Peachey Allan: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Peachey Allan: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2432] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 New Zealand is a small nation competing with other nations to find its place in a globalised market-driven knowledge-based economy. There is one way and one way only that we can find our place in that world and that is through the initiative and hard work of our people. It is through the ability of our people to read to write to do maths and science and to use technology—not 80 percent of our people not some of our people but all of them. Yet the Education Review Office has reported to the Government that up to 20 percent of New Zealand children—that is 153000 children in the review office’s words are not experiencing success at school. 
I invite the Minister to take a call and explain to the Committee whether he accepts that 20 percent figure. Does he have confidence in the Education Review Office or does he not? I invite the Minister not to fudge around the issue. I do not want to know how many children are in reading recovery; all I want to know is whether he accepts what the Education Review Office has reported to him—that up to 20 percent of New Zealand children are not experiencing success at school. 
I invite the Minister also to explain to us how it can be that a physics teacher with two degrees including a masters degree in physics and with a recognised English teacher-training qualification is being told he cannot teach in New Zealand. As a former school principal I know how hard it is to staff a school—how difficult it is particularly in subjects like physics to find teachers who first know their subject know it backwards and have a passion for it that they can share with youngsters and second can actually communicate in the language of instruction. But Morrinsville College has found one. So why has the college found that the bureaucracy has said: “Oh we don't recognise that training programme.”? Those bureaucrats have probably never employed a teacher or sat—as many principals do—and agonised and worried about who is the best person for the job the person who is best able to teach those youngsters what they need to know in order to take their place in the New Zealand economy. 
The losers are the young men and women who are suddenly in the middle of this year going to be without an outstanding schoolteacher. I invite the Minister to take a call and explain how that can be. In fact I will go further. I invite the Minister also to tell this Committee why the Government does not have confidence in the judgment of principals. Why does this Government seems unable to accept the judgment of a school principal that a particular teacher who is well qualified with two university degrees and a recognised teacher-training qualification will not be able to teach in New Zealand? 
I invite the Minister to consider the reality of what it means to schools when they attract good teachers from overseas in the expectation that those teachers will earn maybe $50000 only to find that a bureaucratic decision has been made that those teachers will be paid $26000. A man has uprooted his family and his children and has come to New Zealand to start a career but we have insulted that man—a man with a masters degree in physics—by telling him that we will pay him only $26000 a year. I ask the Minister to explain to this Committee and to explain to the young men and women of Morrinsville College why they are likely to lose their science teacher their physics teacher. Why are they likely to lose a great teacher?