Hipkins Chris: Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7224. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Having listened carefully to that contribution I can say that there was nothing in that speech that explained what it is about the New Zealand Curriculum that the Government does not think charter schools should have to comply with and should have to follow. What is the problem with asking charter schools to teach to the same curriculum as every other school in the country? We did not hear that from David Seymour. What we heard from him was that because the current charter schools the first ones to be established are teaching the curriculum we do not in fact need to require charter schools to teach the curriculum. The same argument could be made of any number of Government rules and regulations—the fact that people voluntarily do it means that maybe we could just do away with them altogether which of course is the typical libertarian philosophy of the ACT Party. But actually if the taxpayer is sinking significant amounts of money into these charter schools—and bear in mind that they are funded significantly more than State schools are funded on a per-student basis—then they should be required to meet the same standards that existing State schools need to meet.Many of the claims that have been made about charter schools simply do not stack up. I will deal first of all with the one that most directly relates to the curriculum and that is their achievement statistics—the achievement statistics the Government requires of them. Hekia Parata has been regularly boasting in the House that the teaching at charter schools and one charter school in particular is leading to a 100 percent pass rate. What she neglects to mention is that that 100 percent pass rate is only of the students who have entered for National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). It is not based on their whole roll. Those figures have been doctored because in order to get the 100 percent pass rate they can simply dissuade the students from participating in NCEA altogether and NCEA is based on the curriculum. That is one of the reasons that we have a curriculum—to ensure that as students progress through their schooling they are going to land up in the right place. We have a curriculum so we can ensure that they are going to land up with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve NCEA and to move off into the job market and into tertiary education with the skills and knowledge they need.Why is it that charter school students should be treated differently? Why is it that they do not need to know the things that every other school in the country is required to teach their students? There is no argument for that being put forward by the Government. It is simply continuing to run the line that it is about creativity diversity and innovation as David Seymour said. Well every school in the country should be encouraged to do those things and every school in the country is. But State schools are subject to a level of regulation—and it is an increasing level of regulation under this Government—that charter schools are not. In fact many of the regulations that are positive that are designed to ensure that students are progressing in their education—like following the New Zealand Curriculum—do not apply to charter schools and yet the increasing regulation in the State school sector is distracting away from the New Zealand Curriculum and preventing schools from teaching to its full depth and breadth which is what we should be encouraging.The Government has not yet put forward a good reason why this bill should not be passed. It is important in the overall scheme of things that every New Zealander every employer and every tertiary education provider should be able to know that New Zealand students are being taught a wide range of skills and knowledge the depth of the curriculum and they do not get that with charter schools because charter schools are not required to teach to that curriculum.Another one of the arguments that David Seymour put forward was that charter schools are seeking to do new things. State schools are seeking to do new things as well and they are seeking to do them within the bounds of the New Zealand Curriculum which is internationally recognised as one of the most dynamic and flexible in the world. I have been recently doing some travelling and people have been asking me about the New Zealand Curriculum. They have been incredibly impressed by the focus on competencies that exists within the curriculum now. The fact is that it is not knowledge-specific—it is not basically defining that students should learn a particular fact or a particular piece of factual information at a given time—it is about the types of learning that should be taking place. Our curriculum is brilliant and everybody else around the world whom I speak to says: “This is great.” They either want to copy it or they are trying to copy it.Why is it that charter schools should not be part of that equation? The New Zealand Curriculum is already flexible. The New Zealand Curriculum already encourages creativity diversity and innovation. Those are all essential ingredients in it. Charter schools should be required to do that as well. They should not be held to a different standard. That brings me to the next point as I—[Interruption] Has the bell gone already?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No the bell has not gone—the bell does not go in a 5-minute speech.CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh right. I was not aware of that. That appears to be a new rule.