Hipkins ChrisEDUCATION AND TRAINING BILLFirst ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move That the Education and Training Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 4 May 2020.It will be abundantly obvious to all members of the House who picked up a copy of the Education and Training Bill that this represents a very significant piece of work. To deal with perhaps the least publicly appealing parts of this process first the bill obviously repeals and replaces several existing enactments of Parliament. It creates a new legislative framework for the administration of New Zealand's education system that is simpler that is drafted in more plain language and that will be easier to follow.The laws around education in New Zealand are currently spread over several different Acts of Parliament: the Education Act 1989 is the most substantive of those; the Education Act 1964 has largely been repealed but continues to have some provisions that remain in force; the Industry Training Act 1992; and of course the State Sector Act 1988. The Education and Training Bill draws together all of the relevant provisions of those enactments into one easy to follow piece of legislation.To deal with an administrative issue first members of the House may be aware that there are two bills currently before the select committee: the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill which repeals the Industry Training Act and puts the relevant clauses into the Education Act; and the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill which is before the House at the moment which deals with the code of practice around pastoral care of students in New Zealand's tertiary institutions.The provisions in the Education and Training Bill reflect the provisions in those two other bills as they were introduced to the House. As this bill progresses through the House it will be updated to reflect the provisions in the two bills currently before the House or previously before the House as they are finally enacted. It is just a question of timing. It wasn't possible to update the Education and Training Bill to reflect the consideration of those other two bills before it was introduced into the House.To deal with some of the more symbolic or the more cosmetic changes the bill has been reordered to put in place modern language to streamline the content and to improve the overall structure of the bill. It now follows a life-course progression. So it deals with early childhood education first and then moves all the way through into adult learning. The bill also makes a significant number of policy changes and some of the changes it makes will shift existing primary law into regulation recognising that the current education legislation is incredibly technical and prescriptive and in many cases that detail is better dealt with through regulation.In terms of the policy changes the bill makes in preschool education or early childhood education the bill strengthens police vetting requirements for home-based early childhood education and care and strengthens the role of the Education Review Office particularly giving power to enter and inspect homes where education and care is being delivered. A new licensing criteria for early learning services is put in place that will allow for more active network management for new early childhood education and care services and home-based services who may be looking to enter the market. That's going to allow future Governments to ensure the provisions are more closely aligned with the actual needs of communities.At the primary and secondary school level the bill clarifies that the right to a free State education includes the right for all enrolled students to attend the school in which they're enrolled for all of the hours that the school is open for instruction. This may seem like stating the obvious but the true reality is that for some students particularly those with additional learning needs or disabilities that is not the case at the moment and that needs to change. This will help us to improve our compliance with related international obligations. The bill renames special schools" as "specialist schools" to better reflect the wider role that these schools now have in supporting inclusive education within the entire schooling system. The change reflects the shift in focus from the school itself to the specialist nature of the services provided to support students with disabilities and additional learning support needs.The bill will make it easier for teachers to re-enter the profession after taking a break from teaching whilst still ensuring that they are competent to teach.The bill proposes changes to the legal framework for using physical restraint in schools and I want to speak about those in more detail because they are likely to be one of the more controversial aspects of the bill. The bill replaces the term "physical restraint" with the term "physical force" which is a term that teachers are more familiar with and it aligns with the use of that terminology in other Acts of Parliament. It will allow a teacher or other authorised staff member to use physical force on a student if that teacher or staff member reasonably believes that it is necessary to prevent imminent harm to the health safety and wellbeing of that student or of another person.The bill makes it clear that physical force is a last resort. The term "physical force" will be defined by rules made by the Secretary for Education within six months of the bill's enactment. These changes address the lack of certainty that the school sector has about the current provisions allowing for the use of physical restraint. Those provisions have been worked through very carefully with the teaching profession to ensure that we come up with something that is workable understandable and sensible.The bill makes a minor change to the 1964 Act's provisions regarding religious instruction which is not part of the New Zealand curriculum and it occurs currently where a school is not open for instruction. Under the bill a student's attendance at religious instruction in State primary and intermediate schools remains voluntary and particularly important parents who want their children to attend it must confirm that in writing to the school. Currently an opt-out approach applies. Parents who don't want their children to attend religious instruction must confirm this in writing. However that's not always possible if the parents don't know that that religious instruction is proposed to take place in the first place. The bill's opt-in approach will help ensure that attendance at religious instruction only occurs with fully informed parental consent.To protect the quality and reputation of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement—the NCEA our national qualification system in schools—the bill prohibits the awarding of NCEA offshore with two exceptions being that distance schools can continue to award NCEA to domestic students based offshore and NCEA can still be awarded in Pacific Realm countries.At the tertiary education and vocational training level the bill makes a number of changes in relation to the student loans and allowances provisions administered by the Ministry of Social Development to make those systems easier to administer. The bill undertakes the legislative amendments necessary to support the Government's response to the final report of the Tomorrow's Schools Independent Taskforce. Several of those measures are aimed at strengthening school governance including the fact that the statutory objectives for school boards of trustees have been revised to focus on a broader range of primary objectives. A mandatory national code of conduct for school board of trustees members will be introduced and the bill enables that. The bill shifts responsibility for developing and consulting and reviewing enrolment schemes from boards of trustees to the ministry who will give effect to that at a regional level. Now this will help to reduce the compliance burden for school boards of trustees who are volunteers and it will improve transparency and consistency within the system of how we manage school enrolments. It's essential we've got strong leadership in the schooling system. The principal role—the role of the school principal—is demanding and complex. It's critical to the role of the school. So to strengthen school leadership the bill requires the Minister to issue minimum standards or minimum eligibility criteria for appointments to school principal roles and these criteria will come into force six months after they are issued and will apply to future principal appointments made after that date. School boards will still be able to set additional criteria. The bill enables the Education Review Office to make a written request for information to inform on-site reviews. This aligns the legislation with current practice by the Education Review Office. Finally the bill enables the establishment of a dispute resolution scheme for the schooling sector allowing local dispute resolution panels to be established to resolve serious rights-based disputes within a school. The panels will be primarily focused on resolving disputes through mediation but if not possible they can at the request of the student and their whānau determine the dispute. The Government is making a lot of changes in the area of education. This bill builds on the work that we have already done. It is a comprehensive piece of work. I'd like to thank all those involved in the process of drawing it together. I look forward to the select committee process. As with any piece of legislative change that is as large as this there are bound to be further refinements that can be made during the select committee process. I look forward to engaging constructively with members on all sides of the House to ensure that that happens."