Parata Hekia: Urgent Debates — Student Achievement—OECD ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParata Hekia: Urgent Debates — Student Achievement—OECD Report[Sitting date: 04 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15217. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I am delighted to be able to participate in this debate because despite the hysterical tone being adopted by the Opposition member Chris Hipkins New Zealand has a fundamentally sound education system. I have said since I became the Minister of Education that the system is top performing for many but not for all. That has not happened by accident nor will it continue without attention and this Government is paying attention. Ever since I became the Minister it has been paying attention. Unlike the assertion by the Opposition member that this is a wake-up call it is not. Our alarm clock rang 5 years ago when we looked at the system we had inherited from those people who are now on the other side and that is why we got straight into fixing this.We knew that we had to understand exactly where every child was in our system in order to be able to target resources specifically to them to help address their learning needs right there and then and not wait for 3-year samples that yes are extremely helpful and inform our decision making. But it is a call to action. As I said in my speech to the Iwi Chairs Forum last week to which the forum responded magnificently this is an endeavour that all of us need to be engaged in. That means that we need to know where our kids are at in the system what their particular learning needs are whether we have the resources to support them and how we can make a difference for each and every one of them.New Zealand has slipped in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment rankings. This is serious but it is not a surprise. We are serious about fixing this. That is why our plan is about every part of the education system.At early childhood about which all the research is really clear investing early is investing for life. That is why we have—despite the Opposition ignoring the brutal facts of reality—raised investment in early childhood education by 74 percent. The reason why we have invested in this is that we trust parents as much as professionals. There are many parents who deliver great early childhood learning to their children in their own homes as do qualified teachers in centres. We are agnostic as to which choice parents make. It is up to parents to decide how and where to send their children for early childhood education. If that is at home with their parents we applaud that. If that is in a teacher-led centre whether kindergarten orkōhanga reo we applaud that.This Government has focused on having a target of 98 percent of our earliest learners participating in early childhood education and we are now at 95.8 percent. We will keep on focusing on what works for communities. So whether that is a Pasifika language - led playgroup or a kindergarten we will support those earliest learners to have that opportunity.When children enter school we want them to develop a strong general platform in primary school. We want it understood whether or not they are able to read write and count at the earliest age and we want to make a difference as soon as we understand whether that is occurring or not.We have invested $9.7 billion in Vote Education this year alone and we have increased that investment every year because we understand how important and how critical education is to every one of our children. It has not been acceptable to us that an average of four out of five children leave senior secondary school with National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. When we came into Government it was two out of five Māori and three out of five Pasifika. We are not looking at averages and in fact we have raised achievement ever since 2009.Sue Moroney: No it’s going backwards.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I get that the members opposite and one in particular are not interested in reality or facts or evidence but we have actually had improvements year on year. How do we know that? It is because we have invested in a data-rich environment. We understand that without data it is just another person’s opinion.We are interested in data and in making a difference. That is why we introduced national standards. Every parent and teacher wanted to know specifically where their child was once every 3 years but also every year and every 6 months which is what is required under this Government. But they can also find out how their child is doing in national standards at any time. We are not asking teachers as has been asserted by the Opposition to do more assessment. We are asking them to use their overall teacher judgment to make a decision as to how well their children are doing and what we need to do next to improve that and to ensure that their parents understand because parents want the best for their children and they want to be involved in helping their children to improve.I do go out to schools. In fact I have a very structured 40 Friday programme because there are 40 Fridays in a school year. I am in schools every Friday somewhere around the country. I listen to what teachers have to say and I take action as a result of that.Sue Moroney: It’s no wonder they’re going backwards.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Most recently—if the member cared to listen instead of haranguing from that side of the House—it was said that professional learning was not meeting their particular needs so I have introduced a review. We heard that teachers required more maths and science resources so we have invested in that.We know that kids do better if they participate early. We know that kids do better if their parents are engaged. We know that kids do better if the community in which their school is located holds high expectations of and for them. So this year for the first time we have published by local authority and rohe the specific achievement of kids so that those communities can join together in raising achievement for each and every one of them.The 4000 15-year-olds who sat the Programme for International Student Assessment last year showed that our best are still best in the world but also that our least capable students are some of the lowest in the Programme for International Student Assessment countries. Our spread between those who are doing very well and those who are not is one of the widest in the OECD and we are focused on how we get excellence and equity for all. Unfortunately these kids—these 4000 kids—were not caught by national standards but they have been caught by our Youth Guarantee initiative by the fees-free places in tertiary institutions by the increased number of apprenticeships and by the vocational pathways that offer opportunities to kids in the primary sector in the services sector in manufacturing in health and shortly in the creative industries. They willalso have greater focus on NCEA level 2 and we are working with schools school by school on how we raise that achievement.We are prioritising parents by better reporting to them. We are providing better information for the wider community. We are putting more funding into the New Zealand School Trustees Association which is the most formal and structured way in which over 16000 people—mainly parents—volunteer every 3 years to be on the boards of our schools. We have had an 84 percent increase in its funding this year.The biggest effect on in-school raising achievement is the quality of teaching and education leadership and we have invested $37.5 million this year in a quality teaching agenda. The cornerstone of that is the transformation of the New Zealand Teachers Council into the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. Its acronym is EDUCANZ not “Edu-can’t” so we can ensure that the professional body of teachers is fit for the 21st century. We are also introducing from next year initial teacher qualifications that strike a much stronger balance between education theory and great classroom practice. We have introduced excellence awards because we want to be able to highlight and spotlight to the community what excellence looks like. There are many examples of that up and down the country where teachers are creating magic in classrooms every day with their students. We want to highlight that.Most particularly we want to create a more constructive public conversation around education. We want to be able to attract the best and brightest to join the profession. If all they ever hear is binary oppositional statements about education then why would they be attracted to doing that? So we are investing next year in education—Sue Moroney: You cut the funding for teachers in early childhood.Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member keeps parroting that we have cut the funding. How can you have a 74 percent increase in early childhood education and a 40 percent increase in schooling and say that it constitutes a cut? It just does not bear scrutiny. It is laughable frankly. It is just absolutely ridiculous. In fact it is an example of exactly what I have just been alluding to. We cannot get a constructive education conversation in this country. Until we grow up and start having a constructive—Hon Members: Oh!Hon HEKIA PARATA: —a constructive—education conversation it will be very difficult to persuade young people to choose teaching as a career.I grew up in a community where teachers were revered. I was really proud that my father was one of those teachers and I am proud that my sisters joined the profession. I am proud of all the people I know who have committed their lives to this vocation of teaching. That is why we have invested $9.7 billion—Dr Megan Woods: Why do you denigrate them as union hacks then?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Actually I do not denigrate teachers at all.Dr Megan Woods: You do.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I do not denigrate teachers at all. Can I just—Dr Megan Woods: They shouldn’t have an opinion—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member can take a call shortly.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yes that would be great.Can I just speak to the particular issue of pronouncing children’s names correctly. Can we start with the fact that mine is Hekia Parata and can we recognise that relationships of respect established between 5-year-olds and the teacher between 10-year-olds and the teacher and between 15-year-olds and the teacher actually do start with pronouncing a child’s name correctly whether it is Mary-Anne orMereana. I do not see why that should send anyone into a frenzy. It is a basic common courtesy.So we are working really hard and the reason we are doing so is that we want—Chris Hipkins: I thought it was Trish.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yes it is and I am not hung up about that because I am a comfortable bicultural New Zealander.Nō temea heingoa tipunatēnānōakutīpuna.[Because that is an ancestral name from my ancestors.]Ko Patriciaiheke maiiakutīpunanōKōtimana. Kotakuingoa a Hekia heingoa tipunanōNgāti Porou.[Patricia comes from my Scottish ancestors. My name Hekia is an ancestral name fromNgāti Porou the clan or tribe of Porou.]So yes I am Patricia Hekia Parata. I am proud of both sides of my heritage:Pākehā and Māori. I think many New Zealand kids are.So we want to have an education system that makes our children competitive both internationally and globally and that also embraces those things that are uniquely New Zealand. Our kids—and these things are not measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment—are good at working in teams. Our kids are good at finding creative and innovative solutions to problem solving. Our kids are good at relationships. Our kids are good in the environment. Our kids are committed to fairness and sportsmanship. We want to have an education system that is about kids both being globally competitive and having that Kiwi can-do attitude which is unique to New Zealand. I am bound and determined that the New Zealand education system will deliver both of those opportunities to every one of our children.I am proud to be the Minister of Education in the National Government raising the vote investment every year committed to modernising our education system and making some people uncomfortable with change because if we keep doing what we have always done we will keep getting what we have always got. What we have always got has not been good enough so we are facing forwards informed by what has happened in the past but really focused on what makes a difference. Funnily enough opinion and prejudice are outweighed by evidence and research.Thank you Mr Speaker for giving me the opportunity despite the haranguing of the parrots on the other side—the Opposition—to talk about all the great things we have in our education system and also how much better we need to be doing.