour-led Government. The Labour-led Government has made investing in New Zealand schools a priority. We spend 4.4 percent of GDP on compulsory schooling compared with the OECD average of 3.6 percent. We are well ahead of Australia which invests 3.5 percent of its GDP and the USA which invests 3.7 percent. Funding for education has gone up by 84 percent since 1999 under this Government.