Tinetti Jan; Dean JacquiEDUCATION AND TRAINING AMENDMENT BILL (NO 3)Second ReadingHon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3).ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon JAN TINETTI: I move That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a second time. This bill makes a number of amendments to the Education and Training Act 2020. Most significantly it creates an enabling legislative and governance framework for wānanga. I want to thank the members of the Education and Workforce Committee for their careful consideration of this bill and for their suggestions to strengthen this bill. I also want to thank all those who took the time to make submissions and share their thoughts and suggestions on the proposals. The committee received 1124 written submissions and heard 55 oral submissions and it is clear from the submissions made that people care very strongly about the education system and the outcomes it is delivering for learners families and the broader community. I want to draw particular attention to the significance of this bill for wānanga. Their oral submissions were considered and I know the changes in this bill have been a long time coming for them. I know the committee carefully considered their oral and written submissions.The committee has proposed changes to the bill that mainly refine and clarify the original provisions and I am pleased to report that the committee's amendments were agreed to by a majority of members. My colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education) will speak to the changes proposed for the wānanga governance framework in detail and I want to take this House through the other changes proposed by the committee.One of the proposals in the bill which generated a lot of interest throughout the select committee process is to modernise and expand the language of criteria that school boards use to co-opt or appoint members to a board. Co-option is an optional tool that boards can use to supplement their elected membership. When boards choose to co-opt or appoint a person they have to be guided by the cooption criteria as far as is reasonably practical. We know from self-reported data that only about 5 percent of all board members in 2020 were co-opted members. The bill proposes to ensure that the genders sexualities sexes and disabilities of their students and school community must also be taken into account as part of the co-option or appointment decision. I want to recognise that this is a sensitive issue and that many submitters did not support this proposal. I want to take some time to now speak to some of the key issues raised.A key issue raised by submitters is that this proposal would take away from schools' and their communities' choice about who sits on their school boards. Some people preferred that instead of adding new criteria all of the existing criteria should be replaced with a general requirement that when co-opting or appointing members boards need to consider the diversity of their students and school community. I want to reiterate that co-option is an optional tool to help boards get a good balance of skills and perspective around the board table. The choice to co-op rests with the board or in the case of State integrated schools the proprietors of the school. The changes provide helpful prompts to the school board to ensure that they are thinking about the diverse perspectives of their school community that will support great educational outcomes for the learners within their school. Submitters were concerned that this proposal could lead to schools having to collect sensitive information about the genders sexualities and disabilities of their students and school community members for the purpose of co-option. None of the existing co-option and appointment criteria require or expect boards or anyone else to collect and store information. In practice co-option is often progressed informally based on the relationships and networks between whānau in the school community such as the board reaching out to someone they know in that community who has property development or management experience—as the case has been and I've been in that case before—who can help with an upcoming property redevelopment project for the school. I believe that these new criteria along with the existing criteria will support boards to think about and reach out to their LGBTIQA+ and disabled school communities for any additional support they need to create a school culture that supports all of their diverse learners.Some people suggested that the bill should include definitions for terms like genders" and "sexualities". Currently definitions are not included for any of the existing co-option and appointment criteria. To be consistent with this approach the bill does not propose to define the terms in the new criteria. I also do not consider that further specifying what the terms "genders" and "sexualities" mean would be appropriate responsive or at least enduring. Society's understanding about gender and sexuality is evolving and the broad terms used in this bill will ensure that the criteria can be inclusive of the diverse range of perspectives that people hold within these communities.The committee made two minor changes to this proposal to clarify the language in the bill. For consistency the committee made a change to ensure that the co-option and appointment criteria relating to ethnic and socio-economic diversity and the genders sexualities and sexes apply to both the student body of the school and the school's community as defined in the Act. The new criterion relating to disability already included a reference to the school's disabled community. The committee also made a change to separate the existing criterion of the ethnic and socio-economic diversity into two criteria. This is to respond to a point a submitter raised that ethnicity and socio-economic status are not always linked.I want now to turn to the other changes that the select committee proposed. For the proposal to allow the Ministry of Education to access data from Statistics New Zealand relating to early childhood education services. The committee has recommended a change to the drafting to clarify that the disclosed data can only be at the level of an early childhood service and cannot include personal information within the meaning of the Privacy Act 2020. The only exception is for an early childhood service that is operated by an individual such as a sole trader where the data would be considered personal information. These service providers must consent to the publication or disclosure of their information before it can be disclosed. For police vetting the committee made a change to include a requirement that when undertaking the risk assessment based on police vets early childhood education services and schools must take into account any guidelines on risk assessments issued by the Ministry of Education. The university and wānanga remuneration reporting: the committee recommended that a university or wānanga will also report the compensation and other benefits of an employee or former employee including the chief executive if the total remuneration is $100000 or above.And finally for the proposal to broaden the regulation-making powers in the Act in respect of school opening hours the committee received advice from the Regulations Review Committee with suggestions to make the policy intent clearer. The Education and Workforce Committee has recommended a small change to this proposal to insert standard text into the Act specifying that a notice issued by the Minister of Education to set school opening hours as secondary legislation.I am certain that this bill will support a more enduring and responsive education system benefiting learners and whānau across New Zealand. I am pleased to commend the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."