Kaye NikkiHon NIKKI KAYE (Minister of Education): I am very pleased to speak in this appropriations debate. This is my first day as the Minister of Education and I want to start by just acknowledging my predecessor the Hon Hekia Parata. It is very important to acknowledge her. Every single year that we have been in Government we have increased Vote Education and she won that hard-fought-for cash in the middle of a global financial recession.The numbers—regardless of what some people may be saying—in terms of funding are $8 billion to $11 billion. In terms of operational grant funding we have seen the numbers go up by a third. In a range of areas special education funding has doubled. That does not mean we do not have challenges and I look forward to working with many members in this House around some of those challenges but we certainly have increased Vote Education and in some areas we have increased it very significantly.I want to take you through some of the big areas of reform and say why they are important in terms of our results as a nation. We know that education can be the difference between a young person ending up in prison or a young person ending up in a great job and what we saw when we first came in was a huge number of schools at an infrastructure level that were old cold and leaky. We have undertaken the largest ever capital infrastructure programme in this nation's history. We are now spending $5 billion. We have spending a third more over that period than the Labour Government did to ensure that our infrastructure is world class. This matters for learning because it does matter in terms of the environment that teachers and young people are in so that is a very significant achievement.In terms of raising achievement and raising the quality of teaching I just want to walk you through that. It is about results. We totally understand that people will have different philosophical views on this. But ultimately if young people are not able to read and write and do maths we know—we know from all of the statistics—that their chances of succeeding in a modern economy are much reduced. The fact is that under this Government we now have more than 85 percent of young people leaving school with NCEA level 2 or equivalent which is a massive lift. It is over 10.9 percent—that is thousands more kids who are leaving school with that qualification.In terms of Māori and Pacific achievement I want to just touch on the comments that Chris Hipkins made. It does matter—it really does matter—the fact that we have seen in some instances a 15 to 18 percent increase in achievement in terms of these young people leaving school without a qualification. We now have thousands more Māori and Pacific kids leaving school with a qualification. That is a very dramatic lift but we have more to do and I want to talk about where we have more to do.Right across New Zealand—and we have heard from the Opposition that not all of those members are supportive around communities of learning—the fact is that half a million children are now in a community of learning. The fact is that we are working through with those communities of learning around their achievement challenges. I think it is a really positive development for New Zealand that we have groups of schools—rather than having a very competitive model—working together looking at what the numeracy and literacy issues are and looking at areas like special education.As Minister of Education I will have the job of endorsing some of those achievement challenges but the whole point is we now have better data than ever before and a more collaborative system to be able to help more children whether it is in—as Catherine Delahunty has mentioned—the area of additional learning support and special education or whether it is around numeracy and literacy. So there is a huge amount that is being done there.In terms of the quality of our teachers we know—and Mr Hipkins mentioned the Programme for International Student Assessment—one of the most significant things that we can do is to improve the quality of our teachers. I want to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata for the establishment of the Education Council. It is crucial for teachers to be leading that debate around a number of these areas whether it is professional development or whether it is the qualifications that are required to practise. I am really proud of the fact that we are having discussions with the Education Council in terms of professional development. The priorities are much clearer now—there are very clear priorities around things like digital fluency but also numeracy and literacy. So there is a lot of work going on. Under our Government we are spending more and we are seeing greater results.But there are challenges that lie ahead and as Minister I am really looking forward to the next couple of months. We do have some potentially big decisions ahead of us. We have got a Budget that will be coming through. But I want to finish by saying—and I will have other calls—it is an absolute privilege to be the Minister of Education and I look forward to working with many teachers and principals across New Zealand.