Donnelly Brian: General Debates 
Donnelly Brian: General Debates 
[Volume:606;Page:3582] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 When this Government took office in 1999 it was bequeathed the design of a new national qualifications system the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) which was the legacy of the New Zealand First - National coalition. The NCEA was designed to overcome inadequacies and tensions within the system that had been fiercely debated for over 20 years. That old system culled people out of education and was overly rewarding to those with a narrow skill set but the NCEA fitted that new Government’s agenda. All the intellectual work had been done for it; it was a gift all packaged up and ready to deliver. All the Government had to do to make the NCEA what Professor Black from the London School of Education described as “potentially the best assessment system in the world” was to implement it properly. Sadly the implementation process has been a saga of one botch-up after another. The Education and Science Committee exposed a few of those botch-ups late last year but of all the system’s failures the most serious by far is the appalling escalation of fees that this Government is making parents pay to participate in the NCEA. The implications of the callous disregard that this Government has shown for the day-to-day financial realities of middle to low-income families are horrendous. I use the term “callous disregard” because that is what it is.  
Members on the other side of the House spout forth sanctimonious rhetoric about how much they care about working-class and low-income people and how they will close the gaps. Yet the very students who were locked out from further educational participation under the old system—the ones NCEA offered so much in the way of educational access—are to be locked out again by this Government. If members on the other side really do care about the people they say they care about they will go to the Minister of Education and tell him to fix it. He has the power to fix it at this time.  
The facts are pretty clear. For the 2002 school year entry costs were increased dramatically. The effect of that was to put real pressure on middle to low-income families. A report by the Child Poverty Action Group late last year shows just how much of an impact that made on families. For example children were turning up at exams who had been too scared to tell their parents about the fees. The fees had not been paid; therefore they could not sit the exams. It is recorded in the documents. Here is another one from a teacher: “Students were coming to my office asking me to withdraw them from certain unit standards so that their bill would go down. In some cases the kids had got credits but they still wanted me to wipe them out.” Those are the experiences of 2002. The Minister claims that there is financial assistance for those on low incomes but that is only for people on benefits or incomes equivalent to benefits. The facts are clear—the level of costs in 2002 acted as a huge access barrier to those on low incomes.  
So what does this Government do in that circumstance? Already access is denied but it bumps up the cost for 2003 by 100 percent and in some cases by more than 100 percent. What did it think it was doing? How could it possibly believe that such draconian increases would not impact as educational disincentives? The total amount Government will achieve through this qualification tax—a parents’ tax—is $4 million. It spends more than $100 million on the Targeted Funding for Educational Achievement scheme now and $10 million on a knowledge wave conference and yet it is locking out some of the people it purports to support before they can even get anywhere near the wave. They cannot even get into the water because the Government is locking them out. The rich will not mind—it will be middle to low-income workers who will be hurt badly. The ones who will carry the wounds of this dumb tax grab will be the children whose abilities and capabilities will not be publicly recognised and that is a disgrace.  
What does the Minister say? He says that the principals did not tell the Government about any problems in 2002. Well the principals told him time and time again about a serious crisis in staffing and he pooh-poohed them so he cannot defend himself by saying that had the principal told him of problems different decisions would have been made. I have a letter here from a principal of a decile 2 school in Northland—Dover Samuels’ area—saying how the increased fees will monumentally impact upon his students. He has written asking the Government to revisit those fees. The Minister still has time to fix up this mess—he could revisit the fees and he could find the $4 million.