Hon Peter Dunne
Minister of Internal Affairs

5 February 2015 Media Statement

Labour just plain wrong about library services to schools.

Attempts by three Labour MPs, Jacinda Ardern, Christopher Hipkins and Grant Robertson, to stop changes to the National Library’s Service to Schools programme, which will see more students and more schools receiving an increased number of books from the National Library, would be comical if they were not so tragic, says Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon Peter Dunne.

The changes, which are fully supported by the Ministry of Education, are designed to reach about two-thirds of teachers who currently do not use the service. These include increasing the number of hard-copy fiction and non-fiction books sent to schools to support reading for pleasure and providing up-to-date information digitally to support curriculum topics.

“It has to be remembered that in New Zealand students are encouraged to explore the whole world of knowledge, which means the National Library receives requests to support a wide variety of differing curriculum topics.

“The current changes will ensure the National Library will continue to support these requests by providing the information digitally, rather than in hard copy, so that it is up-to-date and in formats the current generation of New Zealand students need -.

“It will also make it easier to share the same material to other schools and teachers. This is especially true when the information sought is highly popular or not even published in a book”, says Mr Dunne.

“Labour’s campaign is whipping up fear and anxiety, which is neither justified nor borne out by the facts. The National Library is simply updating the way it interacts with schools, and the resources that it provides following a comprehensive review during 2012-2013, part of which included wide consultation with teachers, librarians and the community.

“The reality is that for children today, access to quality digital resources is far more important than ever before, and that will only increase in the future.

“Labour’s attempts to keep the curriculum support out of the twenty-first century can only mean two things: they either expect the National Library to purchase in advance hard copy books on all possible subjects for all 90,000 New Zealand teachers, or they want to limit New Zealand children to learning about topics for which there are books within the National Library.

“Both of these options are untenable.

“In light of this, I have asked officials to offer a comprehensive briefing about the proposed changes to Ms Ardern, and Messrs Hipkins and Robertson to enable them to make informed comment on this issue in the future”, Mr Dunne said.

For more information: http://natlib.govt.nz/about-us/strategy-and-policy/services-to-schools-transformation

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