Hipkins ChrisEDUCATION AND TRAINING BILLSecond ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move That the Education and Training Bill be now read a second time. The Education and Training Bill is the culmination of about 2½ years' worth of work to update and modernise our entire education system and the way that it operates. But particularly it consolidates several pieces of education and training legislation into one Act of Parliament making it more accessible to a wider range of people in the process. I would like to acknowledge the 434 individuals and 96 organisations who took the time to submit on the bill and I particularly want to thank those who gave their oral submissions during the COVID-19 lockdown or disruption period and also thank the members of the Education and Workforce Committee for the diligent and conscientious work on the bill during their time.The bill proposes a number of changes a number of significant policy changes alongside a complete rewrite of our education legislation. The majority of this bill codifies and simplifies and amalgamates all of the existing statute law around the way our education system operates. But it does make some policy changes and I want to particularly focus on the changes that have been amended through the select committee's deliberation. The bill implements changes to the early learning services licensing regime so that the provision of early childhood education and care can be more closely aligned with the needs of communities. The committee's added the needs of children to the list of considerations that the Minister must take into account when considering an application to apply for a licence and for greater transparency and certainty the committee has specified fit and proper criteria to be used by the Minister when determining the suitability of applicants to run an early learning service.I welcome the committee's amendments in respect to the provisions that confirm the right for students enrolled in a State school to attend the school for all of the hours that the school is open for instruction. It has become apparent that some children some of our most vulnerable children are actively discouraged from attending school for the full number of hours that they are legally entitled to be there. This law removes any big ambiguity around that and clarifies that all children are absolutely entitled to attend school for all of the hours that is open. It does allow for there to be a transitional attendance plan which would last for up to six months which would allow for a temporary reduction in attendance hours where that is in the child's best interests. That is often necessary as a child transitions from being in the home to being in school where they may have additional needs that need to be taken into consideration. The committee's amendments would allow for the transitional attendance plan to be renewed once only for a period of up to six additional months. This amendment will ensure that all children no matter how particular their needs are are able to realise their right to attend school full time. They should not feel pressured to only attend part time. Another change that the bill makes is regarding school boards. Under the bill the Secretary of Education will take over boards' responsibility for developing and consulting on enrolment schemes. Boards are currently required to develop enrolment schemes which can be time consuming and an administrative burden. This change will enable the secretary to take a regional approach to developing enrolment schemes and as a result of this it will help to reduce the compliance burden for school boards of trustees who are of course volunteers. It will also improve transparency and consistency with the system of how we manage school enrolments. The committee's proposed amendments which I fully support to clarify in the bill that the secretary has full responsibility for the development and management of enrolment schemes and to require the secretary to consult with the school's board and take reasonable steps to understand the views of the community when developing a proposed enrolment scheme. The bill introduces a new dispute resolution scheme for State schools. The committee has made amendments to allow for dispute applications to be made orally rather than only in writing to allow for recognised caregivers rather than only parents and guardians to pursue disputes on behalf of students under the age of 16 and to make the scheme subject to the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. The committee has also made changes to allow the chief referee of the new disputes panel to filter out complaints that are trivial or vexatious or that are better dealt with by another body. Regulations will be able to be made to ensure that information can be sought by the new panels and I fully support these changes. I also want to acknowledge the committee's diligence in finding a few key provisions that needed to be carried over from the Education Act 1989 that were not carried over in the drafting and that were missed therefore from the bill that was introduced to the House.In addition to the substantive changes the committee has made a range of technical changes such as incorporating the recent changes made to the earlier Acts by the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Act and the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Act both of which were passed after this bill was introduced into the House. The Education and Training Bill was drafted and introduced and sent off to select committee before the magnitude the full magnitude of COVID-19 was known. We've got an opportunity in this bill to make some important changes to reflect the needs and issues that COVID-19 has identified. I'll be moving a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect. That includes delaying the expiry date of the Education (Pastoral Care of Domestic Tertiary Students) interim code of practice until 2022 to allow for the disruption caused by COVID-19 and it makes other minor changes around the interim code. A Supplementary Order Paper will also cancel the export education levy payment obligations for enrolments between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 in recognition of the need for relief for international education providers. It will also propose an amendment to enable the Minister of Education to vary a funding determination following consultation without a stand-down period whenever there is a national or local state of emergency or where there is an epidemic notice. These sorts of changes were enabled by temporary legislation that was passed by Parliament in the wake of COVID-19 and it formalises those changes.I'm also proposing to allow for State and State-integrated schools to provide distance learning to currently enrolled students based offshore on a case by case basis until the end of the 2022 school year and that would include the provision of NCEA.The bill gives new powers to the Secretary of Education to act and respond in future emergencies and epidemics. Again the law change that we passed right before the COVID lockdown period provided some additional powers that applied specifically to the COVID-19 response but of course we have to be mindful that other emergencies can also have an impact on the education sector. Having worked through that more thoroughly now there is good reason for extending those provisions to other states of national emergency or other epidemics. The Supplementary Order Paper will also make other important amendments to the bill. These include delaying the commencement of the enrolment scheme changes until January 2021 adding a new provision to allow the Secretary for Education to approve a provision in enrolment schemes that allows siblings of students currently enrolled at a school to also enrol at that school when an enrolment zone changes in a way that would otherwise prevent the sibling from attending the same school otherwise known as grandparenting. That's something that's been done by enrolment schemes for quite some time but is not strictly speaking allowed for in the current law. So we're tidying that up. We're correcting the law to align with current practice. It allows the Minister of Education to establish subcategories of private training establishments by Gazette notice. I do quickly want to touch on the physical force and physical restraint provisions in the bill an issue that has been very contentious for the teaching community and for the disability community. The bill as introduced changes terminology around physical force and physical restraint. However there are still some concerns that are being worked through and I intend to bring a further Supplementary Order Paper during the committee stage to resolve those issues. It is important that we address the inconsistencies and the confusion that exist around this area of the law but it's also important that we address the concerns that have been raised by the disability community and so on. So we will continue to work on that and we will have a Supplementary Order Paper that will be introduced before this bill has its committee stage. I believe this is an incredibly positive bill for the education sector. It codifies and puts into law many of the changes that the Government has been making over the last 2½ years. It will make the education legislation much easier to follow. It completes some work that has been ongoing for about 20 years to update and modernise our education statutes. I commend the bill to the House.