Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Having initiated this inquiry back last year when I was the education spokesperson for National I'm thrilled that it was carried out by the select committee and that they highlighted the importance of the issue because you know the reality is looking at the education sector in New Zealand there's an obvious issue around our falling achievement in terms of literacy and numeracy which is fundamental to our nation's prospects in the future and the prospects of the lives of the young people coming through so they can succeed and do well in the global environment and be able to obtain good jobs and a good living and be able to look after their families well. A good global standard of education is one of the most important gifts we can give anybody in this country.When you're looking for reasons why we might be falling off the pace a pretty obvious place to start is well are the kids actually at school? The answer of course has been well not many of them have been. I started a year or so ago looking at the Ministry of Education's website and in all the priorities and all the programmes and plans and all sorts of things that have been discussed—curriculum review all sorts of other things—nowhere was there any real focus on that core issue of whether the kids are at school or not. So we raised this issue time and again last year and the biggest shock I had was rocking up to Whitiora primary school in Hamilton one day talking to the headmaster who said that their average regular attendance the number of kids in the school regularly attending school was only 15 percent and I couldn't believe it—I couldn't believe it—and it had been that way for years. And across the country the average is only 60 percent which is staggeringly appalling but there are so many many schools where it's only 15 percent or 30 percent or 40 percent. The previous speaker the Hon Kelvin Davis mentioned Māori immersion schools being so much better in terms of attendance. That's not true actually; it's about 50 percent regular attendance across that sector as well.So in all these places the kids are not at school and the issue that we face most fundamentally is that we've allowed a culture of excuses to develop in this area. I couldn't believe how many principals and how many people in the education sector would come up with all manner of excuses as to why the kids weren't there—it's all a bit hard." We heard that from the previous speaker who was saying effectively that school's not exciting enough and you know if you make them do maths they'll find it difficult and they won't want to come. That is such a backwards way of looking at the issue and that is why our maths achievement is falling off the cliff. It's not that maths is too hard; it's that we're not doing an effective job at teaching it in many cases. Of course there are some brilliant maths teachers out there doing a brilliant job and I encourage them with every opportunity to do more. But across the board we are failing to engage our kids on these topics.So we have to drop the culture of excuses. The best example I saw of that was Manurewa Intermediate where there's a flashing sign out in front of the school saying #NoExcuses and "Get your kids to school!" That culture of no excuses there is no excuse whether you're feeling a bit off colour—well that's not to say that if you've got a particular sickness you should be at school but there is a whole lot of excuses that are given for why kids are not regularly at school and we shouldn't accept them. We should see it as an absolute necessity for parents to get them to school.The critical thing is to get some accountability back into the sector. Parents of course are the ones who are most accountable for ensuring that their kids are at school. At the moment of course there are no consequences for anybody anywhere if they don't send their kids to school and that has to change. There's no consequences for the school of course. The principal in my view should be thinking about nothing else—well first and foremost "Are the kids at school and what am I doing in my school to ensure that they're turning up regularly?" And there should be some accountability for that school. If year in year out only 30 percent are turning up there needs to be some very very serious questions asked; there needs to be change not continuing on as we carried on. Secondly we need to have inspectors out there knocking on doors making sure the kids are at school and making sure they turn up. And that has fallen off a cliff over the last 4½ years.So I'm very pleased that we've done this report. There is so much work to do and there is no more important thing that can be done in the education sector. Thank you."