Donnelly Brian:  Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Donnelly Brian:  Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:640;Page:10026] 
9.  
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: For how many half-days will primary schools be required to be open for instruction in 2007 2008 2009 and 2010? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 The length of the school year varies in order to accommodate requests from teachers and parents for a 7 February start to ensure that at least some of the summer holidays occur in summer and to prevent the nuisance of the stop-start beginning of the year brought about by the Waitangi Day public holiday. The actual half-days that primary schools are required to be open for instruction are: in 2007 386; in 2008 384; in 2009 386; and in 2010 388. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Will the Minister confirm that the requirement set in the Education Act notwithstanding his discretion and also set out in the 2006 and 2007 Budgets is in fact 394 half-days and why has he used his discretion in this particular way? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: In fact both Labour and National Governments over the last little while have used that discretion because the original figure was 398. Of course it was dropped down 4 days by the National Government— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: It was 400. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: It was 400 earlier still—that is right. It has been changed by National and by Labour. But in my own case as I said before we have had quite a significant number of requests from teachers and parents about the fact that schoolrooms were hot and that there was a disturbed start to the beginning of the year which meant there was that stop-start effect. But wait there is more: the member might like to know that I have also responded to requests from schools that in some cases have said they would rather start before 7 February. I have allowed them to have that flexibility as well. As long as they provide students with the required number of half-days they can do that; they can start before Waitangi Day if they want to. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: How does pupil-teacher contact time in New Zealand compare with that in other countries in the OECD? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: New Zealand ranks second-highest coming after only the USA in the OECD table of pupil-teacher contact time and it remains the second-highest under the term dates set for 2008 through to 2010. In addition to those favourable statistics on pupil-teacher contact hours of course we want to point to the fact that quality is also important and I point out that on international measures of quality we do pretty well. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Has the Minister had drawn to his attention the large body of research that demonstrates that time spent in engaged academic learning significantly impacts on learning outcomes; if he has how will reducing engaged academic learning time improve learning outcomes? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I am familiar with that research but I remind the member of two things. First as reinforced in a quotation from Irene Cooper from the New Zealand Educational Institute it is the quality of what happens that matters. And I take him back to the fact that if he is concerned he knows that we are sitting at No. 2 in the OECD in terms of the amount of pupil-teacher contact time. I hardly think we have fallen down the ranks in comparison with other countries in terms of contact time. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Has the Minister heard the complaints from teachers and teacher associations that there is currently not enough time to teach the curriculum; if he has why has he not only reduced the time available for curriculum delivery but also introduced an additional curriculum component into year 7 and 8 programmes? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I have heard the complaint from teachers about the enormous number of things that people want to have go on in school. The curriculum development at the moment has highlighted that with everybody asking for the curriculum to carry one or other interesting idea. I just say to the member though that those very same people who come from all of the associations to do with education and with parents were consulted about the changes in the length of the school year and agreed to them because they saw them as a good quality measure. However I would say that if we could clone the member and have him in every class I am sure students would turn up voluntarily.