Peachey Allan: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Peachey Allan: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2633] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I rise to speak in opposition to the bill but in doing so I commend the chairman of the Education and Science Committee for the outstanding job he has done at least in getting the bill to this point. I believe that if the Government is willing to listen carefully to what members on the Opposition side of the Chamber have to say the Government will find that useful. 
I would like to address a number of issues in Part 1. The first is the National Student Number the proposal that every student passing through the schooling system should have a number that goes along with that student. I will be moving an amendment to that because I think the problem with the provision is typical of where Governments of the left consistently get it wrong when they deal with education. They forget about parents and the interest they have in their children’s learning. In terms of the National Student Number my amendment seeks to expand the definition of “authorised user” to include parents guardians or caregivers of children. 
The interpretation clause provides for all sorts of agencies such as the Ministry of Education the New Zealand Qualifications Authority the Tertiary Education Commission Career Services and goodness knows which other agencies to have access to that information but not for parents to have access. It strikes me there is a huge irony in all of that. The groups of people who control the Government schooling system and who now seek to control I have to say the early childhood education sector such as the ministry the Government bureaucracies—like the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Education Review Office—the teachers unions and the teacher-training providers do not have the same aspirations and ambitions for children that their parents have for them. 
A really interesting situation has been allowed to develop over the years whereby now it is the parents who are expressing academic ambition. It is parents from all backgrounds and in all communities who to use a phrase often used by critics of mine against me have an “elitist” view of what they want for their children. Parents want there to be academic excellence in learning reading mathematics science and history. Those aspirations and ambitions are not matched by those that exist in the Government bureaucracies. For that reason I believe it is important that parents have the same standing as those bureaucracies in having access to information. 
My amendment also proposes a new paragraph itemising the measuring of students’ educational achievement in literacy and numeracy as a specific purpose for which an authorised user may use the National Student Number. None of us doubts the absolute importance of literacy and numeracy. All of us on both sides of the Chamber are concerned about the statement made by the Education Review Office in its June 2005 report to Parliament that up to 20 percent of children are not experiencing success at school. We may argue as to whether the figure is 20 percent 15 percent 18 percent or whatever percentage it may be but the fact is that 1 percent would be 1 percent too much. 
The Minister has stated in the Chamber—and I agree with him—that at long last with the National Certificate of Educational Achievement and the provision for minimum literacy and numeracy standards we have a measure as to how well our students are doing. For the first time we have a measure. For the first time we have data that tells us for example the percentage of students in a particular school that is achieving minimum level 1 standards in literacy and numeracy. It is vital that that information is readily available to parents just as it is vital that it is used to inform teaching practice and to ensure that just having the data on its own is not an end in itself. We must actually do something with that data to ensure that children who are not achieving success at school do so. I am one of those educators who believe that all children are capable of learning. I am one of those people who believe that if a child can learn to talk he or she can be taught to read. It cannot be acceptable on either side of the Chamber that we continue to allow whichever figure it is of our children to pass through the education system unable to do that. 
I turn my attention to the early childhood education provisions in Part 1. I think the same thing is happening as has happened in the schooling sector: a consolidation of power and authority in Wellington. Just as that has happened with regard to schools and just as we are seeing the initiative innovation and creativity being squeezed out of schools because of the compliance-driven requirements of the Government so we will see the same thing happen to early childhood education centres. That must be resisted. We know that in whichever educational authority one looks at anywhere in the world one sees that centralisation promotes mediocrity. It never has and never can promote excellence. Yet once we start that process of centralising a system and see that it does not work we centralise it further and then more and more. We must avoid doing that. 
I have a question for the New Zealand Educational Institute the union that represents kindergarten teachers. I ask where it is speaking in support of kindergartens. My wife and I had four children and they were kindergarten kids. I pay tribute to the teachers at Waterloo Kindergarten in Lower Hutt and Taradale Kindergarten in Napier where our sons and daughters went. I think of the number of times we dug the sandpit and painted the roof. We did our share. We became involved in the community because it suited our family’s circumstances. Let us be very very careful that as a result of what is proposed in the bill inadvertently or otherwise we do not squeeze kindergartens out of the system. The kindergarten provision works for a lot of families. It works for those families that want to have their children at home with a parent for some of the day. 
I cannot help but reflect—and if Government members were quiet they might like to reflect as well—that if it were a National Government that was proposing this provision people like me would be burnt in effigy on the forecourt of Parliament. I ask the teacher unions why there is such selectivity. We know the answer to that: unfortunately the teacher unions have let themselves be sucked into the business of supporting political parties of the left. They have let themselves get caught up in trade union agendas and that has become more important than the quality of learning for children. 
I also want to refer to the provision for the protection of teachers. That protection is very very much needed. The Minister in a very good speech made at lunchtime today honouring the excellent teachers of New Zealand commented that individual teachers—