Hipkins ChrisEDUCATION AMENDMENT BILL (NO 2)Third ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.The bill improves the quality of New Zealand's public education system. It clears away a series of bad decisions that were driven by ideology rather than evidence and it puts the emphasis back on a quality public education system that puts children's interests at the heart of decision making. This bill ends the previous Government's policy of lowering the school starting age to include four-year-olds. It requires private schools to be safe places for students in line with the requirements on State and State integrated schools. It ensures that the Teaching Council in making decisions on matters related to the profession makes those within the context of Government policy.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. Order! Can members take their conversations out to the lobby; I'm having trouble hearing the Minister's speech.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It removes the provisions relating to communities of online learning it postpones the commencement of new planning and reporting requirements and it makes clear a much fairer and more robust process around a university's name change.I want to turn first to the issues around cohort entry. The bill changes the settings for cohort entry so that only children who have turned five can attend school as part of a cohort. It also provides for more flexibility for parents by providing eight entry points per year instead of the current four per term. This change undoes one of the most damaging components of the last Government's decision to remove the right of five-year-olds to start school the day after their fifth birthday. That was a decision made by the last Government and supported by the current Opposition spokesperson for education—and I congratulate her on her apparent elevation in the House this afternoon.This Government does not consider that young children under the age of five should be attending school. It is too young and it can be damaging. This is consistent with the advice that was provided by the Advisory Group on Early Learning in 2015—a group established by the last National Government to give them advice on what was in the best interests of the child. That group was very very clear that children should not be starting school before the age of five. The age of five is already young by international standards. Many many other countries have a school starting age of six. That is the compulsory starting age for students in New Zealand but most students start at the age of five and that is young enough.So the Government has restored the previous guarantee that young people cannot start school before the age of five. It has been supported by the Principals' Federation by the Institute for Early Childhood Studies at Victoria University of Wellington and by others who want to see decisions around children starting school around the transition from early childhood education to schooling. They want to see those decisions made based on evidence—based on evidence of what is in the best interests of the child—and that is what this Government is going to be doing.The bill brings the requirements around private school registration into line with the requirements that exist right now for State and State integrated schools. They must be safe places physically and emotionally for students. The private schools themselves support these changes and I welcome their support for those changes. This means that we have additional levers to intervene where a private school might not be providing a physically and emotionally safe place for students. The concern raised by the Opposition during the committee stage of this debate was that we didn't need this provision because there was no evidence that it was required right now. One of the reasons that we're putting it in place is we're not going to wait until something happens before we clear up what is clearly a loophole a gap an anomaly in the law. We want to ensure that private schools are held to the same standard as State and State integrated schools. As I indicated the schools themselves want that and I welcome their support for it.The bill makes changes to the matters that the Teaching Council will have to consider when it makes its decisions. This Government has restored the right for teachers to elect the majority of members to their own professional body—something that was taken away by the last Government. The last Government says that this somehow undermines the independence of the Teaching Council—it does not. The council still operates completely independently. They have to consider Government policy; they do not have to follow Government direction. They can ultimately decide to do something different. They are absolutely at liberty to disagree with the Government. They are absolutely at liberty to criticise the Government and they will do so with the credibility of the profession because the profession are the ones who are electing them.Under the last Government the entire Education Council—well they didn't even call it the Teaching Council—was hand-picked by the Minister of Education. That was not going to be a credible and independent voice for the teaching profession. We have fixed that by allowing teachers to elect the majority of members on that council. Members opposite asked Well what's a practical example of where this power might be used?" and the example that I gave them is a very pertinent one at the moment. One of the things that teachers and principals are talking about is the level of compliance that they are currently subject to and the Teaching Council has a role to play there. So if the Government as part of negotiations says "Look we want to work with the teaching profession to reduce compliance to reduce the amount of paperwork that's required" and we issue a policy statement to that effect then we do want the Teaching Council to take that into consideration. We do want them to consider how they could reduce compliance and paperwork for the teaching profession. I don't think that that's in any way infringing on their independence or autonomy because they'll ultimately be the ones who make decisions about that but they should have to consider it. The bill repeals provisions relating to communities of online learning to talk through—those provisions had not yet come into law and thus we are stopping them from doing so. Communities of online learning were basically an option for a student to enrol directly in an online learning provider that did not have to teach to the New Zealand Curriculum did not have to employ registered or qualified teachers and allowed kids of any school age to be sitting at home behind a computer rather than attending school. That is not something that this Government is willing to sign up for. Where children are engaged in online learning—and online learning is a brilliant resource—they should be doing so within the context of our existing education system. This does not stop small schools from accessing online learning in any way; they can do that now. It does not stop students who are home-schooled from accessing online learning in any way; they can do that now. This bill means that schools will not be able to offload those students who are a bit more difficult and who have additional and complex needs and say "Not our problem anymore. They can enrol in an online provider and sit at home rather than be in a school". That's not good enough and our Government is not willing to tolerate a system that would have allowed that to happen and that is why we are removing those provisions.Two final changes that this bill introduces: it defers the new planning and reporting framework for school boards until 1 January 2023. At this present point in time when we are considering wide-ranging changes to the way schools operate it would be unfair to place on those boards and principals who are engaged in that process the additional burdens of compliance and dealing with new strategic plans implementation plans and annual reports in the middle of that potential big shift in the way the education system operates. We want them constructively engaged in that discussion and then ultimately whatever changes are made around schools planning and reporting can be consistent with that. I want to be clear: the Government's not made any decisions about what those changes might be but we don't want to require schools to go through one big change only to then potentially change it again within a year or two down the track.So we've listened to the feedback that principals and boards have given us which is that they want more time and the amendment being put forward in this bill gives them more time. The status quo prevails for a bit longer. Finally this bill introduces a much more robust process around a university's name change. It means that the House will ultimately be the decider of any name change rather than the Minister acting alone. We recognise that many of our current universities were established by an Act of Parliament and therefore it should be the Parliament that determines whether or not those provisions can be changed and the names of those institutions can be changed. This is a good bill. It reinforces our quality public education system. I commend it to the House."