11. Question No. 11—EducationHon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 11—Education11. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Is he confident that the Government's school donations policy is delivering on its commitment to break down financial barriers to participate in education at all levels?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Absolutely yes.Hon Nikki Kaye: How many children does he estimate are living in benefit-dependent households who attend decile eight to 10 schools and did he adequately consider these children when he made the policy?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: With regard to the specific number I don't have that number with me but I'm happy to supply it to the member. With regard to the second part of the question yes we did consider that. I looked for example at the level of locally raised funds that schools are able to generate and it shows that decile eight schools raise on average per student $836.10 per student in locally raised funds moving up to $937.19 being the average locally raised funds amount for decile 10 schools. That's significantly more than the locally raised funds for lower-decile schools.Hon Nikki Kaye: What does he say to principal Lorraine Taylor who has said The donations policy is devastating news because it will mean parents will take their kids elsewhere" and has he adequately considered potential donation flight and is he considering the principals who are criticising his policy?SPEAKER: Any one of the three.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think it will be the first time ever that a high-decile school has complained about parents potentially sending their children to a low-decile school and frankly that would be a nice problem to have because the evidence clearly suggests that actually most of the flight goes the other way.Hon Tracey Martin: Can the Minister confirm that it was a previous National Party Minister who introduced the decile system directly to reflect the socioeconomic disadvantage in schools across New Zealand and so therefore it has already been recognised historically that decile 8 9 and 10 schools are able to better support their students as opposed to decile 1 1a 1b etc.?SPEAKER: No there's no responsibility for the Minister for that.Hon Nikki Kaye: What does he say to Whakarongo School who have said the following about him and the donations policy: "You publicly stated that if you introduced this scheme it would be for all schools; to not honour that intent is disgraceful and another example of yet another electoral broken promise."?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No we never made that promise. In fact we were quite clear that the costings—and I had this discussion with the member at select committee last week. The policy was costed based on decile 1 to 7 schools taking the policy up. I have not ruled out extending it in the future to decile 8 9 and 10 schools.Hon Grant Robertson: What does the Minister say to the school board of trustees member who messaged the Government to say that their school a decile 2 school had previously been able to generate about $2000 a year in school donations and as a result of the Government's policy would be getting $70000 a year?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That is exactly what the Government is intending to achieve through this policy. We know that higher-decile schools are able to generate significant amounts of funding in their local community—not actually just through parental donations but through the other fundraisers that they do—that lower-decile and mid-decile schools are not. This helps to level the playing field.Jan Tinetti: What does the school donations scheme mean for a rural school like Katikati Primary School who only receive around $9000 a year in donations?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I do happen to have that information in front of me. What it means for Katikati Primary School is that if they sign up to the scheme they will receive around $85000 next year in additional operations funding. It is going to make a huge difference for schools like that who receive very little in parental donations and who aren't able to fundraise significant amounts of money as other schools have been able to.Hon Nikki Kaye: I seek leave to table submissions from for instance Linton Camp School who are destined—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Now what I want the member to do is to properly describe the document not the contents—and if it's a submission it's a submission to whom?Hon Nikki Kaye: I seek leave to table a submission to the Education and Workforce Committee from Linton Camp School which—SPEAKER: So it's a submission that's gone to a select committee. Is it publicly available yet?Hon Nikki Kaye: Not at the moment.SPEAKER: The question is that that document be tabled. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.Document not tabled."