7. Question No. 7—EducationANGELA ROBERTS (Labour) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 7—Education7. ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What action is the Government taking to provide more resources to the front line and support all students to succeed?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Over the weekend my colleague the Hon Jan Tinetti and I announced that as part of this year's Budget a new regional response fund of $40 million is being established to help meet local educational needs. Funds will be provided through Te Mahau or the education support agency which works closely with sectors and communities to ensure that the support is getting to where it needs to be in the way that it needs to be delivered. Te Mahau was established following the review of Tomorrow's Schools. The fund is going to have a strong initial focus on ensuring that students are going to school and are engaged in their learning.Angela Roberts: What sort of activities on the part of schools will the new regional response fund be used for?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It's really important that we get kids back to school and engaged in their learning and the fund will certainly help to support that. It will provide an opportunity for schools to put extra resources into supporting those who are currently disengaged from their learning and that will include the ability to work with family with whānau and with other community organisations to address any barriers to participation and to make sure that those young people who are currently disengaged are re-engaged. It will also help to ensure that schools are places where all of our young people want to be.Angela Roberts: Has the regional response been informed by experience with any previous initiatives?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes this builds on the $50 million Urgent Response Fund that we put in place as part of our COVID 19-response. The Urgent Response Fund worked on a similar basis allowing schools and communities to come up with initiatives that best meet their local needs. A survey of the Urgent Response Fund's outcomes was completed by 871 of the recipients and it found that the respondents reported that their learners were supported and that there were improvements in their re-engagement in learning their wellbeing and their cultural wellbeing. The vast majority of respondents considered that they had achieved or would likely achieve the intended outcomes for their learners as a result of the fund being there.Erica Stanford: Does the Minister accept that the recent increase in youth crime of late is in part a consequence of the additional 20000 children that have become chronically absent from school since Labour took office and isn't his Sunday announcement too little too late?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In fact if the member looks at the statistics what she'll find is that in the first couple of years that we were the Government we had arrested the trend that we inherited of downward participation in schooling. Unfortunately COVID-19 has once again shifted the dial on that and we do have a challenge as a country to get kids back to school and that is what the Government is responding to. I would note that there are many reasons why kids don't attend school. In fact the entire community needs to play its part in that and parents also need to play their part in ensuring that their children are going to school.