Kaye NikkiEDUCATION (UPDATE) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon NIKKI KAYE (Minister of Education): I move That the Education (Update) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill represents the biggest update to education in nearly 30 years and is representative of the incredible vision and hard work of the previous Minister of Education Hekia Parata. I want to acknowledge her in this House and acknowledge the huge amount of work that she has done. It is my view and I have said it before that history will look kindly on her for the huge amount that she has done particularly in terms of this bill.I would also like to mention that this is part of a wider programme by this Government to reform our education system to ensure we continue to lift achievement and improve the quality of our teachers. My predecessor led considerable increases in achievement including investing the most ever in early childhood primary and secondary education this year which shows the budget went to $11 billion. That is a 35 percent increase since our time in Government. Since 2011 the rate of children starting school having previously attended early childhood education has increased several percentage points—that is thousands more children in early childhood education.We introduced a $359 million Investing in Educational Success initiative which helps to create career paths for teachers helps them share best practice across schools and helps provide expert skills to raise student achievement. There are now more than 190 communities of learning involving more than 1500 schools across the country. Also while in my previous role as Associate Minister under our Government we have invested about $5 billion upgrading and fixing old cold schools left as a legacy from the last Labour Government.I would like to thank the individuals and organisations who took the time to make a submission on this bill. I would also like to thank the Education and Science Committee for its diligent consideration. To all the members from across the House thank you very much for the hard work and the hours that you put into this legislation.There are a number of elements in this bill that reflect the policy intent of our Government. Firstly it is putting the achievement of our children and young people at the heart of our education system. Secondly it is ensuring stronger accountability throughout the education system. Thirdly it is modernising our education system to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It is also about enhancing collaboration between education providers and ensuring greater choice for parents. You can see these policy imperatives in the provisions within this bill.This bill also reflects the fact that the world is changing and our students and the flexibilities that we need to provide them must continue to improve so that they can meet the challenges of an ever-changing world. The Government has invested more than $700 million to ensure schools can access the digital world and take advantage of the immense opportunities it offers for learning. This investment has funded projects to provide schools with digital infrastructure such as cabling and wireless technology. It also includes more than $200 million towards the Network for Learning which is providing schools—in fact I think it is about 98 percent of schools—with Crown-funded uncapped high-speed broadband. This means we now have the platform in place to support the range of initiatives currently under way to achieve our vision of New Zealand as a world leader in digital education. We also announced last year that we would be making digital technology part of the curriculum to enable all young people to become digitally fluent.In terms of this piece of legislation it is also important that we are enabling for the first time a clear and visible strategic direction for the education system through the newly established objectives for education and a new stand-alone document for the Government to specify its priorities for education: the statement of National Education and Learning Priorities or NELP. The purpose of the NELP is to move the education system from delivering education to raising achievement with clearer accountabilities for early childhood education centres in schools.I do want to touch on some provisions in this bill on which I know there has been significant debate: communities of online learning (COOLs). As I have already mentioned we have invested more per child than many other Governments across the world around a digital platform. One of the provisions in this bill is to modernise online learning through establishing communities of online learning or COOLs. The widespread availability of digital technologies is changing the way that our students learn. Now more and more of our children and young people are learning anywhere any time and from a variety of sources and places. This enables us to reduce disadvantage because those young people who may have never had access to books may now have access to more quality online learning opportunities.To reflect the impact of digital technology on the delivery of education the bill creates a new regulatory framework for online learning. This will enable potentially schools tertiary education providers or bodies corporate to be accredited as COOLs. I do want to stress that there will be significant consultation around the regulations but I am disappointed that we have not been able to get some cross-party support on this. Every parent knows more young people are learning online—and I just want to acknowledge actually Rachel from the Virtual Learning Network (VLN) in the gallery which is unusual in a third reading speech. There are many organisations like VLN that do a great job in New Zealand and this is about recognising them and raising the quality of learning that is occurring online.I want to mention as well in terms of communities of learning that as they grow they are beginning to take on wider responsibilities that require more formal arrangements between the members. This bill provides for this by creating two new statutory mechanisms designed to support the growing collaboration. The first is that a community of learning can now be approved by the Minister of Education. Once approved it can enter into an agreement with the Secretary for Education to carry out a particular project. This will provide greater legal certainty and protection for members as their activities expand. The second is that school boards of trustees that are members of communities of learning can now do work for other educational services or social services that benefit the community of learning's members or students—for example offering back officers' services to an early childhood service in its community of learning or engaging a community liaison officer to work across families in the community of learning.Taking up these new community of learning options is not compulsory. They simply create new opportunities for those communities of learning that want to formalise their arrangements. It is a decision for individual communities of learning to make if they decide they want to enhance the education they provide.I want to mention the seclusion and physical restraint issues that have come through the select committee and the legislative amendments in this area. As we all know student and staff safety and well-being are central to the provisions prohibiting seclusion in schools and early childhood services and it is important that we have created a legal framework for the appropriate use of physical restraint in schools. Making this legislative change sends a clear signal to educators that in today's world there is no situation where it is acceptable for children and young people to be secluded. It also makes clear the limited situations where physical restraint can be used on children and young people by teachers and authorised staff members. When a student is exhibiting inappropriate or dangerous behaviour it is important that other students and teachers are protected from harm and that learning can continue to happen.We want parents families and whānau to be confident that schools and early childhood services are safe places for children young people and staff and that they provide inclusive learning environments. We have also recently announced $40 million in the area with $34 million around additional services for those young people with severe behavioural issues. So it is not just about the legislation; it is investing in these programmes.In terms of this bill there has been a bit of discussion around cohort entry. The bill provides flexibility of choice for parents and opportunities for providers by enabling schools to introduce a cohort entry policy where new entrants can start only at the beginning of each term. While most children start school on their fifth birthday or soon after some schools are encouraging children to start as part of a cohort on set days during the year. These schools believe cohort entry enables them to support better transitions to schools simplifies school and classroom planning and minimises disruption for existing students.There have been some concerns raised that schools will be starting children too early but the important part of the enabling legislation is that it ensures parents have the choice about the right time for their child to start school. The youngest a child would be able to start school will be 4 years and 10 months and that is only a practical consideration to ensure that children with a birthday close to the start of the term do not have to wait a whole term to start. This is pragmatic good policy to better support the well-being of young people.In conclusion the whole purpose of this bill is about creating a platform for achieving educational success. It is about putting the achievement of our children and young people at the heart of the education system and giving us the flexibility to respond to their current and future needs. I think this bill does this admirably. I now commend the bill to the House.