Q+A
EPISODE 27
Hekia Parata & Chris Hipkins Interviewed by Corin Dann

CORIN Welcome back to Q & A I’ve got Chris Hipkins here from the Labour Party and Hekia Parata from the National Party. Both to talk education. If we could start first, I’ll start first with you Hekia Parata, as the incumbent minister. We hear a lot about how we have of the best education systems in the world but that we have an issue with the tail at the bottom, what’s driving that? Is it poverty, is it parents, what’s going on?
HEKIA PARATA Well, first of all we’ve had a long established gap between our highest performing students which are top of the world and our lowest performing students. It’s a mix, we’ve done the analysis and yes family background does make a contribution but actual presence and engagement at school makes a contribution.
CORIN So you’ve done the research, will your policy going forward be determined by that research? Is that where everything is going in?
PARATA It’s informed by that research, and the most significant difference that can be made is the quality of teaching and the quality of leadership in that school
CORIN so not the parents?
PARATA in school. Out of school, how strongly parents engage with their children’s education, and the expectations communities hold of those young people. And we’re doing both.
CORIN Chris Hipkins, is it parents, is it poverty, is it outside the school gate, what’s the main issue that’s dragging that bottom section down?
CHRIS HIPKINS I think one of the most interesting things to come out of the recent OECD study, the PISA study, was that the growth in inequality, the impact that is having on our education system is getting bigger and we are one of the few countries in the OECD where that’s happening. A lot of the research the government cites about what makes a difference in student achievement does talk about the factors outside the school gate so it’s all very well for us to say quality teaching is the biggest in school determinant of a student’s success, that’s absolutely right but actually there’s a heck of a lot of things happening outside the school gate that has a huge impact.
CORIN What would you do then is it food in schools, is it that kind of thing?
HIPKINS Actually the research says we’ve got to start early, everything from the health of the mother, right through the child’s life. So if mums when they are pregnant, actually there’s a flow on to education, there’s a proven link, so we’ve got to start at that early stage, right from pregnant women right the way through, good start for kids in life, making sure their parents are well supported financially and can support their kids through to quality early childhood education, all of the ..
CORIN They have got the best start policy, 60 dollars a week does that…
PARATA so we have for some time now been focussed on how we get more babies, infants, under-fives into quality early childhood education and we engage the parents, the whanau, the kainga through that. We’ve also had significant outreach programmes with iwi and with Maori and with Pacifica churches and Pacifica organisations because the majority of the kids who are in that big pool in the bottom are Maori, are Pacifica and come from poorer homes.
CORIN sure but you won’t fund early childhood education to the same level that labour would, you are still at 80% for the teachers.
PARATA well under national early childhood education has gone from 800 million to 1.5 billion dollars, we are pretty serious about early childhood education
CORIN it’s not 100 qualified teachers is it?
PARATA no about 95 % of teacher led centres are funded at the highest level. We’ve had more qualified teachers in the 5 years we’ve been in Government than ever before and we’ve left the discretion for centres to determine whether they want to have language specialists or whether they want to have cultural specialists.
CORIN you’d go to 100% for early childhood teachers?
HIPKINS the centres that are providing fully qualified teachers under this government have had their funding cut. So the services offering the highest quality at the moment have had their funding cut under the national government, we’ve said very clearly we will restore that funding because we want to reward the centres that are offering quality.
CORIN but don’t those centres want flexibility, to be able to hire people who are not, who don’t have the full qualification
PARATA correct. And who have trainee teachers who are not yet qualified, be able to employ them
HIPKINS no there are provisions for having trainee teachers
PARATA and have language teachers who can reach out to the Pacifica and Maori communities where we have the most challenge. In terms of participation in early childhood education new Zealand European, Pakeha, Palangi have the highest attendance. We are trying to get all through there because it is true we need to start earlier. And under national more children are starting earlier, staying longer, leaving better qualified.
CORIN ok let’s go to the issue of class sizes and the debate around, and the differences between the two – you’re going for expert teachers, Chris Hipkins why do you think putting 4 hundred million dollars into reducing class sizes is the way to go?
HIPKINS well a lot of the research will tell you that one of the big influencing factors on student achievement is how much feedback they get from their teachers, the amount of engagement between teacher and student and any teacher will tell you that they can have more engagement with a smaller class. The current government’s plan for executive teachers, taking teachers out of their classrooms and out of their school for two days a week isn’t going to be good for the achievement of their students who they currently have in their classroom.
PARATA well let’s be clear, students and teachers are already out of their classrooms, all year four and a half million hours of release time
HIPKINS which is a couple of hours a week per teacher
PARATA four and a half million hours that they are outside their classrooms. What we are talking about isn’t an either or. Over the past five years teacher numbers have gone up in both absolute and relative terms and in addition we’re investing in consistently growing the quality of the teaching across the system. So it’s not one thing or another, it’s both. National is doing both.
CORIN but the argument is people send their kids to private schools because they want smaller class sizes.
PARATA well and let’s be clear about that, private schools make up 3.7 per cent of our overall education system
CORIN are parents wrong when they think that?
PARATA no but what the research says is that for the same amount of money investing in raising the quality of teaching has more effect in reducing class size for the same amount of money. And reducing class size where there isn’t good quality teaching won’t make any difference. So again, it’s about both not one or the other.
CORIN OK Chris Hipkins
HIPKINS there’s no guarantee this expert teaching plan is going to raise the quality of teaching for all students. You are going to pay a handful of teachers significant amounts of money more but actually if you’ve got a brilliant teacher who is in their classroom and wants to stay in their classroom and doesn’t want to move out of their classroom and become a manager for 2 days a week, why is it the current government are saying to them that they should be paid less. They are potentially missing out on five figure increases because they are passionate about the kids in their classroom and they want to stay in their classroom and do the best job for their kids.
PARATA in every profession we are able to see what excellence looks like at different stages in it. And in the NZ education system 70% of all teachers are at the top of their grade. We need to be able to show them and we need to be able to attract the best and brightest graduates who want to be in teaching that there is an opportunity for a full career pathway.
CORIN is there an issue here for the primary school teachers because they are based more in the classroom for the whole day they don’t move around as much as the secondary school teachers and I guess it must be no coincidence that it’s the primary school union that doesn’t want this expert teacher policy?
PARATA so the heart of this policy is how we give kids the best education from year 1 to year 13 and how we make sure communities of schools around that pathway work together for the kids. So the primary school system, we want to cluster them all with each other
CORIN they don’t want it
PARATA we want to cluster them all with each other
CORIN they don’t want it, they don’t want the expert teachers
PARATA we’re saying it’s not one or the other. Well, a certain percentage don’t want it. But I’ve had lots of feedback
HIPKINS 93%
PARATA well we can go through what we think that represents in practise
HIPKINS that was a vote of all teachers, they all had a chance to vote, and 93% votes against it.
CORIN Chris Hipkins, why don’t they want it. We’ve heard the prime minister say this is about Labour and the unions ganging up on the Government.
HIPKINS no I think they don’t see it as being good for education. I think that’s really offensive to the teachers. I mean teachers vote all sorts of ways, to suggest the thousands of teachers all through the country are all aligning to one political party is an absolute insult to them. Actually teachers are looki9ng at what’s best for education and they are saying if we are going to spend 350 million odd dollars, there are better ways to spend that money that’s going to have a direct impact on kids’ educational achievement and I think they are right.
PARATA so why are secondary school teachers saying we do agree
HIPKINS well they are not, secondary teachers have not voted
PARATA no because they sensibly said they have issues and they want to negotiate
HIPKINS they haven’t voted
PARATA we’ve come to the table, there are issues here, we want to refine those issue with you and that’s what they have done. So has the School Trustees Association so have the Secondary Principals.
CORIN the issue here is, if you win another term, will you force it on the primary school teachers
PARATA no we have said from the outset that this is an opt in. well actually we’ve already had expressions of interest from primary schools across the country who do want to be a part of this. The NZEI have said they don’t. They have published their five point plan is. The Prime Minister’s right. It looks remarkably like the Labour Manifesto.
CORIN alright we’ll pick up on that point after the break.

PART 2
CORIN Welcome back to this education debate, let’s go to Chris Hipkins. Are the teacher unions too rigid? Are they living in the past, do they need to be more flexible when they are dealing with the Government?
HIPKINS no I don’t think so. The teacher unions have an interest in the state, the health of the education system, the state of the profession I think they are putting forward a case for what they think will be best for the system.
CORIN will you stand up to them?
HIPKINS if necessary, there is always going to be some tension between teacher unions and the Government on things like pay, because there is always a limited amount of money for Government, but I actually think working together with the teacher unions, the school trustees, the principals is far better than being at logger heads with them.
PARATA that’s why I established a cross sector forum in the last 2 years
CORIN but you don’t have trust with those unions do you? They still feel betrayed about National Standards and that’s the problem isn’t it, you haven’t been able to establish trust with the sector
PARATA well I don’t know if that is the case. I know there are public views that is the case but in the cross sector forum that we’ve been meeting in for the last 2 years, it’s precisely so we can try to engage on the issues that absolutely make the difference. On National Standards we’re in the third year of reporting, we can see the difference occurring and we know teachers across the country are using these to have real discussions about the quality of the curriculum
CORIN ok why are teachers still suspicious that there’s some end game here of performance ranking
PARATA we are seeing less of that right, we’ve established a data framework
CORIN so that’s not your end goal right, let’s be clear
PARATA no the public achievement information framework which we now publish every year and we do it at national, regional, territorial, local authority and schools have their own makes it very clear that this is how we know how well we are doing year on year and where we need to be targeting resources to make a difference. And the better that information is getting, the better we are able to target. That’s why we are seeing improved results for kids at all levels of the system
CORIN ok Chris you would get rid of National Standards, why when we’ve got resource and that 3 or 4 years of work there
HIPKINS The National Standards data is absolutely nonsense. To suggest that student achievement is improving, there simply not the credible evidence base to make that claim. The Ministry of Education’s own research shows that the schools are interpreting the standards differently and what a child is assessed at one school they might be assessed completely differently at another school. There’s no consistency, the National Standards are not consistent nor are they standard.
PARATA they are remarkably consistent actually
HIPKINS no they are not, the Ministry of Education’s own research found..
PARATA when you think about the fact that 30 thousand teachers are making assessments of about 400,000 kids across 2100 schools and they are landing at about the same place or consistently, that’s a great base to be starting from
CORIN and how much impact have those standards had on reducing the range of subjects children learn and the focus of teachers on other areas
PARATA the most consistent and effective schools are the ones that teach engaging and rich cross curriculum and co curriculum programme. Out of which they are able to determine how well a child is reading and writing and doing maths. You can do that through social studies, you can do that through sport, you can do that through science.
HIPKINS so why is the government putting all its professional support, the Government is putting all its professional support only into literacy and numeracy and not into all of those other areas. Funding for science advisors has been cut, funding for support for the arts has been cut
PARATA we’ve increased funding for science. And a lot of them left the country and went to Australia because they were out of jobs.
CORIN hang on a second, parents though, do parents want National Standards, parents want it don’t they?
HIPKINS no I think you’ll find surveys show parents want to know how their children are achieving but they are not sold on National Standards because they know National Standards are a fiction and not a good measure of progress
CORIN so what would you replace them with?
PARATA something
HIPKINS no there’s got to be clear reporting to parents on how their kids are progressing against the NZ curriculum. The NZ curriculum has fantastic progression levels in it already and parents are getting worse information than they used to get. Actually there used to be quite good information that gave parents really good advice on how their kids were progressing and where they were going and as a result of the standardisation process they are now getting less information than they used to get
PARATA you can’t have that argument both ways – that there is no consistency and that it is all completely standardised, actually NZ runs the highest trust model of this kind in the western world. It relies on the overall judgement of the teacher actually in the classroom with these children. And parents do like this, they want to know how well their child is doing, and so do the kids.
CORIN but is the teacher spending so much time trying to get them to reach these National Standards that they are neglecting other elements of the children’s’ learning?
PARATA look that all again goes to the quality of the teaching practise and the strength of leadership in schools. How to support our teachers to do this and do this very well. We cannot continue the decision we had when we came in in 2008. Where kids were arriving at year 9 unable to read or write at that level, and so we have put in place National Standards, and yes of course there have to be improvements and we are working on those.
HIPKINS but teachers will tell you it has narrowed down the focus of what they’re teaching, they are now focussed on compliance and paperwork and testing kids rather than teaching them.
CORIN ok Charter Schools – you would stop them? Why?
HIPKINS Absolutely. Because we believe in a public education system in New Zealand. We’ve got a brilliant education system…
CORIN so what happens to those kids?
HIPKINS if we went to the state schools and said we’ll give you up to five times the funding per student, which is what Charter Schools are getting
PARATA no
HIPKINS .. the state schools could do amazing things for those kids as well
CORIN but specifically those Charter Schools that are up and running, you would throw them out?
HIPKINS we’ll deal with them on a case by case basis and work out where they might fit within the state school system. Because we are not going to have a situation where profit making businesses can not employ qualified, registered teachers, not teach to the New Zealand curriculum, make a profit out of education kids.
CORIN and you would have more?
PARATA factually, factually, well we are in the process of considering a second round now. But factually, there are 340 kids in 5 schools taught by 36 teachers of whom 32 are registered and have practising certificates. They teach the NZ curriculum. They are reviewed by ERO. They are funded at benchmarked against decile 3 schools. We can’t keep doing the things we’ve always done or we will get what we’ve always gotten. These are the kids by in large who have not been successful in other schooling options and by the way this kind of hysteria we are hearing, it was similar when kura kaupapa were introduced and actually Maori kids have done better there than elsewhere.
CORIN ok I want to know, it’s never going to get big scale. What are we talking about here 20, 30..
PARATA no. Look we’ve got a great education system. We don’t know at this point
CORIN it’s important..
PARATA we’re going to evaluate, and that’s what we’ve always said, we’ve commissioned an evaluation of the first two rounds and once we have that..
CORIN I need an answer on this. is it going to go to a bigger scale where you start doing hundreds of Charter Schools. Can you rule that out? Or does it remain a fairly niche sort of thing?
PARATA It does remain a niche sort of thing but we are focussed on diversity. If you have a look at the NZ education system, we have faith based and secular, co ed and single sex, total immersion Maori and English, we are finding what works for kids
CORIN it remains a small part of the system. Ok let’s get some quick answers on things such as Te Reo in schools, would you make it compulsory?
HIPKINS well we’ve got Te Reo being taught fairly widely in early childhood and primary schools now and that’s fantastic. In terms of making it a compulsory language in secondary school, no I wouldn’t go that far but I want to make sure all kids in NZ schools have the chance to learn Te Reo and I wish I had the chance. When I was in secondary school we had to do a second language, our school had a policy that we had to learn a second language and the two options we had were French and German. I would far rather that kids in our secondary schools had the choice to learn Te Reo Maori.
PARATA I had the great fortune of going to Ngata Memorial College in Ruatoria where Maori was taught as part of the school curricula, however, what we know is language acquisition relies on motivation and compulsion is the opposite of that. Our approach under National is to create an environment where young people want to learn a second language and therefore have the resource to do so.
CORIN would you fund more Te Reo teachers, because that’s a big issue isn’t it?
PARATA we’re already funding more Te Reo Maori teachers, we offered significantly more teaching scholarships last year than the year before, we’ve put more support into keeping Te Reo teachers want to teach in schools
CORIN one more quick question – computer coding. Technology. Would you making computer coding something kids could learn?
HIPKINS well they can learn that now. What we’ve got to make sure is that they have got access to technology. There is a lot of good stuff happening in schools at the moment. We want to make sure every child from year 5 has access to a one to one portable device, their own portable, electronic digital device whether it be a laptop or a tablet so they can learn those sorts of 21st century things.
PARATA and as the economy gets better as it has and will under National we will be able to continue to invest in this area. To add to the 700 million we have already put into this space.
CORIN ok Hekia Parata thank you for time and Chris Hipkins thank you very much.

CHRIS HIPKINS

© Scoop Media