10. Question No. 10—EducationNICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 10—Education10. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of Education: What immediate steps if any has he taken to address teacher shortages in early childhood education and does he agree with the chief executive of Te Rito Maioha Kathy Wolfe reported comments that the Government has not done enough to deliver on its commitments and has instead put early childhood services in a holding pattern?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): In answer to the first part of the question since becoming Minister of Education the Government's done a number of things including introducing higher funding rates for initial teacher education providers including those delivering early childhood education (ECE) teacher-training; we've implemented a marketing campaign to recruit more people to the teaching profession including early childhood teachers; the teacher education refresher subsidy which provides free refresher training for those whose registration has lapsed has helped more than 400 early childhood educators back into teaching; early childhood education teachers have been added to the long-term skills shortage list; the Government has increased the number of scholarships being awarded to early childhood teacher trainees by 60 percent—among other things. In answer to the second part of the question I've had some very good discussions with Kathy Wolfe. I don't agree with her on this. For example the Government has increased funding for early childhood education in both of the Budgets that we have been in Government including the salary component of funding rates for early childhood education which compares to the nine years prior where the salary component of the funding rate was not increased once. Nicola Willis: Does he accept there is a shortage of early childhood education teachers and will he act on those shortages by streamlining teacher registration processes—SPEAKER: Order! Nicola Willis: —for teachers returning—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's already done two parts to a question. Nicola Willis: Does he—SPEAKER: No no the question's finished. The Minister will answer it. Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes I do accept that there is a shortage of early childhood education teachers and I note that it typically takes a minimum of three years to train an early childhood education teacher and this Government has been in office for less than two.Nicola Willis: Is he aware that more than 2000 early childhood educators responded to my survey about teacher shortages with 85 percent reporting difficulty in finding suitable early childhood teachers—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's now finished—two legs.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don't have responsibility for the member's survey.SPEAKER: No—you do have responsibility for your own awareness.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well I've read her press statement.Jan Tinetti: Does the Minister have authoritative information about teacher supply in early childhood education?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: One of the great frustrations here is that we do not have good information about teacher supply. When I became the Minister of Education the monitoring tools for teacher supply in schooling were relatively weak and in early childhood education they were virtually non-existent. That is something that we have asked the Ministry of Education to work on remedying. Jan Tinetti: What role have trends in initial teacher education for early childhood education teachers played in ECE teacher supply?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The trends in initial teacher education participation have had a significant impact on teacher supply. In 2009 there were 2990 people training to be early childhood education teachers; by 2017 that had fallen to 1240—a 59 percent reduction in the number of people training to be early childhood education teachers. It is going to take some time to catch up after that nine years of not enough people training to be early childhood teachers.