Salesa Jenny: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1038. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East):I rise to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill will amend the Education Act 1989 and I would like to talk about sections 380 and 382 in new Part 32 inserted by clause 38. New Part 32 is about the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ).Teachers have a very important and challenging task in Aotearoa. As a new member of Parliament I have spent the last few weeks visiting local schools meeting teachers and talking with principals and it really brings home just how challenging the task of teaching our children is for many of our low-income schools across New Zealand especially in many of the schools in the electorate I come from Manukau East in South Auckland. Most of them are decile 1a or decile 1. I can tell you very clearly that this amendment bill does not support our teachers. This is not a bill that puts the interests of students or our nation’s future first. The point of this policy should be to support our teachers to become highly functional and autonomous professionals at all levels in the education sector but in order for this to happen teachers must actively participate in the process and have their voices actually heard rather than just being told by Government appointees what to do.Teaching is one of our most important professions. Teachers spend thousands of hours a year with our children and young people. Teachers have an important role in building the future of Aotearoa New Zealand. We trust our teachers to be after parents and families perhaps the most influential people in our young people’s lives but this Government will not trust them even to democratically elect their own representative members on to their own professional body. The knowledge training experience and expertise of teachers are to be silenced by this bill—squashed at the whim of this Government. It is crucial that teachers and principals are democratically elected on to the proposed Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. After all we live in a democracy. It is only through a democratic process that we will end up with a council that is representative of the profession it is supposed to represent. This is only fair particularly given the fact that teachers are expected to pay a registration fee to this body. It is only fair if these fees are to be paid that teachers should be democratically represented on the council. As it stands teachers will be compelled to pay the fees to a body that is hand-picked and appointed by the Minister. The same lack of concern for value expertise and knowledge and for democracy is also apparent elsewhere in this bill and I will speak about this—about wānanga and universities—if I have time.When the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) was first introduced the Minister of Education stated that the bill was the result of a 3-year conversation and widespread consultation that began in 2010. According to the departmental report on this bill 1525 submissions were received. Of those 1032 submissions commented on the proposed establishment and functions of this new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand which can be found in section 382 in clause 38 and the majority of those submissions were opposed to the amendments proposed in this bill. If this Government had actually had a conversation about this bill the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) we would be looking at a very different bill. What is really telling about just how much this Government actually listens care or understands is the fact that although there has indeed been wide consultation this is not a conversation as most New Zealanders understand it.You might say that this has been more of a one-way conversation rather than a conversation as the majority of us would see it. A conversation involves listening and it is pretty clear that this Government did not listen to the over 1500 New Zealanders who made submissions on this bill because most of them were opposed to the establishment of EDUCANZ in this form. It is not a conversation when almost everyone who makes a contribution opposes it and this Government is still intent on implementing exactly what it had initially planned on implementing anyway. It is not a conversation when this Government progresses the bill without actually addressing and taking into account most of the over 1500 submissions that have been received from teachers from schools from universities from wānanga from parents from academics from students and from the public in general.I will now turn to section 171 “Membership of council” inserted by clause 6. The governance changes proposed in section 171 will diminish the voice and representation of staff and students on university and wānanga councils. Staff and student representatives are key stakeholders at universities and wānanga and they should be required participants in council decision-making. Removing staff and student representatives will have a negative impact because both offer valuable skills knowledge and experience to councils. In addition students and staff have a democratic right to serve on tertiary education institution councils. Many of my esteemed colleagues on both sides of this House cut their teeth as student politicians—students who have represented other students—and some were on tertiary institution councils.The report from the Education and Science Committee clearly shows that the changes proposed by the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) are strongly opposed by most of the submitters. In fact of the 1525 individual submissions and 298 oral submissions to the select committee only five—only five—supported these widely condemned reforms. We may hear about the 1 percent but this is taking it to the next level—less than 1 percent. The changes proposed by this bill are universally opposed by the sector because the proposed changes are not based on any evidence or any real arguments and the entire sector says they will have negative consequences.One of these negative consequences includes a reduction in academic freedom and autonomy. Increasing the number and proportionate influence of Government members to up to 40 percent appointed at the choice or the whim of the Minister will indeed give politicians unfair and undue influence on Aotearoa’s wānanga and universities. Universities have the role of being the critic and conscience of our society. Our tertiary education institutions are supposed to be free from political pressure. The changes proposed by the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) will undermine the independence of our wānanga and universities.There is a need for this House to focus on raising the quality of education in Aotearoa and we can begin this by acknowledging by affirming and by supporting our teachers and our academics in the crucial role that the teaching and academic profession have in setting and maintaining the standards for the profession. This bill does not do this. Labour strongly opposes the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). Kia ora tātou katoa.