Clark David: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10536. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Thank you Mr Chairman—Hon Member: The best speech coming up in 50 years.Dr DAVID CLARK: —and thank you to the gentleman opposite for suggesting that this might be the best speech in 50 years. Talofa lava Mr Chair. Can I first start out by complimenting Mr Lees-Galloway who has just sat down on his sartorial elegance. I have been admiring that shirt all day.This debate on the Education Amendment Bill is becoming more and more exciting and I think it is fair to say that we on this side of the Chamber feel very passionately about this issue. It is an issue that is close to Labour’s heart because we believe in having a good local school for everybody. We believe that everybody should have a world-class education at their local school. It is something that cuts to the core of Labour’s values. I want to—Hon Member: What is it?Dr DAVID CLARK: The members opposite ask “What is that?”. For their information I wish to cover some of my experiences during a recent opportunity that I had to be overseas where I did go and look at charter schools and where I talked to people who are proponents of charter schools and got their view on what the strengths and weaknesses of charter schools are.I think it is important that we are having an educated debate and I know that several of my colleagues wish to contribute further. I know Nanaia Mahuta got only 5 minutes and was just getting into her speech earlier. I know that several colleagues are very keen to have some more say because this is a huge change. This is one of the biggest changes in our education system in decades. This is incredibly significant to us and to New Zealand. I want to start by saying that Labour will not agree to charter schools. We do not agree with the bill. We believe that this is a demolition bill on our education system.Can I start by referring to a colleague of mine on this recent exchange who is from Finland. She has studied the Finnish system of education which continues to enjoy the highest Programme for International Student Assessment scores year after year after year in terms of international rankings. She came on this exchange with several copies of books about it that were published in Finland because everywhere she goes people ask her about the secrets of the Finnish education sector’s success. That is frequently asked.The people from Finland say that there are several things that contribute to their education sector’s success. For starters they respect their teaching profession. It is held in huge esteem. It is actually harder to become a teacher in Finland than it is to become a doctor or a lawyer. There is more competition to enter those courses to become a teacher in Finland than there is to become a lawyer or a doctor. That tells you in what esteem Finland holds its education system. Every teacher in its system is educated to Master’s level for the compulsory sector—to Master’s level—and it is looking at now extending that to early childhood education also where a Bachelor’s degree is the current minimum.One of the other big factors in it that they point to is that they have no private schools. Within the Finnish system it explicitly bans any private schooling whatsoever.So for Finland part of the secret of the most successful education system in the world is that it requires every student to be able to access the best education at their local school. I think this is really significant.These other points are also incredibly relevant. I think we do need to be putting resources towards educating our teachers better and giving them the opportunities to continue to upskill. I do not think anybody in this Chamber would disagree with the need to do that.Darien Fenton: But they’ve cut them.Dr DAVID CLARK: Well my colleague points out that the Government has cut funding in this area and that might speak to where the real sentiment lies on the other side of the Chamber. But I think that in principle people would agree that educating our teachers properly and giving them opportunities for learning is incredibly important. We would all agree that we need to hold our teachers in high esteem.Let us not forget that the New Zealand Programme for International Student Assessment scores are actually the fourth-best in the world. We are consistently in the top 10 in the developed world despite putting I do not know about the 23rd most money in the OECD—is it; somebody might tell me perhaps the Minister in the chair—into the system roughly. It is something like that. We get the fourth-best results back. Perhaps the Minister in the chair will correct me shortly if I am wrong.So we know that we get good education out of our system. We know that there are some students who face challenges but we know that those systems that are more successful than ours do not look to privatise education as the solution. We know that those—