Parata Hekia: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParata Hekia: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12089. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):I am absolutely delighted to make a contribution to tonight’s debate. I am extremely proud of this Government’s commitment to education—from early childhood through to primary into secondary and the transition into tertiary opportunities. I am very proud that despite the extreme challenges and the fiscal pressures on New Zealand we have in every year in the past 5 years raised our investment in education. It is $9.7 billion in Budget 2013 which represents a 74 percent increase in the funding for early childhood education and a 30 percent increase in the funding for our compulsory education sector. We put our money where our mouths are.I would like to deal with two or three assertions that are absolutely groundless that have been made by members in the Chamber tonight perhaps through misinformation. I certainly hope that that is the only case. For a start choice in schooling has long been a characteristic of the quality of education provision in New Zealand—a choice as to whether to send one’s child to a full primary or a contributing primary to an intermediate school to a coed secondary school or a single-sex school to a faith-based school or to a total immersion Māori school a total immersion English school or a bilingual school. Choice is a characteristic of New Zealand’s high-quality educationsystem and what partnership schools kura hourua do is add to that choice. There will be no compulsion for any parent to enrol their child in one of the partnership schools.Let us also keep a sense of proportion here. We have over 2500 schools in New Zealand. We are talking about a handful of a new type of school. This Government unlike previous administrations is not prepared to sit on the status quo and accept that 70 percent of our kids will be successful but about 30 percent will not be. We are prepared to investigate and invest in other options and opportunities that can be successful. What we have done is very typical of New Zealanders. We have gone overseas. We have looked at what is happening there. We have cherry-picked the elements that we think will work here and we have indigenised them for New Zealand circumstances. We have long had a tradition of doing that.It is also both specious and selective to assert that charter schools are a failure. It is not the type of school; it is where it practises. There are some significantly successful schools in the UK the United States and Europe that are that kind of model. And actually to be technically correct every school in New Zealand is a charter school. Every school is required to have a charter that sets out what the school will do how it will go about it and then report against it. So I think that people need to be very aware of what we actually are talking about.The second groundless assertion I would like to deal with is that there have been cuts to the early childhood education budget. How the Opposition can assert that there has been a cut when we have gone from a budget of about $800 million in 2008 to one of $1.5 billion in 2013 defies credulity. It is just not possible.Quality—the evidence is really clear in early childhood education—is not ineluctably correlated to 100 percent qualifications. In fact the evidence is really clear that it is a mix of qualification of the ratio of adults to children of parental engagement and of diversity of choice. The sweeping dismissal of supported playgroups as if they do not count is a sweeping dismissal of parents and parents’ choice to have different options in which they have early learning occur for their children.The third assertion I would like to deal with tonight is my alleged constant use of the term “tail of underachievement”. I would challenge anyone to find me quoted as using that. I never have. I think that it is disparaging of those young people who are in the cohort whom our system has not served as well as it could or should and will under this Government. This Government has put its money where its mouth is and will continue to do so because we are absolutely committed to parents having choice and to parents having clear accessible and easy to understand information that allows them to partner with their school with their child’s teacher and with their child in understanding what the next learning step should be and how they can contribute to that.We are committed to the New Zealand School Trustees Association. There again factually the increase to the funding for the association is 84 percent in this Budget. The suggestion that somehow or other this is going to tie an independent organisation to the Government is just not founded in fact. In fact what is happening is the transfer in accordance with the association’s wishes of work that has otherwise been carried out by the Ministry of Education. The association will be even more independent in fact than hitherto it has been.We have invested in Positive Behaviour for Learning which again is a parent-connected programme on how we can improve conduct so that when children go to school they have learnt how to learn so that teachers are able to teach rather than control behaviour and so that parents are engaged in that process.In terms of the profession we know that quality teaching has the biggest in-school effect on raising achievement. We are dedicated to supporting quality teaching and we have reflected that first in our investment and second in creating a data-richenvironment—and again I dispute this nonsense that having data available does not help. Of course it does. It is a characteristic of the top-performing education systems with which we like to compare ourselves. But data without knowledge to apply it is as useless as opinion without data. We are focused on how we can bring those together.We have invested in the transformation of the New Zealand Teachers Council because we believe utterly in the importance of there being a professional body for the profession. We are investing in a consistent appraisal system for the purpose of teachers being aware of what their next professional step could and should be. We are investing over $340 million in professional learning and development so that we can ensure that our teachers get the best development and pedagogical learnings they need in order to be the best teachers they can be and recognising that kura kaupapa on average have a higher set of outcomes for Māori students. We are investing in supporting kaiako to stay in the kura system and to have the support and resources they need to do that. We have focused on recruiting more teachers into the total immersion mainstream which again is something that the previous Government talked a lot about but did absolutely nothing on.We are focused on performance. As my colleagues before me have said we have set ourselves Better Public Services targets because this Government is unafraid to be publicly and transparently accountable. We are ambitious for every child and young person in this country for themselves and for the better quality of life choices that they will have for themselves for their families and for their communities. As my colleagues have also previously indicated successful young people are a success for this nation. It is in our interests that every New Zealand child and young person has the best possible education.This Government has moved past hand-wringing and iterations of the problem to actually confronting and dealing with those problems. In the time that we have been in Government we have seen every level of achievement go up at every part of the system but not yet enough. We will not be satisfied. We will not rest until we can make it possible for every child to realise their potential and to step out on the pathway of a better life than otherwise would happen. We know the potent transformational power of education and we are committed to it being available to every one of our young people.The final thing is the platform. We are committed to modern learning environments. My associate colleagues are working in different areas. Nikki Kaye is looking at how we can better manage our property the second-biggest asset portfolio on the Government’s balance sheet on behalf of parents and taxpayers; at our busing system; and of course at our digital platform because we embrace the 21st century of learning with the tools to do it.