Delahunty Catherine: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Delahunty Catherine: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:664;Page:12335] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. It is with some reluctance that the Green Party will be opposing the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). There are a number of innocuous provisions and in principle we support the secondary-tertiary partnership that this bill enables. Secondary school is a challenging time for many young people and school in its conventional form is not for everyone. Too many young people become disillusioned with the school system and they leave without qualifications because their interests and learning styles are not taken account of. I have been engaging with secondary school students in a research project about learning models and many from alternative schools—Maori and Pacific in particular—have identified the need for far more diverse and exciting learning models but not necessarily workplace training for all. Recognising this there is still a need to provide for learners who need to undertake workplace training and apprenticeships as secondary-tertiary partnerships do and we see that as positive. We supported the clauses in the previous Education Amendment Bill which allowed this initiative to be developed in Manukau. However we have some concerns about how the partnerships may be developed. 
That is not our major concern with the bill. We cannot support it as a whole. These omnibus bills are difficult because the Government tries to sneak in unpalatable changes behind positive ones. We find elements of the secondary-tertiary partnerships problematic. 
I will take the parts of the bill we are concerned about one at a time. As well as setting up secondary-tertiary partnerships this bill would exempt so-called limited attendance early childhood centres from having to comply with early childhood regulations. The excuse for this exemption is that the kids are there only for a short time and the parents are always close by. But we are concerned that this is the thin end of a wedge. We are already seeing the same Government watering down the requirements for staff to be registered teachers at all early childhood education centres. Our contacts in this sector warn us that this further change could put children and babies at risk and could signal further erosion of the safety and quality of the sector. 
Whether it is for 2 hours or 10 hours standards of care must be met. It may be cheaper for the provider to lower standards and easy for the parents to just drop the kids off somewhere while at the gym or shopping but the Green Party is more concerned about the standards that all children need at all times. We are unimpressed with the undermining of the early childhood education sector in terms of reducing the need for fully qualified staff and we do not support any further weakening of the commitment to high-quality childcare in any creche or facility just because it would suit adults. It will not help the educational system which is what this bill is allegedly set up to do. 
The real minefield in this bill is the proposed enrolment provision changes. Anyone would think that the Government was trying to import private school values into the public sector. There is a particularly odious so-called minor amendment to change the enrolment priorities for out-of-zone enrolment for schools so that children of former students and board members are prioritised. We find that amendment distasteful and think it formalises an old boys’ club in a way that is neither necessary nor acceptable. 
In a change that is blatantly aimed at improving the profits of private training establishments the bill makes it harder for international students to withdraw from their courses within 10 days of starting them by allowing the Minister to limit the refund paid to students who withdraw. The regulatory impact statement of this bill focuses entirely on the security and financial position of the private training establishments. Not once does it consider the experience of students who might arrive in Aotearoa New Zealand and find that the course they enrolled for is not what they expected. It is short-sighted and does nothing to improve the experience for these students or the long-term reputation overseas of our international education centres. 
Other parts of the bill are less objectionable such as those giving effect to the Law Commission’s recommendations about the law regarding private schools. However many useful recommendations have been watered down in this bill once again with the interests of private schools paramount rather than those of students. For example the Government has chosen not to implement the recommendation that private schools be required to comply with standard procedures for disciplining students—suspending or expelling them—because it would be onerous for private schools to have to amend or write consistent guidelines in this area. That is simply not fair for students who may find themselves in the position of being suspended or expelled from private schools without clear guidelines or recourse to that decision. Similarly the Law Commission’s changes have been watered down in respect of sanctions against private schools that fail to comply with lawful registration again with the interests and convenience of the schools paramount in the Government’s mind. 
Although we are broadly supportive of the changes around secondary-tertiary partnerships we are concerned that as drafted in this bill these changes could pave the way for future unacceptable privatisation of parts of our public education system. We opposed the last Education Amendment Bill because it allowed bodies corporate to become statutory managers of schools in some circumstances. We saw this situation as unacceptable because it prepared the ground for public-private partnerships which could see corporations running schools in the same way that has already happened overseas with disastrous consequences in some cases. Now those same bodies corporate will be able to form secondary-tertiary partnerships with other private institutions in the tertiary sector. We are concerned about what this might open up in the future given that they can be the lead provider. 
We particularly object to the bill because of the provisions around enrolment. I support the comments that Kelvin Davis made about elitism and the access of local children to local schools. We particularly support the rights of local children to attend local schools rather than protecting dynasty-based access for the privileged few because a lot of parents and children do not have the choices to move to where the schools are. A lot of them need the high-quality public education sector that Kelvin Davis was referring to. It is not about providing real choice if we undermine the zoning issue and also the issue of local parents having access to those local schools. As somebody whose father went to Auckland Grammar School I do not see why I should have access simply because my father went there. He lived in the zone; I did not live in that zone while I was a high school student. Why should I be privileged over the students who live in that zone? I was on a board of trustees at a particular rural school. Why should that mean that my descendants get enrolment privileges? This is all about setting up dynasties rather than relating to local needs. The public education system is meant to be public it is meant to be open to all students who live in that area and it is meant to be of the highest possible quality. 
Because of the range of issues that we are concerned about in this very broad bill the Green Party will be opposing it with great reluctance because we see the value in some of the provisions. It is unfortunate that we are in the position of yet again having to point out these things because it seems as if nobody else will. We will certainly be raising these issues at the Education and Science Committee and are hopeful that perhaps some of our concerns will be accepted and the bill amended. We are basically concerned that this bill is not about education; it is about things like parents going to the mall. That is not what the Education and Science Committee is there to debate. The issue of whether parents go to the mall and have a nice easy way to drop off their kids is not what we are there to do; we are there to improve the achievement levels the diversity the viability and the accessibility of the public education system for all students. 
We already have gaps in this society between the rich and poor. The Green Party has spoken many times about the gap and we do not want a public education system at this time in history to reinforce that gap in any way shape or form. 
We will watch the bill closely. We will look for good things that we can constructively assist with but at this point we will oppose it because of the issues I have outlined. I do not speak alone; I speak with the backing of the early childhood sector and I speak with the backing of many people who work for the concept of local schools being available to local children. We will watch this space on the issue of secondary-tertiary partnerships. They could be a really good thing and we see their value but they need to be in context and we need to see how they will be implemented before we can show support. 
At this stage we have made our position clear. We also look for ways to constructively improve this legislation. I wish that more of this law was actually about education. It does not seem to be. Tena koe.