Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to continue on this issue of the new teaching position that is being established by Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 176 now incorporated into the bill by the select committee by majority. I want to turn to page 9 of the bill and I want to start first of all with the definition around line 19 of an employment-based trainee teacher" and what this new position would cover. It "… means a person who is undertaking an initial teacher education programme that includes a period of employment by a board". The first thing that I would like the Minister of Education to explain more about is around the initial teacher education programmes and the approval process for those: are we to take that to mean that it has to be for example a New Zealand Qualifications Authority or a Committee on University Academic Programmes – approved initial teacher education programme or could anybody simply establish an initial teacher education programme in order to meet that criteria? The wording is loose. It does not contain anything around what the initial teacher education programme might have to involve or who might approve the initial teacher education programme. The "employment-based trainee teaching position means a position established by the Secretary under section 91O(1)" which I am going to now turn to because there has been a change to this to the way it was first presented to us in that there is a minor wording change. So what it now says is "On receipt of a request from the board of a school the Secretary may by written notice to the board establish an employment-based trainee teaching position for the school." The question that I have and my reading of this would be that that position could therefore be established only on request from the school board. From my recollection the original wording as presented to the Education and Science Committee did not have the words around on request from the school board. This was a change made by the select committee and I would like to seek some reassurance from the Minister that the effect of this change will be to ensure that that position cannot be established against the will of the school board of trustees. Because under SOP 176 as presented to the committee the Minister was going to be able to impose one of these positions on a school board of trustees. This change that has been made by the select committee—and I agree with the change—basically says that the school board would need to request that. I want to seek some reassurance that that means that there would not be any other circumstances in which a board for example could be compelled to request that by the Government. Certainly the Government could do that in any number of other ways by simply saying to a school board: "Well you won't get this unless you actually ask us to do that." I want to seek some reassurance that no school board would be compelled to establish such a position if they did not think it would be in the interest of their students. I think that that is important. The second thing is that this wording under new section 91O around basically how these new positions are going to be established—so it will be the Secretary for Education who establishes them—does not make it clear where the funding for those positions is going to come from. It does not make clear at all whether the funding for these new positions comes from the school's existing staffing allocation or from an additional allocation. I think that there are important reasons to consider that in terms of how schools operate because if they have for example trainee teachers through an approved initial teacher education programme say through one of the colleges of education that exist now those trainees will be in the classroom in addition to the teachers who are regularly there. Even if the teacher steps out for a while and says to the trainee teacher "You are going to run this class for a bit and I am going to go off and prepare some lessons." or whatever that teacher would still be there and still have the ultimate oversight over what that person is doing. This new provision potentially allows a trainee teacher position to be established instead of the regular classroom teacher who might be there. If that trainee teacher is good then maybe that is not such a bad thing. If that trainee teacher needs some help and some guidance and is not quite ready to be doing the job that they have been appointed to do then those kids' education is going to be compromised. They are not going to be receiving the standard of tuition that their parents should reasonably expect they are going to be receiving at their school. So the question I have got for the Minister is: is the funding for this position in addition to or instead of the existing staff allocation time? I think that that is very important. Those are the two questions that I would like the Minister to turn his attention to."