Tolley Anne: Urgent Debates — Educational Achievement—OECD Programme for International Student Assessment ReportText is subject to correctionTolley Anne: Urgent Debates — Educational Achievement—OECD Programme for International Student Assessment Report[Sitting date: 04 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15233. Text is subject to correction.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): Excuses excuses and more excuses. Every time we talk about education what do we get from Labour and its close friends the unions? All we have heard for the last few years is excuses excuses and all the while our students have been falling behind—slowly steadily and surely falling behind the rest of the world. It is always someone else’s fault. It is never Labour’s fault. It is never that Government’s fault. And when we dared to suggest that we actually follow and measure a child’s progress and talk to the parents about that child’s progress what did we get from the unions and from Labour—nothing nothing helpful nothing constructive. They fought it actively every step of the way. They said to us: “We don’t need to measure anything.”I have heard principals stand up and ask “Why are we measuring kids’ progress because actually if they fall behind a little bit in those first years they will catch up when they’re ready”. I have had parents say to me that they have been told time and time again by their teachers: “Don’t worry about little Johnny if he’s not learning to read yet because he’ll catch up when he gets a bit older.” Well they have not caught up.Now that the evidence is clear Labour and the teacher unions should be hanging their heads in shame because they have failed those kids. There are no excuses. They have to take responsibility. They sat there for 9 years as a Government and believed it when the unions told them that everything was OK. The union mantra was “We know who these kids are who are failing.” And I heard Chris Hipkins say that again this morning—“We know who these kids are who are failing.” Well my question is always “What did you do for 9 years while you watched those kids fail?” because this Programme for International Student Assessment result is telling us that you watched them continue to fail and you did nothing. You had huge surpluses. You could have done something and you did nothing.Hon Trevor Mallard: She is the guilty woman. She cut the professional development.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: You were a Minister Mr Mallard and you were responsible—after National had been in Government.I have a quote on my whiteboard on my office. I have kept it because to me it sums up everything that is wrong with the New Zealand Educational Institute and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation in this country. It was from a principal who was a member of both. In a letter to me he said: “The implied message from these national standards is that everyone in New Zealand has to be literate and numerate. What a sad place school will be if this type of nonsense continues.” That is from a New Zealand primary school principal a leading principal in both the New Zealand Educational Institute and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation who does not think it is important for kids to learn to read and write. That is why our prisons are overflowing with prisoners who cannot read and write.Hon Trevor Mallard: Go toKimi Ora and say that. The Minister’s talking nonsense.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: This member should take a call if he wants to take part in this debate instead of casting aspersions across the House and no one is really interested. That is why our prisons are full of prisoners who cannot read and write. They have not been able to hold down a job and they have no skills that would make them employable and that is why we are now facing the truth about our education system— that our 15-year-olds are not the best in the world any more because actually when it came down to it Labour did not care. It did not care enough to stand up to the teacher unions and demand change in an education system that was failing kids.Well on this side of the House we do care. We have put students and their parents first we have stood up to the unions and we have introduced a range of changes designed to address the failure that we all knew was coming—because we did know that this day was coming. We were warned. I went off to the OECD as Minister of Education and it told me that it had warned the previous Labour Government too that the education system in New Zealand was getting complacent that it was not based on evidential learning—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s a lie—didn’t tell me that.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That is not a lie. MrSchleicher warned the Labour Government that it had to make systemic changes and he warned me. We were putting in national standards and the OECD has continued to back the changes that this Government has made. But it is not going to happen overnight and I said in 2010 when we introduced those standards that it could take 5 years or more before we saw substantial change in our system. I said in 2010 that there had been no change in our reading performance since 2000—that was 9 years under a Labour Government—and no change in maths since 2003. So we should not be surprised when we see the results that we are facing here today.Remember that national standards were introduced by the Labour Government because one in five of our kids in school was failing. In other words the schools were failing them. The education system was failing them and the Labour Government had failed them. Education Minister after education Minister did not have the courage to stand up to the unions and make the changes they knew needed to be made. Minister Mallard knew that there needed to be changes made and the union actually backed him down. He did not go through with what he knew needed to be done.This Government introduced the Youth Guarantee which was designed to give free education to students up to age 18 who had dropped out of the schooling environment. They had been deserted by Labour whose only answer was to lift the school-leaving age. Well actually those kids were not at school anyway. They were some of the 30000 truants every day from our schooling system. This Government tackled those kids with some innovative programmes between secondary and tertiary institutions—things like trades academies service academies and tertiary education for trades education in tertiary institutions and now we are seeing over 10000 of those young people re-engaged in education and getting skills and training and qualifications. These are fantastic results for kids whom Labour abandoned.Labour continues to back the unions over kids. We have heard it from Labour members today. They want no change in the system. They are promising to roll back all the changes that National has made over the last 5 years should they ever—for the unfortunate sake of the country—reach Treasury benches. So they want more of the same as through those years of the 2000s when kids were being failed by the education system. Is that really what they are promoting? Well I welcome these Programme for International Student Assessment results because they show that National has been right all along. The education system did need a systemic change. We have been right to shake up the education system on behalf of kids and on behalf of their parents.I am still approached by parents in airports who say “Thank goodness you guys stood up for us and made sure that we got good information about what is happening to our children early on in their school time so that we can make sure that we support them and we help them learn while they are in those all-important primary years.” So all I can say to Labour is “Just get out of the way.” because this side of the House is absolutely determined as the Minister of Education has said to make sure that five out of five kids succeed in our schools. We have got a lot of work to do and we want those people out of our way.