Tolley Anne: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Tolley Anne: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2653] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Education and Science Committee for consideration. I also intend to move that the committee report finally to the House on or before 28 August 2009 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
The bill proposes two broad areas of policy change. First the bill introduces changes to current police vetting arrangements. Second the bill introduces information matching between the New Zealand Teachers Council and the Ministry of Education. In addition to these two areas the bill will introduce a number of other measures to improve efficiency in the schooling system and to improve education law. 
The first area of broad policy change is police vetting. The bill will improve student safety reduce compliance costs and streamline administration for schools. It will do this by removing the New Zealand Teachers Council as the conduit for the police vetting of all non-teaching staff at schools and early childhood education services. Instead of schools and early childhood education services paying a $10 fee for each police vetting they will be able to apply directly to the New Zealand Police which currently provides the service free of charge. Needless police vetting will be minimised by requiring only those contractors who have or are likely to have unsupervised access to children to be police vetted. 
The changes proposed in this bill will minimise the risk that non-teaching staff and contractors may have unsupervised access to children before being police vetted. Currently the law requires the police vetting of all non-permanent non-teaching staff within 2 weeks of appointment and also of contractors and their staff within 2 weeks of starting work if they work regularly in the early childhood education service or school. The proposed changes will require the police vet to be obtained before the person commences work and has unsupervised access to children. 
The second area of broad policy change is information matching. The bill will provide a better system for ensuring that only authorised teachers are employed by schools. At the moment there is no means of identifying individuals who are teaching in schools without a current practising certificate or with limited authority to teach and who are thus illegally employed. The bill provides for information matching between the Ministry of Education’s payroll database and the New Zealand Teachers Council’s register of teachers in order to identify those who are teaching in schools without registration. This measure is well overdue having been promised by the previous Government since October 2007. The information-matching programme will pick up whether teachers meet current teaching standards thus ensuring that our students receive a quality education. In addition police vetting will be required with any practising certificate renewal which means that any individuals with historical convictions who should not be teaching will be identified. 
A number of amendments in this bill will improve efficiency. School board of trustee elections must currently be held in term one of an election year. Term one is the busiest time of the school year. The bill will allow for the timing of board elections to be changed so that they can be held later in the school year. Currently the Education Act 1989 envisages only an individual being appointed as a limited statutory manager or a commissioner for a school. This does not fully utilise the specialist skills and expertise of education sector organisations that could be appointed to these roles. An amendment in the bill will change this by allowing entities such as boards of trustees to be appointed as either a limited statutory manager or a commissioner. In the case of a board of trustees this change will enable underperforming schools to work directly with a successful neighbouring school. 
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority cannot currently credit special schools to offer the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. An amendment in the bill will enable special schools to apply to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority for accreditation in their own right so that they can meet the needs of students who want to achieve a recognised qualification. Currently a single individual establishment board is created for every new school established under the Education Act 1989. The ability to have a combined board or alternative board constitution is available only after the individual establishment board has been transitioned into a single board elected for the school. Amendments in this bill will allow establishment boards to establish more than one new school and will give the Minister of Education greater discretion to approve alternative constitutions for school boards. Members will know that the Education Review Office has discretion over its frequency of review of State schools but this discretion does not apply to private schools. This bill will provide that discretion. 
The bill will improve education law in three areas. First it will streamline functions relating to the independent disciplinary bodies overseen by the New Zealand Teachers Council. Second it will enhance the efficient administration of student loans and allowances. It will also expand existing offence provisions relating to student allowances and loans. Finally it will introduce a small number of technical and minor remedial amendments to clarify certain definitions and correct drafting errors. 
This bill makes a range of amendments that reduce bureaucracy and at the same time keep children’s education and safety at the forefront of our education system. I commend the Education Amendment Bill to the House.