Hipkins ChrisEDUCATION AND TRAINING AMENDMENT BILL (NO 2)Third ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2).ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.This bill continues the Government's overall programme to reform the legislation around education and training in New Zealand. To rewind the clock back 30-plus years to when the Education Act 1989 was passed through this House was only one part of the equation. In fact some of the legislation that we've relied on for that 30-year period dated back to prior to that time—in fact to the 1960s. When we became the Government we started a programme of consolidating modernising and updating the education legislation framework and this bill continues that work. The most significant change that we made was the passage of the Education and Training Act 2020 which brought all of the existing legislation together under one umbrella reorganised it streamlined it updated the language and brought it into a form where we could actually start to make significant policy decisions so that we can get legislation that genuinely reflects the way our education system currently operates. Having said that with a legislative change that is that comprehensive—and that was frankly done in a relatively short space of time—there will inevitably be issues that flow from that. This bill picks up some of the issues where further work needed to be done or where additional clarification was required.So first of all the legislation from 2020 introduced new network planning provisions for early childhood education (ECE) that are not dissimilar—or effectively create a more similar process—to what we have for new schools. People can't just simply establish new schools without going through an approvals process. This introduces an approvals process for new early childhood education services ahead of when they are established. It deals with a range of issues that we have seen with the proliferation of ECE services in recent years. We've seen examples where low-quality providers—who may be on a provisional licence in some of their services because there are concerns about the quality that they have been delivering—have been able to establish additional new services with very few if any regulatory barriers to stop them from doing that. That's not a good outcome for the children and the network planning provisions that we are putting in place with this legislation help us to address that issue. We've also seen a plethora of ECE services being established in some areas while there continues to be under-provision in other areas. So a more strategic and planned approach to ECE provision can help us to even that out so that we can ensure that all of our communities have access to the quality early childhood education that our tamariki deserve to have.We have listened to some of the feedback that was provided during the select committee process. We've made changes to the bill as a result of that feedback including making provision to allow for those centres that are currently under construction to continue to do that—so they basically can finish their construction before the new measures come into effect. Other changes in the bill which I think are quite significant haven't perhaps been given as much attention as I think perhaps they deserve. One of them is the changes around police vetting requirements. Some very very significant changes were made in this House through the Children's Act 2014 that changed the requirements for people working with children right the way across the public sector. They didn't pick up every aspect of that though and there are aspects of our education legislation that are currently inconsistent with those changes when it comes to police vetting. So this legislation deals with that. It makes sure that we're taking a consistent approach to police vetting of people who are working with children and I do welcome the widespread support that we've received for those provisions.The bill also deals with some issues that arose from reform of the Teaching Council back under the period of the last Government and they were some changes which we as an Opposition scrutinised vigorously and on balance supported because we were concerned as everybody was that there should be a very rigorous process for dealing with issues around teacher misconduct and particularly any concerns around inappropriate behaviour by teachers. I think on balance on reflection we could all agree that the pendulum swung too far and that what we created—what the House created—in passing those changes was a system that was overly cumbersome one that resulted in far too many complaints ending up having to be dealt with by the disciplinary tribunal adding significant stress and significant cost to teacher registration in a way that was not proportionate to the overall level of risk that was being dealt with. So the changes that we're making here do swing the pendulum back to something that's more pragmatic and sensible. It allows the Complaints Assessment Committee for example to resolve some of those issues without having to go through a full disciplinary tribunal hearing and that is something that will reduce the impost on the profession and potentially the level of compliance cost that the Teaching Council faces. That of course will flow through into what they have to ultimately charge the teaching profession in teacher registration fees. So we've listened to the concerns that the council have raised about that current process and about the effect that has had on the level of costs that they face and therefore the level that they are having to charge teachers in registration fees.The bill expands the mandate of the Education Review Office to look at initial teacher education provision and teacher professional learning and development. That is something that I think again should be welcomed. There is expertise there in the Education Review Office that can be leant to that. Professional learning and development programmes by teachers—I think people who are out there listening to the sector would again find a common theme in the feedback that we receive on those: that there is very variable quality there. There are some exceptionally good teacher professional development programmes out there but there are also some that aren't that good a quality. So giving the Education Review Office a remit to look at that can only result in better professional learning and development opportunities for the teaching workforce and that's something that I hope the Parliament will endorse bearing in mind that if we fast-forward 10 or 15 years in the future the vast majority of teachers who will be in the classroom at that time are teachers who are already in the classroom today. So we need to provide them with quality opportunities to continue to upskill to continue to develop during their teaching careers and the extra remit for the Education Review Office can only add to that.The bill deals with some provisions around the code of pastoral care for domestic students—again helping us to refine and clarify as we continue to implement very significant changes that this Parliament put in place in 2020 that deal with pastoral care issues around tertiary students. And it also deals with the ongoing programme of work that we have in place around changing vocational education qualifications and credentials recognising that things like micro credentials are going to become a much bigger part of our future and the way our qualifications framework operates needs to recognise that as well.So in the main most of the changes in this bill are relatively pragmatic and sensible changes. I acknowledge that there is some debate around the early childhood education provisions but I think on balance the rest of the bill has attracted widespread support which I welcome and so I commend the bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The question is that the motion be agreed to.