Hipkins Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 03 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19210. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]8.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka)to the Minister of Education: Is she satisfied that spending $359 million on the Investing in Educational Success Initiative is the best way to lift student achievement?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Yes. Investing in Educational Success looks beyond the teacher in the classroom to strengthening all of the teachers in all of the schools over time. In my travels around the country teachers tell me that they want opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other. Evidence locally and from around the world clearly shows that raising the quality of teaching and leadership is the best way within schools to raise student achievement. Of course what works in one country cannot just be transported in its entirety to another. That is why Investing in Educational Success draws from the best features of several different education systems as well as our own and the final design is being carried out in consultation with the New Zealand profession and with critical contributions by very reputable New Zealand and international academics.Chris Hipkins: How will she ensure that removing expert teachers for 2 days a week from their own school and away from the students they have been so successful in teaching will not have an impact on the existing students’ academic achievement?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Because the modern learning practice that is increasingly taking place in schools across the country is not the one that the member and I probably experienced which was only one teacher to one group of students for the entirety of their school year.Hon Trevor Mallard: They threw out open-plan learning in the 1970s.Hon HEKIA PARATA: There is a lot more team teaching as that other member may not know since he comes from the dinosaur era but there is greater improvement in the way that teaching is occurring. What we also know from the Learning and Change Networks which came from the sector itself is that they learn better when they learn from each other. Newer teachers learn better from more senior teachers so the provision is to ensure that we get better teachers in every class across every school across our entire country.Chris Hipkins: Why is she satisfied that the money will lead to a lift in student achievement given that a recent survey of school principals found that 54 percent were opposed to the plan outright 27 percent had concerns about the policy and only 4 percent were actually supportive of it?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am aware of that particular survey but I am also aware of the over 70 engagements that have been held with teacher groups with principal groups and with parents across the country many of whom want to understand what the proposal is and how it will work. There is a lot of growing support for this. I just remind the member that of the $359 million only half of it is for salaries for these roles. The other half of it is for inquiry time and the member himself has made speeches about the importance of that. The other half of it is for backfill time because we have about 30000 qualified teachers—Hon Trevor Mallard: Now we’ve got three halves.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I know that fact confuses that member but the other $10 million is—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is now long enough but it is not helped by the constant interjection coming from one member to my left.Chris Hipkins: Why is it not the Government’s goal to ensure that all New Zealand school students are taught by expert teachers given that it is limiting the number of roles to just 1000 across the country or about 2 percent of the teaching workforce?Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is our goal. That is indeed our goal and our intention is that over time the expertise and leadership quality across the system will be consistently raised. The member may know because he will be intimately knowledgable about this that in last year’s New Zealand Educational Institute collective bargaining it bargained for 800 of these very teachers in order to lift the quality. This is significantly more. It is heading in the same direction. The member should be leading the charge.Chris Hipkins: Has she seen the comment from Principals’ Federation—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to ask the member to start that question again.Chris Hipkins: Has she seen the comment from Principals’ Federation president Phil Harding: “It’s vital the Government doesn’t steamroll another flawed model over the top of a profession holding significant and legitimate concerns.”; if so will she rule out legislating for the policy’s implementation in the face of such strong opposition by the people who are expected to implement it?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Indeed I have seen a number of quotes by Mr Harding and many of them are contradictory. Mr Harding led the response to the introduction of this policy by congratulating us and complimenting it. Sorry what was second part of the member’s question? Oh right; let me just say we are continuing to work with the profession and indeed the member may know that we have already entered bargaining with the Post Primary Teachers Association. We have across the country a lot of interest in this policy so we propose to continue consulting.