King Colin: Education Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Colin: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9873. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura):It is a pleasure to take a call in the second reading of the Education Amendment Bill. Just to push back a little at the comments from Opposition members if they accuse us of being ideologically focused on things then I trust that they will read their second reading speeches and try to understand the venom that is coming out from that other side which has absolutely no base. When you step back from it we are not actually taking over the State system. What we are doing is empowering communities. We are empowering cultures ethnic communities and groups to be able to find a way forward in education.I just want as time permits to talk about the challenge that confronts New Zealand around underachievement for both Māori and Pasifika. I can clearly understand why the Māori Party is supporting this bill because it would be fair to say that the State system has tried very very hard to be successful in that particular area but it admits itself that it has not succeeded. So on that basis I commend the Māori Party for having the courage and the strength of its convictions to support this bill so that it can have more input into Māori education.The major challenge is definitely about getting the right teachers in front of young people to spark learning. I must admit that in my early days on the Education and Science Committee I was motivated by the Post Primary Teachers Association paper that came out about technology which talked about technology or theory with no practice. That is sort of a piece of work that I have followed through for some time and I say that the limited authority to teach is a halfway house but it does not go anywhere near far enough. Although we listen to the other side talking about the untrained unregistered teachers there are some outstanding people out there who do spark and inspire people and we want to get them in front of our children. We want them to get in front of the communities that are crying out to be heard and to be given an opportunity.I would just like to refer to a couple of the submissions that came before the select committee and just read one from one particular school: “All too frequently we read about how badly Māori are doing at all levels of New Zealand society. Someone somewhere finally has got the guts to do something constructive with the decades of research that says why Māori is underachieving. We acknowledge the Education and Science Committee for taking a stand for our future.” There is another select committee submission here that says: “It is time for New Zealand to be innovative to prove to the world we do have a world class education system for ALL New Zealanders including Maori and Pasifika. At the moment our education system is 2nd in the OECD world for Pakeha and 33rd for Maori. This is unacceptable.”The one I really want to draw to the attention of the House is from Dr Stuart Middleton from the Manukau Institute of Technology who said: “I believe that the accommodation of Partnership Schools … into the education system is appropriate at this time when focus is sharpening on responding to the issues of disengagement”—hear that; responding to the issues of disengagement—“and low achievement the related issues of poor progression to tertiary education and training to pathways into employment” and so on.There were certainly a lot of people who spoke against this bill but on balance I would have to say that there was a very creditable cry for help for further input and I would have to say on that basis that we want to bear in mind that there will be a contract between the Minister and a partnership school. That contract will ensure that ERO—the Education Review Office—will review the learning outcomes. There will be national standards that will be measured against the outcome from years 1 to 8 and they will also be measured against what the national outcome is in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement level. They will be police vetted.So from that point of view what we are hearing from the other side is that they are ideologically opposed to the fact that we look for innovative solutions to address the problems that we are facing within education. I am looking forward to seeing when the first of these schools are opened because in my view we have narrowed down our focus around education. Sure we have got an outstanding curriculum but when we consider what is required to engage young men and young women in education to turn that light—that spark—on to turn it into a raging bushfire so that they see their place in society in being outstanding achievers the partnership school model will help to achieve that. It broadens out the options and choices.Nobody is going to be forced under compulsion to go there. The Ombudsman made a very very poor call when she submitted to us. She said that the Ombudsman should be there to judge and she used an analogy about prisons. But the point that we would like to make there is that partnership schools are not prisons because people can leave if they choose to. They can come in if they choose to. They are not being held against their will. What we hear from the other side is just a lot of noise and a lot of huff and puff and venom. They had no options. They were in Government for 9 years and they accepted failure.