Ogilvy Bernie: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Ogilvy Bernie: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:13252] 
BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 I want to take a few minutes to look at certain elements of these reports before us. In particular I would like to start with Learning Media Ltd. This entity as we all know has had a major cloud over it in the last year or so due to nothing more than the expense account of a former chair a Mr Donald Sollitt whose expenses of over $200000 were achieved on the back of credit cards. I believe that that was a very dark cloud that hung over Learning Media Ltd. When we asked in the select committee what had been done to recover that money we found that $9000 of that sum had been invoiced back to him. Yet the expenses he had been living on as a spree were a sort of joke. He must have thought it was a bit of a joke too that he was asked to repay only $9000. I think the reason given to us sort of sideways was simply that this same said gentleman had gone into bankruptcy and therefore the Governmentcould not gather any more money from him. I do not believe that that was a sufficiently good answer on that occasion. 
Even if we put aside the horror part of Learning Media’s history there are still some very worthwhile matters I would like to bring to this House. The literacy and numeracy programmes that Learning Media has started are and have been very well recommended by both students and teachers around the country. I can see that as those develop and unfold theywill advance New Zealand. 
Another thing I noticed too in Learning Media’s report to us for the last year was that its overseas operations had increased some 30 percent. The revenue was mainly from the US but it was also from Canada and I think from Scandinavia and other countries which indicates that as a Crown entity Learning Media was starting to overcome the shadow placed upon it through its former chair. As select committee members when we reviewed and questioned the entity on that aspect we felt that its progress was notable. 
I would also like to take up one aspect of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority in its report to us. The committee along with the public remains somewhat concerned—some even sceptical—about the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and its processes of assessment in New Zealand. The public the parents and the children—the scholars and the students—do find it difficult to compare their assessments with others within their own group and age level and they also find it very difficult to find any useful understandings between schools as to what the system has actually achieved. As a result I have noted that schools have then gone into and are increasingly going into alternative forms of assessments and examination procedures because of the poor information being obtained from the NCEA programmes. More schools and principals this year have told me that they have certainly signalled to their parents the benefits of other examination systems so that parents children and of course employers can get a grip on what is happening. 
The International Baccalaureate with its benefits for instance is one of those programmes that parents are turning to and asking their children to take on more and more in schools. The Cambridge examinations are flourishing around New Zealand on the back of a misunderstanding—or a lack of understanding—of how to interpret the NCEA programme. I think that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority needs to wake up and listen to what parents and employers are really wanting. Standards-based achievements have limited features for parents students’ learning and employers. I also note that the Education Review Office has sent a real hurry-up message to the qualifications authority about the NCEA programme. So United Future as a party believes that the NCEA implementation was frustrated from day one through a lack of resourcing.