Delahunty Catherine: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 19 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1764. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green)to the Minister of Education: Is she planning to undertake another Partnership School application round this year; if so will any new schools be required to target the same priority learner groups as existing Partnership Schools?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakahaere. E te mema tēnā anō hoki koe. Ngā mihi nui huri noa i tō tātou Whare.[Thank you Mr Speaker. Acknowledgments to you the member as well and to all throughout our House.]No.Catherine Delahunty: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can I clarify whether it was no to both parts of the question.Mr SPEAKER: I think we can take it that it was no to the first part of the question.Catherine Delahunty: Will she urgently—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise. Point of order Grant Robertson.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt Catherine Delahunty but it is a primary question to which there are two parts so the Minister does need to answer both of them. It could be no to both—I do not know.Mr SPEAKER: I think it would clearly be no to the second but if the Minister wanted to help by saying no and no—[Interruption] Order! Would the Minister like to assist the House and clarify the answer.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You stray into dangerous territory if we accept what Mr Robertson has just said. If you read the question it says “if so”. It should be abundantly clear to the whole House what the answer was.Mr SPEAKER: I would have thought it was abundantly clear but clearly there was some confusion to the left of my chair. I was seeking whether the—[Interruption] If the Leader of the House wishes to stay for question time he also needs to be reminded that when I stand to my feet to rule on a point of order I expect silence. It is over to the Minister as to whether she wants to assist the House on this occasion. The answer clearly addresses the question maybe not to the satisfaction of those who have interpreted the question in a slightly different way. I invite the Minister if she wants to assist but she certainly does not have to.Hon HEKIA PARATA: No I am not planning to undertake another partnership school application round this year.Catherine Delahunty: Therefore will she urgently publish the assessments of the current partnership schools so that we can all be sure that these students currently are in a safe learning environment?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I have long made it a practice that when I have considered assessments and reports and made decisions they are published so all of those in that category are on the website. If they are not yet there it is because I have not yet made a decision about them. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Ask the supplementary question please.Catherine Delahunty: Is she concerned that rather than targeting disabled and high special needs pupils—one of her priority learner groups—partnership schools are avoiding them because they are difficult and expensive to teach?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I reject that utterly. In the performance standards that make up the agreement for these partnership schools they are required for their rolls to include 75 percent of priority learners but we do not specify exactly which priority learners make up that 75 percent. All existing partnership schools meet that standard and exceed it.Catherine Delahunty: Can she confirm that there was not one single high-needs pupil enrolled in any partnership schools last year?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I can confirm that there has been no application for an Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme - funded student at a partnership school as the member was advised at a select committee yesterday. That does not in turn mean that there are not students with special needs enrolled at these schools.Catherine Delahunty: I seek leave to table an Official Information Act request response establishing that there are no high-needs students at partnership schools.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular Official Information Act response. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Catherine Delahunty: Does she agree that it is statistically unlikely for 3 percent of all students to have high needs but none of them were enrolled in partnership schools when the schools were required to target them?Hon HEKIA PARATA: No I do not agree because the specification of who priority learners are includes Māori Pasifika children from low-income homes children with special needs and those with permutations of all four. But we do not prescribe to the schools specifically which group of needs they should look for. They are required to enrol the students who turn up in the same way as every school in New Zealand is.Catherine Delahunty: Is the Minister saying that it does not matter whether there are no disabled children targeted attending these schools; so long as there are plenty of Māori or Pasifika kids or kids with other problems we do not need to worry about them?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am most definitely not saying that and I hope that is not what the member is saying either. We want New Zealand schools that attend to the needs of every child and the partnership schools have a standard higher and more prescribed than any other school. They are required to have 75 percent. They meet or exceed that.Catherine Delahunty: How can partnership schools do a better job than State schools in educating priority learners when they are not even targeting or enrolling children with the highest special needs?Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member fundamentally misunderstands our general education system which is that all schools are required to enrol the students who turn up. Schools do not go around hunting for particular kinds of students in order to satisfy this member’s decision as to what is appropriate or not. We have challenges across our system and our education system responds extremely well and we have diverse options available. Partnership schools make up nine of 2543 schools. Let us give them a chance to help these kids be successful.