Hipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 02 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4171. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]12.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka)to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement that “the Government is fully funding the delivery of the school curriculum”?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Yes.Chris Hipkins: If schools are sufficiently funded to deliver the curriculum why was one secondary school forced to cancel a biology field trip resulting in the teacher having to get special permission from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to alter data collection requirements so the students would not fail their National Certificate of Educational Achievement because the school could not afford to deliver the learning the curriculum requires?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am surprised by that because funding for schools has gone up every year since we have been in Government. Operational grants which are fully at the discretion of the school have been at or ahead of inflation. I would be a bit worried about the management by that school.Chris Hipkins: If it is indeed a matter of schools making choices as the Minister seems to suggest why do 54 percent of school principals—more than half—report they cannot afford to comply with the guidelines that prevent them seeking parental contributions to the cost of their kids’ education with some openly admitting they simply ignore them altogether?Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member may have misread the news item because it was 54 principals not 54 percent and of those 54 principals 22 said they had concerns about their spending.Chris Hipkins: Has she discussed the financial pressures schools are under with the finance Minister Bill English who previously claimed that without parental contributions or parental funding schools were “screwed”—his words not mine; if so why do the most recent figures available show that parental donations continue to increase by over $16 million a year?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I have ongoing very robust discussions with the Minister of Finance and they have resulted in a 1 percent operations grant funding increase being made available to schools this year although inflation is predicted to be 0.1 percent. Again I do not know where the member is getting his figures from but the most recent I have say that there is a consistent contribution of donations by parents making 1.8 percent of overall Government grants. Those donations are for extracurricular activities.Chris Hipkins: Does it not say everything about the current Government’s priorities that this year’s Budget pumped a further $53 million into her broken Novopay payroll system while only $42 million was invested in school operations grants—the money that goes directly to kids’ education—which is the lowest increase in school funding in over 20 years?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Again the member might need to learn how to read the Budget because actually we do not just throw money at schools. We look at the operational funding against what the actual costs are. Schools get both operational funding and resourcing for the employment of teachers. Schools have never been more well-funded than under this Government at $10.8 billion.