Parata Hekia: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParata Hekia: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 28 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15558. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Mr Deputy Speaker tēnā koe. Otirā tēnā koutou tēnā tatou katoa huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei Tau Hou.[Greetings indeed to you collectively and to us all throughout our House in this New Year.]I would like to join in the congratulations to our colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga on becoming a Minister the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. I look forward to working with him in carrying on our Government’s commitment to ensuring that Pasifika communities are recognised for the contribution they make to our country and that they have the opportunity to grow and strengthen that contribution over time through education and through other investments.I would also like to acknowledge Jo Hayes. Tēnā koe Jo. Kei te tū whakahīhī a Ngati Porou i tō hou mai ki roto i tēnei Whare o tātou.[Greetings to you Jo. Ngati Porou stands proud because of your arrival in this House of ours.]I acknowledge those members’ competency and hard work and the fact that they reflect the diversity and strength of this National Government and its ability to speak to communities up and down our country.Our Government has an effective successful and sustainable education plan. Our education plan is comprehensive. It focuses on raising achievement for five out of five. It values the voices and aspirations of parents and it is devoted to strengthening recognising and celebrating the profession while also using taxpayer funds to wisely invest in infrastructure a modern learning environment and digital technology. We want every New Zealand child to get a better education so they can be successful here at home in New Zealand as well as globally competitive whether based here in New Zealand or working overseas.A quality education and relevant skills are the sustainable answer to hardship and poverty. We have a very very good education system. That has not happened by accident and nor will it continue without attention. It is successful for most with our best students being right up there with the best in the world but it has not been successful for all and we are focused on ensuring that we lift up those who have been falling behind while also pushing those who are doing well to do even better.The evidence is clear. The two in-school factors that have the greatest effect on raising achievement are the quality of teaching and the quality of leadership. The major new investment that the Prime Minister announced last week reflects this best evidence. It also follows the best practice in the education systems around the world that are confronting and beating the challenge of delivering equity and excellence—in other words that all children get a great education in their education system. It is what our education professionals are telling us and telling me when I am in schools almost every week of the school year.Our Government has invested the most ever with $9.7 billion this financial year—a 40 percent increase over the past 5 years—going into Vote Education. That has been in the toughest times. Over and above that despite those challenges our Government is investing an additional $359 million over 4 years because we are backing the evidence backing what works and backing our teachers and principals to raise the achievement of all New Zealand children. We are resourcing collaboration within between and across schools; creating career pathways that give teachers and principals further and better professional options; raising the status and profile of the profession; and keeping growing and attracting the best and brightest into it. That is what our new major education investment is built and funded to deliver and we will work with the profession to ensure that we have the design right so that we can meet the achievement challenges of ensuring that five out of five of our children and young people can be successful at school and that we get them on to a pathway to realising their potential and living the lives they want for themselves and their families.We are investing in 250 executive principals who will work with support mentor and lead a community of schools; 1000 expert teachers who will work with that community of schools whose teaching practice quality learning and rich deep and engaging curriculum knowledge and practice will be shared with a range of schools; 5000 lead teachers with exemplary classroom practice who are willing to share this in open classrooms so that other teachers can learn from that practice and take it back into their schools; and 100 change principals who can go into the schools that are struggling the most those of highest need and turn those schools round.These will not be compulsory appointments. They will not be parachuted in. They will not be unfamiliar with the culture of our smaller schools. They will be principals with a proven track record in a diverse range of schools who understand the many inputs that are important to making a school successful for all of those children. Those principals can be appointed to schools only where there have been vacancies and where the board of trustees opts in to the conditions. If they do so then we are making an allowance of $50000 per year on top of an existing salary for those boards to be able to appoint those principals.In addition we have established a $10 million teacher-led innovation fund. We know from the best evidence that professionals learn best from each other and they learn best where they are operating in situations that are practical and realistic and that they face every day. We know that there are outstanding teachers and principals in our education system and we want to make sure that their best practice can become common practice.This major new investment of $359 million is part of a quality teaching agenda that is already well in progress under our Government. It includes a ministerial cross-sector forum which engages leaders from 30 peak bodies professional and unions iwi and Pasifika academics and business people. In that forum many ideas are challenged interrogated and often adopted. We are engaged in transforming the New Zealand Teachers Council into a 21st century body that will meet the needs of 21st century teaching and learning challenges. We propose to introduce legislation to give effect to that. We are lifting the standard of entry and quality of initial teacher education by introducing this year new postgraduate qualifications. We are reviewing professional learning and development for the compulsory school sector. We are reviewing the regulations or are about to review the regulations under the Education Act 1989 to free up the operating environment so that teachers and principals can get shot of the compliance and constraints that really do not make very much difference to create more room for them to make the magic that they do in learning situations in our schools across the country.We are hosting the international summit of the teaching profession here in Wellington at the end of March. We expect to host Ministers of Education from all around the world. At the same time we are hosting education festivals in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch to highlight school best practice to each other to parents and to the community and to celebrate what is happening in our schools. We are having the inaugural Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards in June this year.All of these together comprise a quality teaching agenda that is all about the education plan that our Government has. We know that by raising recognising and strengthening the value profile and status of our education profession it cannot help but lead to deploying best-quality teaching practice and best-quality leadership practice across our 2500 schools so that all of our children can have the opportunity to succeed to have a better education and to go on to have a better life.There has been a lot of talk about education in the last couple of weeks. I am very proud that our Government opened this year with a focus on education and is leading this debate. It is a debate about education. Many of the other announcements that havebeen made are a debate about social development and that is appropriate. We are happy to engage in those debates because we are already doing almost everything that has been announced in these fresh new policies by the Opposition parties.We are focused on education and this major new investment is part of an overall education plan that we have been delivering for the past 5 years and demonstrates the fresh ideas we have going forward. I am delighted to participate in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement and we look forward to raising achievement for five out of five New Zealand children and young people.