Pillay Lynne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Pillay Lynne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:622;Page:17377] 
5.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What progress is he making implementing the recommendations of the School Staffing Review Group? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 With the addition of an extra 56 fulltime-equivalent teachers in area schools next year the number of extra teachers employed by this Government has now reached over 2600. Those teachers are over and above those required for roll growth and are a clear sign of our commitment to raise educational standards. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Why has increasing the number of teachers been prioritised above other possible spending in education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Quality teachers can and do make the biggest difference to student achievement. When I became Minister in 1999 the sector identified three priority areas. The first was extra teachers the second was teacher professional development and the third was an initial increase in operational funding followed by an annual inflation adjustment. I am pleased to say that we have delivered. 
Simon Power 
: How can the Minister expect the New Zealand public to have confidence in the staffing of our schools when an Education Review Office report has confirmed that up to half of beginning secondary teachers and a third of beginning primary teachers are falling well below minimum teaching standards and when his officials yesterday confirmed that those incompetent teachers will nonetheless be endorsed with full registration by the New Zealand Teachers Council? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think the member is exaggerating somewhat. But could I draw a parallel and say that at least we do not put new incompetents into leadership positions in the way the National Party did. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no I want the question to be addressed please. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it is fair to say that all of us agree that there is work to be done on initial teacher education and that there is more work to be done around registration. This Government has put time and resources into new teachers in a way the previous Government with Nick Smith as the Minister refused to do. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Is it not true that staffing improvements in the compulsory education sector have largely been used up on providing the guaranteed non-contact time extracted through collective agreement scraps and has had no impact on the real contact time teacher-pupil ratio? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No that is not the case. In actual fact to date almost none of the time except in a very small group of schools has been used that way. Next year some of the time could well be but of course there have been very generous increases in secondary staffing for next year. 
Deborah Coddington 
: How can he claim success in school staffing when because of his totally inflexible regulations up to 60 percent of new primary school teachers are unemployed as they cannot teach in early childhood centres and the early childhood sector needs more than 2500 teachers? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We have introduced as I think the member is aware conversion courses and are encouraging people currently in primary teacher training to convert their courses—and we are paying them to do so. The idea that any primary teacher can become the person in charge of an early childhood centre as promoted publicly by that member is just nonsense. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: What progress has the Minister made in implementing the recommendation of the School Staffing Review Group to introduce a sabbatical scheme for teachers in return for continuous service—a measure that would provide an incentive for young teachers to make a long-term commitment to the profession? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I refer the member to the latest settlements of the agreements.