Yang Jian: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYang Jian: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 11 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8941. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr JIAN YANG (National): It is a pleasure to speak in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. May I first say hou nian kuai le which means “happy Year of the Monkey” to my colleagues and to all New Zealanders including the members of the Chinese community. The Chinese believe that the monkey is a very intelligent creative and clever animal so those born in the Year of the Monkey will have great careers and wealth. With this in mind I am very proud to be part of a National-led Government that is making great strides towards building a stronger and more prosperous country in New Zealand. We are continuously working hard on delivering what matters to Kiwis. It is about building a stronger economy that attracts new investment and creates more jobs. It is also about delivering world-class public services including health and education.Ensuring every child gets a good education is one of the most important things National can do to raise living standards and also to build a more competitive and productive economy. As chair of the Education and Science Committee I am very proud of what we have achieved and what we have been able to deliver in education. So may I take this opportunity to congratulate our Minister of Education the Hon Hekia Parata on what she has achieved to date.The National Government has set a number of targets particularly for education and we are doing well in meeting these targets. More specifically the National Government is investing $359 million to raise the quality of our teaching and leadership in our schools. We are helping keep our best teachers in the classroom and sharing experience or expertise in leadership across schools to lift children’s achievement. Regular participation in quality early childhood education dramatically increases a child’s chance of succeeding in education. That is why we have almost doubled investment in early childhood education since 2008 and we are also investing heavily in infrastructure such as schools which will in turn create jobs and offer learning opportunities.I would like to talk about our schoolkids learning Asian languages particularly Chinese. It is important that we prepare our children for the future. A trend in the past few decades is that New Zealand is moving closer to the Asia-Pacific including East Asia economically and socially. For instance East Asia as a whole was our minor trading partner in the 1970s. Now it is our most important trading partner. In the 1970s we could barely notice new Asian immigrants but now the Asian population accounts for 11 percent of our population. So not only does New Zealand need to increase the number of students learning Asian languages to support our growing trade and international relationships but also international evidence shows learning a second language can contribute to the development of a student’s literacy skills in their first language. Against this background the Government has committed a total of $10 million over 5 years to increase second language learning for all students.The Government has achieved a lot. We believe that New Zealand is in very good shape. Thank you.