Yang Jian: General DebateText is subject to correctionYang Jian: General Debate[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2977. Text is subject to correction.]Dr JIAN YANG (National):It really is a great privilege to be able to stand on this side of the House to talk about what we have achieved. But before I do that I would like to say how fortunate I feel to be able to live in New Zealand. Last Friday I attended the Anzac Day commemorations at Waitakere RSA. I was touched by the huge turnout. I laid a wreath on behalf of the Government. It is important that we honour the contribution of those brave men and women for the freedom peace and security that we enjoy today. As a new immigrant I am particularly grateful to those people and it is important that we remember their contributions.New Zealand is prospering. The National-led Government has achieved so much that we are now the envy of many OECD countries. In 2008 when the National Government came to power it was forecast that unemployment would be over 10 percent. But the National-led Government has stopped that from happening and unemployment has dropped from 7.3 percent to well below 6 percent and it will keep falling. New Zealanders have shown their confidence in this National-led Government. They are staying in New Zealand and they are coming home—more and more people are coming home to New Zealand. These are the golden days for New Zealand. New Zealand is such a great place to raise a family. We have gone a long way to help our Kiwi families. For example we have now increased parental leave increased parental tax credits and also we have free doctor visits for children under 13.Education is a priority for most Kiwi families. It is also a priority for the National-led Government. We have invested heavily in education. As a former educator I cannot overstate the importance of education. Education is a key to success both individually and nationally. So what have we done? I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata for her great contribution to our education. She has worked tirelessly in trying to lift the standard of our education which is now world class.We deliver. We set targets and we meet targets. For example we said that 98 percent of new school entrants should have participated in early childhood education by 2016. What have we achieved so far? By 2014 96.1 percent of new school entrants have previously participated in early childhood education. That was 2957 more kids engaged in learning since mid-2011. Here is another example. We said that 85 percent of 18-year-olds should achieve a National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 or equivalent qualification by 2017. And by 2013 almost 79 percent of 18-year-olds had achieved at least NCEA level 2.So how did we achieve these? Firstly we invested more. For instance spending in early childhood education has nearly doubled from over $800 million in 2007-08 to $1.5 billion in 2013-14. Secondly we worked with schools and parents and we took the leadership. We introduced national standards in 2010 to identify children who are behind so that we can help them and help their parents help them and also help schools to focus on what they should do. Thirdly we encouraged people to perform and that is why we initiated the Investing in Educational Success programme. We want teachers to share their best practices across schools so that they are able to raise students’ achievement more effectively. We also encouraged principals with good skills to help other schools.In summing up basically families are our focus. A family is the foundation of a society. By helping Kiwi families we are consolidating our society. Thanks.