Donnelly Brian: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:7911] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the financial review of the Ministry of Education for the 2005-06 period. The review showed the level of activity that continues with regard to the ministry imposing requirements on schools to provide compelling evidence of accountability. The result has been more and more red tape paperwork and compliance costs. The outcome of such an inexorable process is that staff energies are diverted away from core business: that of interacting with students in order to facilitate learning. 
New Zealand First says that the time has come to put the joy back into teaching and that the joy of teaching does not come from filling out the latest form for the Ministry of Education. As those in this Chamber who have been teachers know that joy comes from working with children. It comes from the beam in a child’s eye when success is achieved and it comes from sharing the exhilaration with a student as she or he leaps a barrier that the day before had seemed impossible. The question New Zealand First is therefore asking is who reads all the information generated by the schools—all the reports and plans etc.? We would moot that much of the material produced at the cost of active time with students goes unread. 
I will provide an example. I will not mention the school concerned but the document from which I am quoting is a genuine governance document. The document looks at annual goals for example and I will provide members with one of them: to have high levels of literacy in years 9 and 10. The measure is “Year 10 Students average and above (Stanines 5-9)”. The baseline which is the figure for the year before is 57 percent and the target is 70 percent for the year in question. The result is 39 percent. The document talks about the future action being continuing literacy development but it demonstrates that measuring a piece of string does not make it any longer. It also mentions literacy and professional development for all year 9 and 10 teachers. 
I will mention goal number 4 which talks about “ ‘CARE’ Values” underpinning the Waikikamukau college operations. It talks about the number of stand-downs being the measure and the baseline for the particular year is 80 and the target is 70. The result in fact is 131 with a variance of 61. But this is what is written—and I kid members not—as the future action to be taken. It states quite clearly in that governance manual that the future action to be taken is to “Continue the flogging until morale improves”. I will table a piece of paper at the end of my speech to demonstrate that that is what is stated in that document. I want to know who read that stuff who did not pick that up and who allowed that sort of statement to continue to be made in that document. I would suggest that somebody was simply taking the mickey out of the system and that he or she put that in knowing full well that no one would read it and no one would respond to it. 
I also have to mention that the ministry is asking schools to meet deadlines. If it is to do so surely it must also meet the standards it expects of the institutions it serves. I say to Minister Steve Maharey that I am sorry but I have to point out that there have been some errors within his ministry. The review report acknowledges the introduction of a central electronic enrolment management system called ENROL which New Zealand First has been calling for ever since it came into this House. The ministry informed the Education and Science Committee that the system should reduce compliance costs to schools and enable them to attract transient students. Primary schools were to come on to the system in 2007. Unfortunately the reality has been that the system has not reduced compliance costs and has created a great deal of additional work for schools. One of the reasons is that the ministry did not meet its own commitments and deadlines to the schools. Unfortunately the excuse that the ministry used when asked why it had not done so was that it had been too busy. 
Principals have been requested for example to provide information they were not aware they had to supply. Schools were required to give each student’s address and the ministry seems to have been unaware that there is still no uniform rural numbering system across New Zealand—maybe one or two phone calls would have sufficed to realise that. So the ministry has ended up with teachers running around and putting dots on maps. I say to the ministry that that is not good enough. If it is to have a high expectation of schools it must model those same high standards to schools. 
Schools for example were requested to forward lists of pupil absences for 2 days before and 2 days after 1 March. It was not until 2 March that schools received information that that was totally optional—in many cases after the schools had attempted to put that information in place. That brings me to my major point. If a student is not enrolled at a school on 1 March there is no funding available through the 1 March return for that particular child. That system has gone on for a long time. For example if a child leaves a Christchurch school halfway through the week before 1 March travels up to Whangarei and enrols there on 3 March there will be no funding for that child.