Shearer David: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shearer David: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16330. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I take a brief call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). In many ways we are largely in agreement on the aspects that were being talked about. I will pick up on a couple of points. One is the secondary-tertiary interface. The option of partnership which has been taken up is the right one. That was certainly reinforced by many of the people who spoke in submissions at the Education and Science Committee. I think this is where education is heading towards: encouraging many more of our young people through school and if school is not an appropriate vehicle for them enabling them to move on to a tertiary education system that provides them with more flexibility in order to carry on and in a sense regain that confidence in schooling. The Manukau Institute of Technology which has started this has been mentioned. That went through in an earlier piece of legislation late last year or earlier this year. Fine work has been done there by Stuart Middleton who is a former teacher of mine who actually taught me in the seventh form. 
Hon Member 
: He didn’t do a very good job! 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Well he has been around for a while I have to say but he is still looking pretty good for his age—in fact he does not look very different. I will send him the  
Hansard  
at the end of this debate. 
Grant Robertson 
: What about you? Do you look different? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: I look very different from the way I did back then! 
I will comment on something that has not been picked up yet which is the—again welcome—change with regard to the refund provision for international students. I reinforce what has already been said about the period during which international students on courses of 3 months or longer can withdraw from the course and receive a refund of their course fees. It really helps a lot of the waka-jumping that has continued to happen. It will protect many of the institutions that have actually felt very much disadvantaged by the fact that this has been able to happen. The refund provisions here will help protect and strengthen our institutions and not put them at an economic or financial disadvantage as a result of this occurring. I think it is a welcome step and again it is a part of this bill that seeks to tidy up a lot of the extraneous types of things that are not really affecting our education system profoundly but nevertheless will help it to be much better than it was. 
On that note it was great to see the OECD report come out earlier this week that showed that in maths and science we are in the top five in the OECD and in reading we are in the top 10. But—and I think the “but” is significant—the range between the top and the bottom was one of the widest in the OECD. In part that is because our top is so high but also it is because our bottom—particularly amongst Pasifika and Maori kids—is so low. If there is one area we could focus on and in part the secondary-tertiary interface being improved will help it is making sure that those kids at the bottom end actually get helped up and pushed into continuing on with tertiary education. 
I echo some of my colleagues’ position on the enrolment scheme priorities. We will obviously not oppose this but I am not so sure that I agree with Chris Tremain on the issue of tradition. I think traditions are a fine thing but it speaks to privilege and access more than it does to tradition. 
With those short remarks on those three or four key points I say that those are the interventions I would like to make. I look forward to this legislation going through this evening. Thank you.