Flavell Te Ururoa: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:594] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe tena tatau katoa. E te uri o Te Tai Tokerau ka nui te mihi ki a koe. Tautoko i nga mihi nga korero a enei ki a koe ehara wau korero he tika tonu me ki te ngako o era korero. No reira ka nui te mihi ki a koe otira ki a tatau i tenei po. 
[ 
Greetings to you and to all of us. Much admiration to you the relative from Te Tai Tokerau. I endorse the accolades and comments expressed by these ones to you. My word what you said at least the nub of it was on the mark. Therefore much admiration to you and indeed to us tonight 
.] 
The concept of setting standards—high standards—is something that is expressed in many whakatauaki Maori: “Ko te manu kai i te miro nona te ngahere. Ko te manu kai i te matauranga nona te ao—the bird that eats the miro berry can claim the forest but the bird that eats or feasts on education can claim the world.” And there are others of course. I believe that it was a theme that was referred to in the House just recently by my colleague Hekia Parata in her maiden speech. The aspiration of course is pretty easy but it is of no use if there is educational system failure. 
In 2006 more than 10000 16-year-olds did not achieve minimum requirements in literacy and numeracy. Is that a standard that we can feel proud of as a nation? I do not think so. For Maori 40 percent of our tamariki by the end of year 11 and 44 percent of Pasifika students did not meet the literacy and numeracy requirements of year 11. Can we feel proud of that national standard? Hell no! What are we doing so wrong? More to the point what are we doing so right for other students—namely 76 percent of Asian students and 79 percent of Pakeha who did meet the literacy and numeracy requirements for level 1? 
This bill cannot remedy these institutional and longstanding inequalities in its mere three pages but perhaps it is a kick-start to the conversation. This bill will enable the Minister of Education to set national standards in literacy and numeracy and then assess standards against them. The Maori Party suggests that the real test for us would be if the Minister of Education were able to assess the competency of schools themselves to respond to the unique and distinctive needs of their student population. The research by Professor Russell Bishop which resulted in the Kotahitanga project suggests that there is a lot to do here. 
In the Maori Party policy document  
He Aha te Mea Nui? 
 our priority is both to help young people to succeed and to improve the performances of schools. We want to ensure that the public be provided with better information on school performance including Maori and Pasifika achievement. To do that we suggest there are specific and tangible steps that the Government can take. The Government could support professional development for teachers particularly around the notions of cultural competency. The Government could invest in key support staff such as those focused on improving levels of literacy and numeracy. The Government could establish incentives that reward schools’ success and innovation in reducing underachievement and disengagement. The Government could invest in mobile literacy and numeracy services that can reach children parents and whanau in rural areas. These are just a few of the many ideas that the Maori Party—the awesome Maori Party—will be willing to contribute to the education portfolio with the appointment of Dr Pita Sharples as Associate Minister along with the honourable Minister Anne Tolley. 
Our ideas actually dovetail quite nicely with the recommendations presented in the report that the Education and Science Committee released to the House in February of this year. So they should. That inquiry lasted almost 2 years and I was pleased to be a part of that committee when we had a cross-party inquiry into making the schooling system work for every child. There are a whole host of recommendations that are useful in the context of raising standards of achievement in the compulsory education sector. 
An interesting observation of that report was the comment that teachers have plenty of suitable assessment tools at their disposal but that the schooling system as a whole is not using the huge potential of these tools to support programmes to improve student achievement. Our report recommended that more resources be devoted to the provision of comprehensive professional development in assessment practice so that by 2010 all schools have experienced appropriate training in the collection and use of assessment data. The committee believed that this would make a considerable difference to student achievement particularly among the so-called long tail of underachievement. 
The crucial thing is our estimation that not just the right assessment tools are used and teachers are supported with appropriate professional development but also assessments are reported to whanau. Whanau need to know where their children are. Such information is not to label tamariki but simply to assist in showing them that they may need assistance or that they may be doing very well. The gathering of evidence would also hold schools to account and the monitoring and reporting of achievement of Maori students is a policy statement that we intend to follow up over the next 3 years in our agreement with the National Government. Schools simply having information and not using it and not being accountable for a lack of strategy to lift student achievement must be considered in the near future. Having around half of young Maori men and women not achieving at least one single qualification before they leave school should no longer be tolerated and the Maori Party intends to work cooperatively with the Minister to address this matter. 
Although we are generally happy with the focus on national standards in literacy and numeracy I have to say we are concerned about the other set of changes proposed in the bill to do with truancy levels. Truancy rates have for many years now been highest among Maori and Pasifika students yet the problem continues to be ignored despite the inevitable disruption to learning that high truancy rates must create for Maori and Pasifika students. The implications of truancy are not associated just with underachievement. Several of our submitters such as Family Court Judge Becroft and others emphasise that many of those presented to the court were illiterate among other things. 
So we agree absolutely that something must be done but does that mean slapping a fine on those people hoping that increased fines will lower rates of truancy? We do not think so. There is no evidence to suggest that hefty fines will lead directly to improved attendance rates. The bill raises the level of fines imposed on parents who fail to enrol their child at school or who fail to ensure that their child attends school once enrolled. It also allows the Secretary for Education to prosecute parents for those actions. It doubles the daily rates of fines for non-attendance to $30 a day. It doubles the fine for first-time non-attendance offences from a maximum of $150 to $300 and it trebles the fine for parents who fail to enrol their child at school from a maximum of $1000 to a maximum of $3000. 
That is tough. The thing is will bombarding parents with fines make a difference? We say no. The parents whom we are likely to be talking about again according to the evidence in the select committee report are those who suffer from issues of poverty. Hitting them with a fine will we believe do little. In the United Kingdom the annual report of Christine Gilbert Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools grappled with many of those same issues around non-attendance and rates of educational attainment. The 2007-08 report indicated a number of circumstances for individual institutions and providers from which improvements may emerge. They included firstly leadership with a clear and ambitious direction for change; secondly objective open reflective self-evaluation of strengths and weaknesses; and thirdly dialogue and feedback to ensure that needs are being met in a culture of excellence. 
It can be done; all it takes is a vision for excellence. We do support the need for national standards. There should be reporting back to whanau; schools should be held to account. We do not agree that increased penalties will promote whanau engagement in schools and increase attendance rates. To that end our preference is that the changes proposed to address truancy levels could be separated out from the bulk of the bill and treated differently. We have tabled a Supplementary Order Paper for the Committee to consider and we believe that it might address this issue. With those words kia ora tatou.