Dean Jacqui: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dean Jacqui: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2638] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 I rise to support the amendments that have been proposed by our spokesperson on education Bill English and I will tell members why. I think that what we really need in education as parents as parliamentarians and as members of the community is to know how well our kids are doing at school. I talked some years ago to the headmaster of an Oamaru school I am very familiar with and he said to me he wanted his kids to leave the school knowing at the very least how to do their times tables. That was the target the standard he set for that school in Oamaru and I have to say he set all sorts of other very high standards in terms of behaviour homework reading and kids learning their numbers. 
Therefore I support the amendment to insert new clause 5A which has been proposed by Bill English: “Section 60A is amended by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph (b): (ba) national standards which are standards for literacy and numeracy applicable to all students in an age or year group:”. How exciting a thought it is to know that the kids who leave that excellent school in Oamaru at the age of 12 and then go on to the next step in their education at high school which is a wholly different ball game will at least perhaps know their times tables and at least have standards in literacy. They will achieve at whatever level is determined but at least they will go forward with those standards. 
Mr English’s amendment to insert new clause 6A follows on from that. It states: “Section 87(2) is amended by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph (e): (f) a statement in which schools provide an analysis of the progress of students measured against any national standard …”. Yay! Now we will know how our kids are doing against that standard. As the mother of two boys and a girl who went through school and as a parent who was involved closely in their education from probably the very moment they went to day care I know that that kind of information about the school and about how our kids are measuring up in that school is hugely important and hugely valuable. So I support wholeheartedly those two amendments as proposed. 
Other aspects of Part 1 of this bill concern me and they are to do with early childhood education. Again I have experienced early childhood education as an involved parent two of my children having been through day care as it was called back then—a while ago—so I have concerns about some of the provisions in this bill. I believe that some of the provisions in Part 1 are all about unnecessary regulation—in fact about too much regulation. Surely our top priority in education and in day care is actually the kids. The issue is about the care of children; it is not about systems so much. The issue is not about the ministry or the bureaucrats; it is actually about the children. I think that parts of the bill do not focus on the needs of children whatever their age but just add more bureaucracy and more regulation to early childhood education and add yet more sanitisation to our children’s lives. 
Under new Part 26 inserted by clause 43 of the bill I make the following points and I refer to new section 317(2) which states: “Regulations made under subsection (1) may do all or any of the following: (a) prescribe minimum standards relating to premises facilities programmes of education practices in relation to children’s learning and development implementation of the curriculum framework …”—