Burns Brendon: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Burns Brendon: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:642] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 We are debating Part 2 of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. As the Minister of Education said this provision is part of the National Government’s action plan. It is trying to identify underperforming schools and help them but in discussion on the floor of this Chamber we have had identified the amount of funding that this Government will be providing to schools to assist them with the whole issue of standards. That amount is $18 million which is just a tiny fraction of the current education budget. It will not provide any of the supposed turbocharge indicated by the Government. Some action plan it will provide! 
We heard the Minister in the chair the Hon Anne Tolley say that 32000 children are truant every day. I ask her what extra resource will be provided for a typical low-decile school because it is the low-decile schools that will be most affected and will need extra resources to deal with the issues of truancy numeracy and literacy. I also ask her what resources will be provided for Maori schools and for children of Maori origin at schools because our friends in the Maori Party have been asking for assistance in that respect. The explanatory note of the bill refers to the compliance costs. It advises that the Ministry of Education cannot calculate the compliance costs for schools but it will supposedly take steps to minimise those costs. I suggest that this provision will simply mean another layer of red tape regulation that schools have to meet. 
This bill is about a one-size-fits-all approach to schools. It will pit school against school. I have visited just about every one of the 35 schools in my electorate of Christchurch Central and I can report that not one principal not one teacher not one parent and not one board of trustees representative has ever raised with me the need for this kind of legislation. What many of those schools in Christchurch Central require—many of them being low to moderate decile schools—is more resources. That is what will address the issues still there in terms of literacy and numeracy. In fact this bill is simply more right-wing dogma. It is a one-size-fits-all approach. It is picking up on the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act which is failed policy. The analysis has been that that policy has failed. 
I want to also comment on suggestions that there was failure in education over the last 9 years under the previous administration. That is offensive I think to all those children who did well under the last Government’s policies who are still doing well and who have made extraordinary achievements under those policies. It also I think provides offence to the many thousands of dedicated teachers who go beyond the call of duty every day to assist their pupils and who do a darned good job as many world league tables show. 
As the Minister indicated this bill is also about getting higher achievement. We all acknowledge that schools can do better but I suggest to the Minister that what she needs to do is already in place. I took the previous Minister the Hon Chris Carter to see a decile 3 school in my electorate Linwood High School. That school acknowledged that it had problems with literacy and numeracy so a dedicated teacher at that school set up the LANE project—the Literacy and Numeracy Empowerment project. It has become an inspirational project for that school and I suggest that it provides a model for the Minister of Education to look at if she truly wants to address numeracy and literacy issues. The school has assessed every year 9 pupil coming into it right across the board. It assesses the children’s family background health educational status and the sorts of situations they come from. Many of the children come from one-parent homes. Many have very poor teeth because they cannot get proper dental care. Some students were arriving at school having had no breakfast. The most extraordinary thing of all to be determined by the Literacy and Numeracy Empowerment project which covers every year 9 pupil at Linwood High School was that one in five of those children could not read.