Upston Louise: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeUpston Louise: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10512. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Associate Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): I want to just start by focusing on an area that the Opposition is clearly interested in and that is workplace literacy and numeracy. I want to follow my commendable colleagues and particularly the chair Dr Jian Yang—I want to thank him for his work on the Education and Science Committee. I thought it would be useful to put some statistics on the table. The findings from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey of 2006 showed that around 43 percent of New Zealand’s adult population has less than optimal literacy skills and 51 percent—Carmel Sepuloni: But why did the National Government cut adult education?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —has less than optimal numeracy skills—2006. So it is very clear that one of my ministerial colleagues is clearly lifting achievement for primary school students.I have been clearly talking about the examples of those in the workplace who unfortunately do not have sufficient workplace and literacy skills to do well. That is why I thought it would be useful just to start talking about the fact that we do actually have a clear - funded programme for those who unfortunately the previous Government left behind. The previous Government was not able to provide them with the fundamental skills in literacy and numeracy they require which is why we have a workplace literacy and numeracy fund. It helps employers provide for their employees whatwe know on this side very clearly are the basic skills that they need to do well.But I want to just look at the tertiary system as a whole and say that at the end of the day as we on this side of the Chamber know the higher the level of education that an individual is able to obtain the greater the opportunities they have through tertiary education. One of the myths unfortunately that the Labour Opposition has been putting out there concerns the amount that the taxpayers of New Zealand pay to fund tertiary education. The person in the street whether they are the person who works in the petrol station or those who serve the coffee in the local cafe—they are the ones who fund tertiary education in New Zealand. For an individual student who is studying at university for example and who has a student loan 70 percent of the cost of their tuition is covered.I think it is useful just to put some figures on the table for taxpayers because the Opposition tends not to include them. I want to put this figure again. Taxpayers subsidise around 70 percent of the costs of tuition for—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! I would encourage the member to at least seek a call if she wants to give a speech. In the words of a previous and sometimes esteemed Speaker Speaker Hunt interjections should be rare and reasonable and hopefully witty. I would ask her to dwell on that before she tries to intervene again.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I was saying New Zealand is also the only country in the OECD that does not charge interest on loans after graduation. If you look at the generous support that we provide—well actually the taxpayers; those who work for New Zealand and pay tax and provide the opportunity for students to study at tertiary level—the Government spends 48 percent of its tertiary education budget on financial aid to students. The OECD average is only 22 percent. So we provide 48 percent—as opposed to 22 percent—which is I think a really important and generous package recognising that the higher levels of education for young New Zealanders provide them with greater opportunities.I did want to touch on just one other aspect. I think it is important that not only are we delivering higher levels of education but we are also focused very clearly where industry needs it. One of the exciting developments is the ICT grad schools of which we are funding three. This is recognising clearly that we need to make sure that we are connecting students with educational providers to shape the development of ICT and also research and development. So that is these ICT graduate schools.The other area that I would like to touch on is the focus on the areas of science technology engineering and mathematics. Again we need to focus our efforts on training our young New Zealanders in the areas that we know are high growth and high demand and also have higher wages. So we need to lift the participation rate in science technology engineering and maths and we can clearly see in terms of a report around domestic graduates in 2011-14 that there is a greater proportion of degree-level domestic graduates completing qualifications in these areas which is significant. I am really pleased that we are also lifting the participation rate of women in these areas to make sure that they achieve those equal opportunities as well.