Tolley Anne: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tolley Anne: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16337. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. 
The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) amends the Education Act 1989. The changes in this bill will enable the establishment of secondary-tertiary programmes reduce the compliance burden on limited-attendance centres protect the sustainability of New Zealand’s export education sector improve the law affecting private schools make minor changes to school enrolment scheme priorities and make changes to help the Teachers Council safeguard children and maintain teacher quality. 
The first significant amendment will introduce secondary-tertiary programmes enabling the establishment of this Government’s ground-breaking trades academies from the beginning of next year. Trades academies will provide students with clear pathways giving them a head start on training for industry-related qualifications and smoother access to employment. Trades academies will motivate more students to stay engaged in learning and training by providing them with a greater number of options for study. 
Secondary-tertiary programmes are particularly important because they allow students to remain enrolled in school while also studying towards a full qualification with a tertiary provider. The framework introduced by this bill makes sure that secondary-tertiary programmes will be high-quality and that accountability for the delivery of these programmes is clear. 
The second significant amendment in the bill will reduce the compliance burden for limited-attendance centres by exempting them from the licensing standards for early childhood education. Although they will no longer be subject to early childhood education regulatory requirements for education plans qualified teachers and space and ratio specifications they will now be subject to requirements by the operators of the facility and to legislative requirements to ensure the safety and welfare of the children. But parents also have a responsibility to make sure that their children are in a safe place. 
Thirdly the bill will enable the relevant Minister to set through a notice in the  
New Zealand Gazette 
 refund provisions for international students enrolled at private training establishments for courses of 3 months or more. These changes will minimise the undesirable consequences associated with international students changing provider shortly after they arrive in New Zealand. The bill will reduce the financial incentive for students to change provider in this way. 
The bill updates and clarifies the law affecting private schools in response to the Law Commission report  
Private Schools and the Law 
. It also amends the enrolment scheme priorities for out-of-zone students by giving some priority to children of board members and children of former pupils recognising the heritage of many of our schools and the strong family links formed in many communities. 
The legislation also makes some changes to the legislation affecting the Teachers Council. I am grateful to the Education and Science Committee for including these changes to the legislation and to the House for agreeing to a further amendment to ensure that suspended teachers need not be automatically dismissed. 
An anomaly in current law means that the Teachers Council can take a range of actions as a result of a complaint about conduct or competence but not as a result of a mandatory report. The bill corrects that anomaly and allows that these actions include but not be limited to the annotation of the teachers register. This change will ensure that teachers who may be a danger to student welfare or who are otherwise unsuitable can quickly be removed from the classroom while their case is investigated. The current law technically requires boards of trustees to dismiss a teacher who is the subject of an interim suspension and in many cases this may be unfair. This requirement too has been clarified so that an employer of a teacher is not forced to dismiss a teacher who has been suspended while their case is investigated. 
Finally the bill clarifies that the principal adviser to the Government on tertiary education policy is the Ministry of Education. The bill also clarifies the role of the Tertiary Education Commission requiring it to advise the Minister on the implementation of policy relating to tertiary education. These changes will introduce greater clarity in the functions of the Ministry of Education and the Tertiary Education Commission. I commend this legislation to the House.