Davis Kelvin: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:10891] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Party supports the Education Amendment Bill although I do have grave reservations not so much about what it actually contains but about what is omitted from it. The bill has four main purposes and I will go through them. 
First it introduces information matching between the New Zealand Teachers Council and the Ministry of Education in order to identify individuals without registration teaching in schools. Secondly it removes the requirement for all contractors to be police vetted and replaces it with the requirement to police vet only those contractors that have or are likely to have unsupervised access to children at schools and in early childhood education services. Thirdly it proposes that the New Zealand Teachers Council no longer provide a police-vetting service and that schools and early childhood education services can apply directly to the New Zealand Police. Fourthly it proposes that the initial maximum 3-month suspension of a teacher’s practising certificate or authority to teach will be amended so that the suspension can be reviewed after 3 months and extended for a further 3 months. 
My concerns about this bill are not so much about the four purposes but about the fact that when I think through those four purposes I ask myself which one of them will bring about a quantum leap a step change or any sort of effect on the core purpose of our education system which is to raise achievement. Not one single purpose in the bill will bring about a quantum leap or step change in raising educational achievement. Perhaps the first purpose which relates to introducing information matching between the New Zealand Teachers Council and the Ministry of Education to identify individuals without registration teaching in schools may have some impact on raising achievement in that it is important that all teachers in schools are registered. When teachers are registered it means that they have been to teachers college and we can expect that they would have a certain competency. But other than that this bill does not address that which will have the greatest impact on raising achievement which is the core purpose of our education system and that is the calibre of the teachers in our schools. 
I have spoken about the calibre of teachers at length in the House time and again. If we have a continuum of those issues and strategies that will have the most impact on raising achievement and those strategies that have the least impact on raising achievement these four purposes in this bill will be at the lower end of that continuum because none of them addresses the ability of the teacher. The interface between teachers and students is when learning occurs. Even if we were to buy into the Government’s argument that the policy on national standards was the most important policy it had that would have the greatest impact on achievement we would expect that the next legislation the Government brought through would contain the second-greatest impact on raising achievement. Quite frankly none of these purposes will have as much impact as that on raising achievement. For example purpose No. 3 which removes the requirement for all contractors to be police vetted and replaces it with a requirement to police vet only those contractors who have or are likely to have unsupervised access to children at schools and early childhood services is basically saying that the sparky who goes down to the back prefab to fix a light switch does not have to have a police vet. I have to ask this House what impact the sparky fixing a light switch down in the back prefab or the resource room down the back of a school would have on raising achievement. I do not know; it simply has no impact. 
We have spent countless hours in the House on this bill; we are on its third reading and we have been through the Committee stage. We have spent all this time on a bill that will not impact significantly on the core purpose of our education system which is raising achievement. If we were to look at those issues or policies that would have an impact on raising achievement and improving the ability of teachers we should be discussing issues such as the quality and calibre of those people whom we select to go into teachers college in the first place. We should make sure that we have minimum criteria for teacher trainees. Not only that we should also be debating the quality and standard of teacher training. 
I have been down to Christchurch where I have observed the Graduate School of Education. From what I know from my experience as a principal and teacher its training programmes are absolutely superb and we should be making sure that what the Graduate School of Education is doing is replicated throughout all teachers colleges in New Zealand. I was told when I visited the college that when it set itself up it fully expected that within 5 years it would be redundant because every teachers college and college of education would replicate the programmes it takes its teacher trainees through. Instead of its programmes being replicated and copied they have basically been marginalised and sidelined. That is a crying shame because the programmes provided by the Graduate School of Education in Christchurch are first-class. 
The next thing we need to do is ensure that the professional development teachers have once they have finished teachers college and they are out in schools is also first-class and that it follows on from the training that goes on at the Graduate School of Education which uses research-based best practice teaching— 
Louise Upston 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is the third reading of the bill and I should have thought that the member should be addressing the bill itself. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I believe that the member was addressing the bill. The third reading debate is a reasonably wide-ranging debate summing things up. The member was not straying widely of the bill extensively. I invite the member to continue. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: We should be addressing what will raise achievement at the fastest rate in our New Zealand schools. I have spoken about the four main purposes of this bill and said that they will not raise achievement as fast as that. They will have a minimal impact on achievement. 
I remind the House that we need to concentrate and focus on those issues that will raise achievement. We can talk about the police vetting of teachers until the wee hours of the morning but that will not mean that one child will get the National Certificate of Educational Achievement or pass a national standard. All it means is that we are talking in circles and avoiding the real issues about what will make the biggest difference in New Zealand education. I should have thought that members opposite would want to address the issues related to raising achievement. We know that when children achieve as well as or as highly as they can and their potential is met they can then move on to university or business or become entrepreneurs. They can use their skills to further our country. I think this House should be debating those issues that will have the greatest impact on achievement so that students can go on out into the world and contribute significantly to our country—to the economy and to everything that will make New Zealand a great country. 
The Labour Party is supporting this bill. Nothing in its four main purposes will significantly harm the educational system; they just will not make much of an impact. Whether we police vet contractors or whether we have direct links for principals to apply to the police rather than going through the Teachers Council for police vetting none of those things will make any difference or have any impact whatsoever on the achievement of children in New Zealand schools. As I said if we believe what the National Government has said about the national standards policy being the best thing since sliced bread that it will raise achievement and have that step change for New Zealand education then we would expect that the next education bill off the block would be the second most important bill to raise achievement. Quite frankly this bill does not do that. Thank you very much.