Carter Chris: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Carter Chris: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2655] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 The Education Amendment Bill is essentially the bill that I introduced on 23 September 2008 with some notable exceptions. As the Minister of Education has just outlined it introduces information sharing between the Ministry of Education’s payroll database and information held by the Teachers Council. This matching up ensures that none of the teachers teaching in our schools are not registered or do not have a practising certificate or authorisation. It seemed astonishing to me when I became the Minister of Education that such a process could happen and indeed this provision was an important part of the Education Amendment Bill (No 3) which we introduced last September. It is very important that schools do not employ teachers who are not qualified or certificated; it is very important from both a professional point of view and a pupil safety point of view. The legislation also ensures that by matching this data teachers who are in the correct registration category are able to receive their entitled allowances. That is a very positive aspect of the bill. 
It also introduces as did Labour’s bill last year flexibility around the timing of elections for boards of trustees. Curiously as I listened to the Minister read out her speech I thought of the words I had used last year. I heard many familiar phrases there. I am not knocking them because they are important. Term one is indeed the busiest time of any school year and to hold elections for boards of trustees at that time is a great call on both the school and the parent community. That flexibility is very important. Also in the establishment of new schools for schools that are linked to each other—for example a primary school and a junior high school—to be able to share a new establishment board is an effective way to ensure that there is a pool of parents and others in the community who are able to do those important jobs of school establishment. In rural areas it may well be difficult to find people willing to be members of boards of trustees—people who have the time and commitment to do that public service. So for schools to be able to share boards of trustees is also very important. 
The legislation also tidies up some of the differences between State and State integrated schools and private schools. I see that one of the areas the Minister has changed—and it is not a change that I agree with—is the number of times private schools undergo a review by the Education Review Office. This provision brings private schools into the same review process for State and State integrated schools. It also allows students at special schools to participate in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) in the same way as last year the Labour-led Government brought in the provision that children in alternative education could access NCEA units for free which is really important in order to get their participation in education. 
But there are some significant differences between this bill and the Education Amendment Bill (No 3) that Labour introduced last year when I had the privilege of being Minister of Education. The omission of certain things and the changes around police vetting are the reasons why Labour cannot support the Education Amendment Bill. 
I will touch just briefly on the police vetting issue. Superficially it looks like a rational and sensible decision but actually it puts children at risk. Certainly not great numbers of children are put at risk but the New Zealand Educational Institute said itself in a press release it put out earlier this year in support of this legislation—surprisingly enough—that there had been seven cases out of thousands where child abuse by an adult had taken place in an unsupervised situation with children. Frankly I think that is seven cases too many. If I were the parent of any of those children I would be appalled that it was considered that seven cases out of thousands were OK. It is not OK for children to be exposed to risk. We heard a lot of nonsense in this House last year about the cost of police vetting. Actually it costs 10 bucks—that is all. There is a bit of process time—it has to be done in 20 working days—but it actually costs $10. Frankly if it is too much of a call on a school to pay $10 to vet an adult even though vetting would have prevented those seven cases of abuse then I think that is a very bad call. Quite frankly to have any child at risk of abuse even if it is only at the rate of seven out of thousands is too many. We think there should be blanket vetting of adults who are in an unsupervised situation with children at a school or an early childhood centre. It is not a huge imposition. Schools are currently operating under that system and they are still full of volunteers. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: It kills playcentres. It kills sports teams. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I hear the Minister muttering away over there. Does she agree that seven cases out of a few thousand are OK? Do I hear a yes to that question? Do I hear a yes? Are seven cases of abuse out of several thousand OK to the Minister? Well they are not OK to me. That is why I think that parents should have confidence that their children are safe with all adults who are in an unsupervised situation during school hours or during the time when an early childhood centre is open—we are talking about school hours or hours of operation. It is not as if the abuse has not happened. I repeat again: seven cases out of thousands are seven too many. 
What else has been removed out of this legislation? 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: They were found. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I hear the Minister twittering away out there. She has a bit to say to me but this is the woman who never fronts up. This is the woman about whom the New Zealand Principals Federation put out a press release about a month ago calling her the “no-show” Minister. I say to the Minister she should go out to schools and to parents and explain why seven cases of abuse are OK because she does not want schools to pay $10 to have the police vet within 20 working days people who are in schools. 
This bill also takes out the requirements of boards of trustees to do a number of really interesting things. A little list of things that were in Labour’s legislation last year are removed by this National bill. The Labour legislation required boards of trustees to ensure “the enrolment at the school of all persons who are entitled to be enrolled at the school and apply to be enrolled at it:”. Other requirements of boards of trustees that the Minister is taking out are “ensuring that education is provided to every student who is enrolled in the school: promoting a school environment that supports the highest standards of achievement for all students: actively managing and monitoring the performance of the principal:”—is this not interesting; these requirements have all been taken out of this legislation—“ensuring that the performance of the school’s other staff is actively managed and monitored: actively managing and reporting on the school’s performance against the aims and objectives set out in the school charter:”. Is this not curious? This is from a Minister and a National Government that talk about national standards in schools. The list that I have just read out is all about ensuring that every school in New Zealand is a quality learning environment. The Labour legislation also stated that the board of trustees should ensure “that the school including its assets finances and property is managed in a financially responsible manner:”. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: It’s gone; stop mourning it. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Yes those requirements have gone. The requirements have gone but they were actually about ensuring that there were national standards. The requirements were not the nonsense of literacy and numeracy progressions—which were already in our schools. The Minister has not yet in her own mind determined what those progressions mean. The requirements were about ensuring that our schools were safe and well-run places and that people who were there were accountable. The board of trustees was required to ensure that that happened. That has all been taken out by this legislation. 
The other interesting thing that has been taken out was the Labour Government’s proposal in our Education Amendment Bill (No 3) that the Secretary for Education no longer have the right to agree to 15-year-olds coming out of school. Again much nonsense was said in this House last year when I brought in that legislation. It was criticised for not giving flexibility to education. Twenty-five percent of our students leave school with no qualifications and a significant number of those are young people who have become disengaged from education. Where in the Education Amendment Bill is there anything about the whole area of transition? The Labour Government came up with Schools Plus. Schools Plus was about a revolution in secondary education. It was about providing alternative pathways to capture the learning interests of students; to stop these 15-year-olds from getting kicked out of school ending up on the streets ending up involved in crime and ending up on a pathway to nowhere. 
John Hayes 
: Your solution was to close the schools. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I have just heard somebody from National asking what my solution was. Our solution was Schools Plus—$39 million this year—to ensure that every secondary school in New Zealand had apprenticeships; to ensure a whole variety of different pathways to synchronise between schools and industry agriculture and so on. That is about effective education.