Tolley Anne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Tolley Anne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8997] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 This is a fantastic exciting year 2010 for education. This is probably one of the most important years in education in New Zealand in the last 20 years. I just want to read something from the Prime Minister’s statement. He said: “We believe a high-performing education system at all levels is essential to ensuring New Zealand’s young people have the skills they need to acquire the jobs of the future. The status quo is not good enough.” This Government is passionate about education. This Government is determined to give every single child in New Zealand the chance to reach his or her full potential. We came into power with a promise to address the completely unacceptable fact that up to one in five—one in five—of our young New Zealand students is being failed by the education system. It is not that they are failing in the system but the system is failing them. Up to 150000 children are being failed by the system and are leaving school without the reading writing and maths skills they need in order to succeed. We want them to have a chance and we are determined to do something about it. Too many—they can laugh but the Opposition actually had 9 years to do something about this. They sit there now on the crossbenches where the community have confined them because they did nothing about it. They talked about it and they still want to talk about it. This Government is going to do something about it. 
How are we going to do that? Through national standards. One would think from listening to that side of the House that national standards were the devil incarnate. What are national standards? They are simply clear expectations of what a child should have learnt and by when in reading writing and maths—reporting clear information to parents so that they can be involved in what happens next for those children who are struggling to make progress against the standards. I would have thought that every single New Zealander would think that that was a great thing to do. In fact we know that 73 percent of New Zealand parents think it is a great thing to do but that lot over there do not support kids. That lot over there do not support parents; they support the union. They support the union that is worried about things like performance pay. Teachers are worried about their own about how it will affect them. On this side we are worried about the kids. The previous Minister of Education left teaching and came to Parliament in—was it 1975? It was 1984. It seems like 1975. That was 27 years ago. They did things differently then and he has not caught up. 
Our schools this year are getting on professionally implementing national standards. This Government unlike the previous Government is happy to say that it will watch and see how this goes. We in the National Government are going to have some evaluation we are going to have some monitoring and we have set up an independent advisory board. If things need to be changed we will change them because it is about the kids. It is about getting it right for the kids. We are not like that previous Government—when it was told that the National Certificate of Educational Achievement was not working the Minister of Education did not listen. He did not listen to the experts he did not listen to the teachers he did not listen to the principals and he certainly did not listen to the kids. Well we are going to listen to all of them. If we need to make changes we will make them. 
The second thing I want to talk about is the Youth Guarantee. What a great policy that is. Do members know what we have done already? The Opposition members sit there and weep because all they had was Schools Plus. There was no money no policy they released it three times—and in less than 12 months this Government has started to make changes for our young people so that they have better pathways and better opportunities— 
Chris Tremain 
: A brighter future. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: —and a brighter future about their education. So what have we done with Youth Guarantee? 
Hon Annette King 
: What are you doing? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: That is exactly right. The Opposition does not know. Well the kids know. The kids know and the sector knows that it is more than talk like Schools Plus which was nothing. There was no policy work and no money. We have put 2000 places into tertiary education—2000 within 12 months; 2000 fully-funded places. We have funded the Manukau Institute of Technology tertiary high school. That has never been done in New Zealand before. They talked about it; we funded it and made it happen. We have added another seven service academies. Another seven service academies have been opened this year for young people to give them the opportunity— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: All the community providers are closed up. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: There is one in our own town I say to Parekura Horomia. That gives students the opportunity to get a Defence Force background. That is a partnership between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defence to create more opportunities for kids who are interested in the services. We promised in the election to open five trades academies by 2011. How many are we going to open next year? Six and we have another five being developed. So that is what is happening in the Youth Guarantee and ex-Minister King had better make a few notes about it because people out in the sector know that that is what is happening with Youth Guarantee. Those members should just wait because we are on a roll. We are going to roll it out. We are rolling it out for young New Zealanders. I am pleased that those members are applauding because it is a policy that is worth their applause. I think that they should be sitting over there ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed of themselves. They had 9 years to address young people in this country who were relying on them as a Government for some sort of assistance to help them build a career. But what did that previous Government give them? They gave them Schools Plus. What was that? The previous Government was going to keep students in school until they were 18. That was all that it had. This Government is delivering for New Zealand children. This Government is determined that every single child will have an excellent education.