Utikere Tangi; Stanford EricaTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana Mr Chair. Thank you. Can I firstly thank the Minister for acknowledging the funding that has been given to those two schools in Palmerston North. I know those schools pretty well and the fact that they were funded under the previous Government I know is a testament to the success of the focus in that space. My question for the Minister is around cultural context in the Pasifika context. I'd put some written questions to the Minister around the level of support in her office for Pacific communities but the information was withheld on the context of personal identification. So I'd like to ask the Minister what support she does receive in terms of specific resource in order to give some confidence to this House that she is able to understand the specific needs of Pacific ākonga or learners and what levels of engagement she has had with the Pasifika communities around Aotearoa New Zealand that has perhaps provided an opportunity to change some of the thinking that she's previously had as a result of those specific levels of engagement with Pacific communities. Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Well I'm glad the member asked because I recently met with the Pasifika Principals Association and we had a fantastic afternoon. They are an incredibly engaged bunch of principals around the country who do an amazing job. They had quite a lot of discussion with me and my ministerial adviser and they impressed upon me the importance of leadership in the Pacific education space. Look it's their view that we have to have highly competent well-trained and ready-to-hit-the-ground-running Pasifika principals because that cultural competency in our leaders and in our Pacific leaders is so important. We talked about their leadership programme that they run which has been successful and they're sending the data through to me. But what it said to me was that something that's missing in this country—and it's something that I'm focused on and it's actually one of my six priorities—is developing leadership pathways for our future principals. We do it very poorly. Over the last six years we have found that principals are feeling like they are not supported and they're not ready. They're feeling like they're drowning and we have a number who are leaving in the first five years because they're not well supported. The Pasifika principals said a similar thing and they said that actually their programme that they're running for in fact all aspiring leaders and all principals around Pasifika cultural competence is so very important. So it was great to spend the day with them and to confirm the fact that we will be continuing the funding for their programme which was really great to share with them. So I would say to the member that I am very engaged. I am always listening. I'm interested in data and evidence to show the things that are working and improving competence amongst our principals and our teachers in this country. Like I say it was a really good engagement. I look forward to working with them in the future and I look forward to seeing the continued results from their leadership programmes. But as I would say one of the things I've noticed is that there is no great pipeline in this country. We've got our Pacific principals doing their job we've got the Māori Principals Association doing their work we've got the Teaching Council doing a bit of work in leadership we've got the unions doing a great job—the Post Primary Teachers' Association are doing an excellent job—in developing an aspiring principals' pipeline. The problem is that it's all over the place and there is no overarching strategy or plan. So it is my intention to bring that all together and make sure that we are investing in our aspiring teachers who want to go on to leadership that we are making sure that they have the skills the knowledge and the experience that they need to take on that role and also once they're in that role that those in-service principals get the support that they need.