Potaka Tama; Simmonds Penny; Tuiono Teanau; Tinetti JanTAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Up until 2017 the NCEA level 2 achievement rates for Māori had risen 18 percent to 75 percent—Māori 18-year-olds who had NCEA level 2. They have since dropped to 72 percent. What's the main strategy Minister that you have to make sure that you reverse that trend?PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Mr Chair. Turning now to the tertiary education sector and vocational education: Te Pūkenga the mega-merger of 16 Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand (ITPs) and nine industry training organisations in 2021 had a revenue of $1.17 billion. Te Pūkenga were forecasting in 2022 a $58 million deficit then they reforecast to a $110 million deficit then they reforecast to a $63 million deficit that was premised on the sale of assets and in particular two pieces of land which the Minister would have to have signed off for that to have occurred. Can the Minister inform us what the actual deficit is for Te Pūkenga for 2022?Can the Minister also tell us whether the $8 million of savings that were identified in head office were achieved whether all ITPs across the network that were required to make a 3 percent saving achieved that saving and what the deficit actually was for Te Pūkenga for 2022?TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I wonder if the Minister could give us some detail in terms of her reflections of last winter and the winter plans that were advocated for on behalf of the ministry in terms of COVID and other winter respiratory illnesses. And given that reflection what would she advocate putting in place today to get that support? Some of the things that I'm hearing from teachers and from school communities is that it is having an impact on teachers being able to do their jobs because when teachers get sick they can't be at work. People may have moved on from COVID but COVID hasn't moved on from us. So a bit of a looking back in terms of what was in place there's been quite a lot of movement in the COVID settings. So what does it mean moving forward? Thank you.Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): For Ms Simmonds I'm just getting some figures for you so I'll come back to that.In part of the COVID settings and what has happened in this space can I first acknowledge how tough it has been for our schools—all our education settings but particularly our early childhood centres and our schools. I think that most people in this House would know that kids are very good at sharing and that includes COVID and winter illnesses as well. It has not been easy and it has not been easy for our teachers but we have put out air monitors and air purifiers into schools.Now I also know that this is hard for people to hear but the research—and it's very strong research—shows that the best way of keeping the air clear is by opening windows. Now I know again that people are going to say But winter's coming." I taught in South London winter and I can tell you that I wouldn't have taught in my year 7 and 8 classroom in the afternoons in the middle of winter without my windows open. There are wet socks and year 7 and 8 smells that we had to deal with and I know that you can deal with the fact of how cold it is. There are other ways to deal with that but it is really important that people understand that that is the research.Having said that I hear what people are saying and those are things that we continue to support schools with. We'll continue to monitor the situation. We continue to give advice; the ministry will continue to give advice through their Te Mahau to individual schools that want that support and where the best settings for those individual areas are. Because not everybody's going to need them at the same time. Just because of the way that we're dealing with COVID at the moment you'll have one school where it might be a little bit more prevalent and so the advice was that school or that setting is going to be different to the one down the road that doesn't have any cases in it whatsoever at that point in time.But it's just to be really mindful of that public health advice. Appropriate mask wearing is still an appropriate method to help minimise the spread and just keep mindful of what's happening at your school and your setting at that particular point in time."