Donnelly Brian: General Debates 
Donnelly Brian: General Debates 
[Volume:614;Page:10596] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 Earlier this year the Minister of Education told the House that he believed that it was morally reprehensible and probably illegal for teachers to be paid additional salary for having foreign fee-paying students in their classrooms. I agree with him. We have teachers who have to integrate new immigrants into their classrooms and they do not get any extra pay for that. We have teachers who have to include special-needs students in their classrooms and they do not get any extra pay for that so why should teachers who have foreign fee-paying students? 
But the same applies to principals. Some principals are very good at tapping into discretionary grants. Do they get any extra pay for bringing additional revenue into their schools? No. Some principals are good fundraisers. Do they get extra salary for the extra revenue they bring into their schools? No but I want to tell this House that there is one group that does get extra pay that gets bonuses over and above what they are paid to look after the interests of the New Zealand students in their schools. That group is the principals who have managed to recruit high numbers of foreign fee-paying students—and it is with the blessing and the encouragement of this Government. 
This is how the scheme works: boards of trustees can write to the Ministry of Education and ask it to make an additional payment to their principal. New Zealand First asked some questions around this particular issue. The questions we asked were: “How many boards of trustees of secondary schools have requested approval to pay their principals an additional emolument because of the additional workload created by foreign fee-paying students in 2001 2002 and 2003?” We went on to ask how many requests had been approved for each year. The answers were enlightening. In 2001 10 requests were received and eight were approved. In 2002 38 requests were received and 33 were approved and in 2003 51 requests were received and 38 were approved. Thirty-eight principals get bonuses for recruiting high numbers of foreign fee-paying students. 
They do not get any bonuses for getting high academic standards in their schools—no bonuses are allowed for that. They do not get any bonuses for example for closing the gaps—they are not allowed to get bonuses for that. But they are allowed to get bonuses for recruiting high numbers of foreign fee-paying students and that is where all the incentives are within our schools. The Government is encouraging the process and hordes of principals leave these shores each year on recruitment drives—all funded out of boards of trustees’ money—to recruit as many foreign fee-paying students as they can. 
We cannot blame the boards. Each student can be worth as much as $10000 to the school and when there are 200 or 300 of them that turns into a fairly large amount of money. But there are many secondary schools in areas such as Kaitaia that do not have the capacity to attract foreign fee-paying students so the resources they have available to their students are far far fewer. If students can be fitted into already existing classes there is no extra cost at all to the school. The only extra cost is upon the teacher and the teacher does not get any additional payment. 
This is a tawdry affair. Principals are paid by the taxpayer to look after the interests of New Zealand students in their schools not the interests of foreign fee-paying students. If they claim that foreign fee-paying students provide much-needed resources that is fine. But why are they being paid extra for doing it? That is their job. It is a principal’s job to maximise the resources within the school. 
If they claim that foreign fee-paying students add additional experience of other cultures to New Zealand students why are we allowing foreign students to be enrolled in such numbers that they do not need to intermingle or be immersed? It defeats the very purpose of them coming into New Zealand schools. Surely that is not the appropriate course of action to take. There is no limitation upon the number or proportion of students who can come into our schools. The other reality that makes a mockery of that claim is that this Government’s immigration policy ensures that New Zealand students have plenty of exposure to peers of different nationalities ethnicities and languages—particularly if the students live in Auckland. 
Does this Government allow bonuses to be paid to a principal for inspired educational leadership? The Minister is there so I ask him whether boards of trustees can say: “Look we have got a brilliant principal here he has done a wonderful job can we pay him a bonus?” The answer is no. Is a board able to do that if for example it can demonstrate that the principal’s leadership is leading to very high levels of academic achievement? The answer is no.