Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very pleased to take a call on the Education Sector in the Estimates debate. A Government that was truly committed to quality educational outcomes for kids would be just as focused on the quality of the education they are receiving as they would be focused on the quantity of the education they are receiving. However that is sadly not the case.Let us start with early childhood education and let us start right at the beginning with the most vulnerable kids—the kids under 2 years of age. When the previous Labour Government was in office there was a plan to reduce the ratio of teachers to kids under 2 in early childhood education. To its credit the National Party picked up on that and put it in their 2008 election manifesto. Would you believe that the ratio as it stands today which is exactly as it was when the National Government took office is 1:5? Can anybody imagine a teacher in an early childhood setting dealing with five under-2-year-olds? Imagine what would happen in an emergency with five under-2-year-olds—trying to get five under-2-year-olds out the door say if the fire alarm went off. It would simply be impossible.To its credit the National Party in 2008 promised to do something about that and they are still waiting in early childhood education for National to deliver on that promise. What have they seen instead? They have seen funding on a per-child per-hour basis frozen for the entire duration of the National Government's tenure in office. What that has meant is that in real terms their funding has gone backwards. On a per-child per-hour basis early childhood centres are getting less funding now than they were when National became the Government. What has that meant? It has meant that the cost to parents has gone up by 32 percent and the quality of that early childhood education is undeniably being diminished as a result of the lack of funding during the tenure of this National Government.Let us move further up the system into the primary school system where the National Government introduced new standards: national standards. They are neither national nor are they standard and they have delivered no discernible lift in student achievement. There is no statistically significant lift in student achievement as a result of national standards. They have simply been a massive form-filling exercise that has distracted students and teachers from the core job of teaching and learning.Let us go further up the system to the secondary school system where it is fantastic that more kids are getting their National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and I fully—fully—support the Government's moves to increase that but I am also interested in the quality of the qualifications they are getting. We have seen declines in the core subject areas like English maths and science and a particularly large drop in the number of students who are studying maths under the current National Government. There have been 12000 fewer students during the tenure of the National Government enrolled in maths across years 11 through to 13. That is a significant drop.We wonder why we are struggling to attract people in the tertiary system into the STEM subjects. It is because they are not doing them in school and then we are not going to get more people doing them in the tertiary education system if we do not encourage them to do them in school. We have to not only focus on getting more kids achieving NCEA but also focus much much more on what actually makes up those qualifications because at the moment there are kids who are setting themselves up for disappointment once they leave school because they are not getting the prerequisite requirements to go on to do further study or an apprenticeship or to undertake employment in the areas in which they have an interest. That is simply not good enough and we must do more about that. We have over 64000 people under the age of 25 in New Zealand who are doing absolutely nothing. They have finished their journey in the compulsory education system. They have not gone on to further education. They have not gone on to employment; they are simply doing nothing. That is a sign of failure. That is something that we must do something about. Yet what we hear from the National Government is that it wants to write those people off. Bill English calls them pretty damned hopeless". That is the attitude of this National Government. I do not think those members should call them pretty damned hopeless. I think that they should provide them opportunity. I think they should be focused on getting them into education training or employment and not doing what Bill English said he is doing which is being permissive around immigration policy and writing off the future of that 64000-plus group who are currently sitting at home doing nothing during the tenure of this National Government."