Hipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am sure Mr Mallard will have more to say. We are still in the early stages of the debate and I am sure he will have other opportunities to have more to say. I want to talk about some of the Supplementary Order Papers that I have put forward and explain the rationale for some of those Supplementary Order Papers. This is where we get into some of the guts and the technical details of the Education Amendment Bill. Perhaps I will just run through the first ones in the order in which they are in.The first one Supplementary Order Paper 221 is around requiring teachers to be qualified. I want to explain to the Committee what this will do. This will effectively mean that charter schools will be subject to the same requirements as every other school in the country when it comes to employing registered and qualified teachers. I think the reason it is important that the Committee understands that this is the effect of the amendment is that members on this side of the Chamber and around the Chamber have talked about the importance of quality teaching and have talked about the risks of having people who even if they are qualified teachers are unregistered qualified teachers. So they could still be qualified to be a teacher but if they are not registered there are huge risks involved in that. What Supplementary Order Paper 221 would do is it would require charter schools to make sure that the teachers are registered with the New Zealand Teachers Council.I was really heartened when I heard the comments from Dr Pita Sharples when he said that although they were supporting the charter schools legislation they still expected that teachers would need to be qualified. So I thought that was great because the Māori Party has an opportunity to support this legislation and yet still ensure that teachers are appropriately registered and qualified. I hope that the Māori Party will vote for this amendment. I understand it is not going to. I think that means that the things Dr Pita Sharples has said about wanting to have qualified teachers in charter schools are incredibly hollow.The second Supplementary Order Paper in my name Supplementary Order Paper 222 requires charter schools to teach to the New Zealand curriculum. The New Zealand curriculum is recognised as incredibly flexible and enabling. It does provide schools huge scope for flexibility to do things in innovative and creative ways but it ensures that all New Zealand students—all New Zealand children—will be given some basic grounding in a variety of subject areas that every child should have that every student in New Zealand should have. I am really concerned about the potential for charterschools to be used as a way to teach a particular ideological or religious perspective to the exclusion of others. So if we take the issue of science for example it is very possible that charter schools could teach creationism to the exclusion of basic scientific principles under this legislation. Schools can teach religious instruction within existing legislation but there are some safeguards around that to ensure that students in State schools will still be taught science. This legislation removes that safeguard for those students who are going to charter schools. So Supplementary Order Paper 222 ensures that every student attending a school in New Zealand will be taught the New Zealand curriculum. Charter schools should not be exempt from that.Supplementary Order Paper 223 extends the jurisdiction of the Official Information Act to charter schools. This is very important. The Ombudsman came to the Education and Science Committee and made submissions arguing for this to be the case. I think it is really important that the public of New Zealand understand where their money—because it is the taxpayers’ money that is going to be going into these charter schools—is being spent and how it is being spent. Supplementary Order Paper 223 will give that level of transparency and accountability. I think that that is very very important.Supplementary Order Paper 224 will require charter schools to act in a manner that is subject to the principles of natural justice. That is incredibly important. Public schools need to act in a way that is subject to natural justice. Why should charter schools not need to act in a way that is subject to natural justice?Supplementary Order Paper 226 is very important. That gives priority to local students living within the area of a charter school. Although the Government says that these are going to be targeted to areas of disadvantage and the schools will therefore be based in those areas there is no requirement for them to actually enrol students who live in those areas. It is absolutely ridiculous. It is completely contrary to all of the other parts of our educational infrastructure and the legislation around that. I think that is very important.Supplementary Order Paper 227 requires a charter school to notify the Ministry of Education if it is delegating any function or power that it has to somebody else. That is really important because under the current arrangements this legislation has presented charter schools will have quite significant power. They are not going to have a lot of accountability for it if the Government votes down the other amendments I have talked about around the Official Information Act and so on. But it is important that people know who the people making the decisions are. If a charter school proprietor or sponsor as they are called in this legislation delegates to someone say outside of the charter school the power to make decisions under their contract—because it is all going to be governed by a contract not by legislation—then the Secretary for Education should be advised so that the ultimate accountability chain is maintained. That is really really important. That is what Supplementary Order Paper 227 will do.Supplementary Order Paper 228 deals with an issue that is not related to charter schools but is related to the construction of early childhood education facilities on Crown land. The amendments proposed in this legislation will allow a private property developer to establish an early childhood education centre on the corner say of a public school site own that centre own the property around that and lease it to an early childhood education centre—so a middleman. Basically it inserts a middleman into it. It means that this person’s only goal really is to build the centre and make a profit from it. They are not the person who actually delivers the educational services; their only job is to basically be a landlord but they are using Crown land for it. They are making a profit out of the Crown land from that. This Supplementary Order Paper removes that. We already have plenty of provisions that allow early childhood education centres—including for-profit early childhood education centres—to be built on a primary schoolsite for example. But this goes further and it allows a middleman into the equation whose only objective is nothing to do with education; the only objective is for them to make a profit. That is wrong and so the amendment I have put forward Supplementary Order Paper 228 removes the ability for them to do that.There are a few other amendments but I want to skip forward and go to Supplementary Order Paper 241 which requires the Minister of Education to consult with local schools in considering a charter school application. The reason this is important is that if the Minister goes in and approves a charter school in a particular area that is of course going to have an impact on the other schools in that area. We have got a number of areas in New Zealand where we have educational overprovision. The overprovision is what the Minister of Education is currently using as the rationale for closing down schools in Christchurch. We have seen the evidence of that today—Hon Trevor Mallard: Shocking behaviour.CHRIS HIPKINS: —shocking behaviour—with school closures in Christchurch. I think that before the Minister adds more schools to an area where there is already overprovision she should have to consult with the schools that are going to be affected because otherwise what we are going to see is the Minister of Education approving the establishment of charter schools in an area and then going and closing down the local State schools there—closing down the local State schools removing the power of those boards of trustees that currently run the schools on behalf of their communities and they will not be able to do anything about it. I think she or he should at least have to front up to those communities and explain why they are making that decision. That is exactly what Supplementary Order Paper 241 would do.Supplementary Order Paper 240 will allow the Secretary for Education to take over the management if there is a serious problem within the school. At the moment even if the Secretary for Education is aware that there is a major problem with a charter school unless it actually qualifies for the very high threshold of being an emergency the Secretary for Education does not have the power to intervene. These schools will be entrusted with student safety well-being welfare—Hon Trevor Mallard: Unregistered teachers.CHRIS HIPKINS: They are going to have unregistered teachers and yet even if the Secretary for Education becomes aware that there are major problems with the school they will not have the power to intervene. Supplementary Order Paper 240 is a very important Supplementary Order Paper that provides the Secretary for Education the power to intervene. I want to hear from any member of the Government—any member of the Government—why they think that is a bad idea. If they are so confident that these charter schools are going to be so good why is it that they are removing the ability to intervene when they fail? Why is it that those schools are not going to have any accountability and those members are going to vote against the accountability mechanisms in this legislation? If these schools fail the consequences for the students who go to them will be serious. Therefore ensuring that failure can be addressed swiftly and promptly and that any issues can be properly dealt with is very very important. I want to hear from one member of the Government why they are going to vote against this amendment if that is in fact what they are going to do.