Q+A: Hekia Parata & Chris Hipkins
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