3. Question No. 3—EducationCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 3—Education3. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Is he confident students across Aotearoa New Zealand are receiving the level of support they deserve to engage in tertiary education?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you Mr Speaker. Throughout my working life I've consistently advocated for a better deal for tertiary education students including increases in the level of financial support that they receive. One of our first actions in Government was to make a person's first year of tertiary study completely free and we've increased the rates of student support available significantly while we've been in Government. Am I satisfied that there are no further improvements that need to be made? No I'm not. And I'll continue to advocate for a better deal for students. But we were clear coming into this term of Government that in the context of COVID-19 our two most immediate student support priorities for this term would be the Apprenticeship Boost scheme and making vocational education free through the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund. Chlöe Swarbrick: What is the average amount of support that the 16 percent of 380000 students in this country who are eligible for student allowance receive per week? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I can give the member a bit of a breakdown: in 2020—which is the most recent full-year statistics that we've got available—33.6 percent of all full-time domestic students received a student allowance. To break that down further $588 million was paid out in allowances including the accommodation benefit and the average payment of that was $9582—an average weekly payment of $337.15. Of course the rate of allowances paid varies quite significantly from student to student.Chlöe Swarbrick: What is the average amount of hours full-time students work on top of their 40-plus hours of study?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We don't have direct measures of the hours worked by students only the income that they have earned and from that people can extrapolate roughly what they think the level of hours might be. The 2021 study that the Ministry of Education did found that of all full-time students who studied 52 percent didn't work 29 percent worked in low intensity work 12 percent worked in moderate intensity work 5 percent in high intensity work and 2 percent in very high intensity work. In terms of how they are defined they would need to be earning less than $1080 before tax per month to be deemed low intensity; moderate is $1920 per month; high intensity is $3315 per month; and very high is greater than that.Chlöe Swarbrick: How many students were denied support from their institution's hardship fund for learners in the last two years of the pandemic?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We don't actually have a breakdown of the number of students that have been denied support through those funds because those funds are administered by their institutions. But I would note as someone who more than 20 years ago was involved in administering some of those funds it's never been the case that everybody who applies for support through those funds has received it.Chlöe Swarbrick: How much would it cost to reinstate post-graduate student allowances as had been promised in the last term of Government?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't have an up-to-date estimate of the cost of that. Going back to about 2019 I think the cost was somewhere around $25 million a year. It would be more than that now though because the overall rate of allowances has increased.Chlöe Swarbrick: Is he concerned by a University of Otago survey which shows students are more than twice as likely as the general population to be in damp and mouldy homes with 79 percent reporting being energy insecure and shivering inside of their home?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes I am and actually it's one of the reasons why I'm very proud of the work that the Government has been doing since we became the Government to ensure that the quality of our rental homes is improved. I particularly note—again reflecting on some historical experiences—that in some of those cities that have a higher proportion of tertiary students the rental accommodation can often be of the lowest standard and that isn't acceptable.Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he consider it part of the tertiary education strategy for barrier-free access" to education for universities to have a qualification completion rate of 52 percent last year for Māori and Pasifika students with many dropping out due to hardship?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No I don't regard that as acceptable. We've been working with the universities very closely particularly through the Tertiary Education Commission to look at how we improve those retention and attainment rates for our Māori and Pacific students. This is a long-standing problem—Māori and Pacific achievement rates overall the trend has continued to improve but certainly not fast enough for me. I would like to see it continue to improve much faster than that."