6. Question No. 6—EducationHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 6—Education6. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Does he stand by all of his statements and actions?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Absolutely yes and to pick just three today that I particularly stand by: funding for an additional 4000 trades academy and gateway places to support more of our young people into the trades; I stand by the fact that parents of up to half a million students won't be asked for a donation by their school next year to support their kids' education; and I stand by the Government's decision to scrap NCEA fees for 168000 young New Zealanders.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he stand by his statement regarding the Tomorrow's Schools changes that they will lead to a stronger better-connected and less-bureaucratic" system given the changes will give more power to officials in areas such as enrolment schemes and school boards?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first part of the question yes. In answer to the second part of the question I don't actually agree with the premise of the member's question because with regard to enrolment schemes officials at the Ministry of Education already have to agree to a school's enrolment scheme. It changes the process in which an enrolment scheme will be drawn up but the Ministry of Education have always had the power to reject an enrolment scheme that was developed by a school including under the last Government as they did on several occasions whilst that member was a Minister.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he stand by his statement around Tomorrow's Schools in light of the comments by the principal of Northland College who said "We've spent two years talking about administration which is important but we now seem to have 10 years ahead of further debate about admin." and why won't he make crucial decisions such as reducing class sizes in primary schools to make a difference to teaching and learning?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well of course I note that even the Opposition haven't made that commitment yet because according to Simon Bridges all of the commitments they've made in their discussion document might change between now and the next election. Of course given that there are billions of dollars' worth of commitments in that document I wouldn't be surprised to see some humiliating back-downs as some of those get taken out of that. But in answer to the substantive part of the member's question which is around administration of course you have to administer the system in order for it to be able to deliver educational outcomes for kids and you have to do both at the same time.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he stand by his commitments around his school donations policy including the decision to exclude hundreds of schools from the policy and has he seen reports that a number of schools will not take up his donation scheme?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'm very happy to say that I'm incredibly satisfied with the number of schools that have taken up the donations policies thus far and of course the applications for that don't close until tomorrow but watch this space. There's good news to come. But I've always been clear that deciles 8 9 and 10 schools—while they're not eligible this year we're not ruling out making them eligible in the future.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he feel confident that as at close of play today he will have 100 percent uptake of deciles 1 to 7 of his school donations policy?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We never said we'd get 100 percent. We made it voluntary. It is an option for schools to take up. I am very satisfied with the number of schools that have taken it up.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he stand by his decision to focus on more than 15 working groups for two years and oversee more than 50 broken promises in education?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I absolutely reject the second part of the member's question. With regard to the first part of the member's question if we hadn't had those working groups and various discussions taking place I don't know where she would have got the ideas for her discussion document that she released yesterday given that a large number of them draw on the work that the Government's already doing.Hon Nikki Kaye: Now he wants to claim it. He doesn't know how to respond. SPEAKER: That's not a supplementary? Hon Nikki Kaye: Oh sorry."