Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20924. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Following on from the comments made by the chair of the Education and Science Committee I want to say that the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) is good legislation. It does a number of important things. But to coin a phrase no man is an island and this bill cannot stand alone without being looked at in the context of other relevant legislation and I will refer to that in a moment. Perhaps I will start with an area where the House agrees and that is the importance of a number of the changes here particularly those in relation to for instance private training establishment regulation.  
It is fair to say that private training establishments play a very important role in filling the gaps in the education system that the public institutions are not able to fill. Many of them do a very good job of that and provide educational opportunities for people who perhaps would not get them in other ways. They also provide a part of the arrangements that allow for international students to come to New Zealand and therefore they play an important role. But the truth is that there have been examples in recent times where private training establishments have not lived up to the marketing they have given overseas. In some extreme cases people have essentially allowed degrees to be bought for very little actual work or study. That is not good for the reputation of New Zealand internationally. So I think it is important that there have been some moves in this bill to tighten up the way in which private training establishments are accredited and able to offer programmes and courses.  
Can I perhaps offer at this point my belief that there are one or two other areas in terms of the overall registration of private training establishments that could still be looked at to further enhance the improvements in this bill. One of those is what might appear to be quite a simple point but is actually quite important and that is the names that private training establishments use when they market offshore. In fact one of the cases that caused a problem in recent times around private training establishments was an institution called the New Zealand Academy of Studies which was caught selling a business diploma for $12000. There was a related school called the City Language Academy which was eventually deregistered for false advertising. When an institution is overseas and markets itself as the New Zealand Academy of Studies it gives the impression that it is a national nationwide institution. I do believe that the time has come for us to look more carefully at whether we allow institutions to market themselves as the “New Zealand Academy” or the “New Zealand Institute” of something. It does give an impression which in most cases will be false about whether it is a nationwide institution. So I would urge the Government to think about that. I know that my colleague Raymond Huo has looked at this in terms of a member’s bill and I think it is something that should be considered because it is an important part of the way we market tertiary institutions or private training establishments.  
The other issue in terms of private training establishments that is not covered by the improvements in this bill is around whether there needs to be some self-policing and whether we can get private training establishments to work together in the same ways that universities do through the organisation Universities New Zealand and in the same ways that polytechnics do through a couple of organisations they have that bring together the institutes of technology and the polytechnics. I think that would help. It would raise the bar in terms of the quality of private training and I think that is an important factor. So although I welcome the changes in respect of private training establishments in this bill I think more can be done to ensure they do provide quality.  
I want to briefly refer to the creation of Education New Zealand the combined agency that will work on marketing and promotion of New Zealand education overseas. I welcome this change. I think it is timely to bring this exercise together. As somebody who worked in this field and travelled to Asia to help promote the institution I was working for I can say that when we work together we do it better. We are a small country. One particular visit I was on was to Viet Nam and we went to a meeting with a number of tertiary providers. The Vietnamese Government officials asked us whether we would be able to take 50000 students over the next couple of years to do English language training. That was a challenging task for the institutions that were there. We could not do that but by working together the institutions were able to take a large number of people. The bill will allow institutions to work more efficiently with the Government. It will allow Ministry of Education officials to focus on what they need to focus on and to stay focused—just as Mr Quinn is. The officials will be able to make sure they have an excellent programme for promoting New Zealand education. I welcome the changes to Education New Zealand in the bill and congratulate the new chair Mr Charles Finny who I am sure with his experience as a diplomat will be able to lead that organisation. I hope that it will see the continuation of the importance of international education and export education as part of the New Zealand economy.  
I now want to return to the question that dominated the Committee stage of the debate which is around the changes to the management of compulsory student services fees. I will clarify for those new to the debate that compulsory student services fees are the kinds of fees that get charged for things in tertiary institutions like the student health and counselling services the careers advice services or creche facilities that might be provided by the institutions. These fees are charged by the institution. They are compulsory and they are part of enrolling. The problem emerged in recent years that there was a massive increase—an over 100 percent increase in some cases—of fees by tertiary institutions. One of the institutions that was singled out in the debate earlier is Canterbury University which increased the fee enormously in 2009 and 2010. I will quote Rod Carr the vice-chancellor of Canterbury University when he was explaining the increase to students. Rod Carr said that students were getting a “crap deal” from the Government which was refusing to fund higher education at the levels it should. He said: “The underlying problem is we have not been successful in advocating for more money for higher education … The Government made it very clear the real resources allocated to the universities will reduce over the next three to five years.”  
That is a significant problem and one that we have to acknowledge. This Government has failed to invest in tertiary education to the extent needed at this time. In a recessionary environment more people are looking for tertiary education opportunities and the funding has simply not been forthcoming from this Government. In fact Minister Joyce said his goal was to dampen demand in tertiary education which I think is the opposite of what should be happening if we are an aspirational country. If we are ambitious for New Zealand then we need to be encouraging people into tertiary education. Unfortunately some tertiary institutions without the level of Government funding they wanted have put up student services levies in reaction to that. That is wrong. That is not what they should be doing. Student services levies should be for student services. That is why I welcome this change in the bill which will make it more transparent. There will be more accountability on institutions to provide student services with the money they generate from student services levies and it will be possible to cap those levies if the Minister is not satisfied. The Minister will have a very hands-on role here in being able to direct institutions to the categories of student services they provide and even to the types of student services they provide. That is a good thing.  
As I said this bill is not an island; it exists alongside the voluntary students association membership bill—I say with respect to Allan Peachey—which is related for two reasons. The first of those reasons is that students associations provide important services on campus which they now will not be able to provide if the voluntary students association membership bill passes. That is the experience from Australia: 75 percent of the services that were provided went west when the voluntary student membership bill went through over there. That will mean that those services will be transferred to the institutions to provide and if they are working in a capped environment then that will put a great deal of pressure on them. The other factor is that students associations will not be there to be able to be part of this decision-making process. There will be no one for the Minister to actually consult with in terms of representatives. So the two bills are linked.  
I urge the Government to rethink its support for the voluntary student membership bill because the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) in and of itself is a good thing. It will increase accountability and transparency around student services levies but the quality of services that students will be able to get is compromised by the voluntary student membership bill which in turn compromises the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). But we do support the bill. It does a number of useful things in the tertiary education sector and I commend it to the House.