8. Question No. 8—EducationHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 8—Education8. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Is he confident that the Government is doing enough to help the education sector deal with the effects of coronavirus?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes. The Government's first priority is to protect the public health of those in early childhood education services schools universities polytechs and other educational institutions. We're working closely alongside them to ensure that they're given supporting information and can provide supporting information about pandemic planning good student wellbeing practices that they can recognise the signs and symptoms they are encouraging good hygiene practices and of course they're providing support to international students. As the events highlighted yesterday the Ministry of Education is working on the ground with Auckland Regional Public Health Service to ensure that schools and parent communities have got the correct health information that is right for their situation. We also know that there will be a significant impact on the international student sector as a result particularly of the travel restrictions that are currently in place. We are working with them to stabilise and manage the current situation and prepare for as speedy a recovery as possible once the travel restrictions have been lifted.Hon Nikki Kaye: How many schools are on alert by Government officials regarding concerns over potential contact with people or family members with coronavirus?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think it's important we are very careful about the type of language that we use. I have not used the word alert" for example when it comes to providing information to schools. Where there is any risk that a student at a school may have come into contact with coronavirus of course the school is informed of that and as the member saw there was an example of that yesterday but I would not use the word "alert" because I think that suggests that there is a higher risk of other students getting or being exposed to coronavirus than actually exists.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he believe it is appropriate for Government officials to delay an Auckland school from informing their parents about a coronavirus situation so that health officials could do a press conference first?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I'm sure the member will be aware one of the things that are very important in a situation like this is to ensure that the information that is supplied is accurate and that undue alarm is not created by people putting information out that is not as accurate as it needs to be. So yes officials are working very closely with any affected schools early childhood services or tertiary providers—noting that there are no current cases in the latter categories—but they are working very closely with any organisation in the education sector that may be affected to ensure that information that is disseminated publicly is accurate.Hon Nikki Kaye: Was it acceptable for Auckland Grammar School to be delayed from being able to inform their parents prior to officials going public with the information about the coronavirus situation?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I've said it's very important that the officials are working together across Government to ensure that the information that is provided publicly is accurate that it is provided in as timely a manner as possible and that undue alarm is not caused by people making premature comments.Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he accept the criticism by the vice-chancellor of Victoria University who says that the Minister has been missing in action while universities have struggled with the loss of international students?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It won't surprise the member to learn that no I don't accept that. We have been working very closely with Universities New Zealand on behalf of all of the vice-chancellors. In fact after the vice-chancellor of Victoria University made that comment many other vice-chancellors contacted me to make it clear that that was not their view and I have subsequently received an apology from the vice-chancellor of Victoria University.Hon Nikki Kaye: Will he announce a financial package to help support schools and education providers who are dealing with millions in costs and losses as a result of coronavirus?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Those types of decisions are premature. Of course we are monitoring the situation very closely. The overall financial impact on all education providers is difficult to assess until we know when the travel restrictions are likely to be lifted for example. With regard to the universities—who are the sector at the moment who frankly have been the most affected because they have the greatest proportion of their Chinese students not in-country—they are actually in a very good financial position in order to be able to weather this for a period of time while we do have this period of uncertainty."