Strange JamieJAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Madam Assistant Speaker thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. This is another excellent bill around the area of education. Building on the trilogy of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill the national standards bill and the Education (National Education and Learning Priorities) Amendment Bill we now have the Education Amendment Bill (No 2).While the Opposition flounders around conspiracy theories on this bill this Government has been busy this week passing a number of bills through this House bringing about positive changes for New Zealanders. Some of the key objectives of this bill are: (1) to ensure that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand ensure that their decisions on matters relating to the teaching profession are made within the context of Government policy; (2) to require private schools to be safe places for students; (3) to remove provisions due to come into force on 31 December 2019 that will enable communities of online learning to be established while the future of online learning is considered in the context of a wider education sector review; and (4) to ensure that school boards cannot adopt a cohort entry policy that enables children to begin school as part of a cohort before the age of five.I'd just like to elaborate on a couple of these points. The first one I'd like to talk about is starting school before the age of five. The previous regime put in place a series of legislation which would enable the option for children to start school at the age of four. Simeon Brown: Ever heard of the word choice"?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Mr Brown please.JAMIE STRANGE: Now the question here is is the age of—[Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! If you have an interjection may it be witty—but not a continuous barrage as we're getting from the member on that side of the House. JAMIE STRANGE: If the member would like to listen carefully I will elaborate on some of these key points. So the question is: is four too young? This Government believes four is too young. Let's have a look at what age some other countries have their young people starting in school. Let's particularly look at the Scandinavian countries who without any doubt regularly achieve at the top of the international field: Sweden age 6 to 7; Finland age 7; Norway age 6; Denmark age 6. We are undertaking a review of the education system to see what the right age might be but we are convinced that four is absolutely too young. One of the key aspects here is around the importance of play: creativity social skills being ready for formal education. We believe the age of four is far too young to be sitting down in the classroom with formalised education. As Fred Rogers once said "Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning … Play is really the work of childhood." There's lots of learning that takes place within an environment of play—the environment of creativity. We believe that the age of four is far too young to start in a formalised schooling system. The second point is around online learning. There's certainly a place for online learning at school. But the issues we have around here are that if we take the teachers out of the education system and people can just learn at home solely online the students miss out on key social aspects and face-to-face aspects with the teacher. The final point is around school safety. Bullying is a real issue. It's important that all schools whether they be public or private have strong standards around protecting their students.This is another excellent bill in the education field. I commend this bill to the House."