Erica Stanford: Education Minister on Section 127 in the Education and Training Amendment Bill No.2

The Education Minister is hitting back against claims she’s trying to entrench co-governance into education. 

Hobson’s Pledge is claiming that the Education and Training Amendment Bill No.2 includes a section, put there by Stanford, that will force every school board to reflect “local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori” in their policies, plans, and classroom teaching. 

Erica Stanford refutes these claims, saying that 127 was an already existing Treaty clause. 

She told Mike Hosking that section is not the only clause in the Education Act to reference the Treaty, which is why there needs to be a proper review into whether or not they need to be there. 

Standford says there are legitimate questions to be answered, which is why they’re looking into the act, but she did not add them in herself. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's dip in, dip our toe into one two seven
b gait. The interweb is wa washed currently with people
writing to me telling me Erica Stamford is the wocist
minister in the government and under the cover of Dartan
she is snuck into legislation currently before select Committee, a
committee to the commitment to the Treaty that entrenches it
in a way we should all be alarmed about. And
Erica Stamford is of course the Minister of Education and

(00:21):
is with us.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good morning, Good morning, Mike, how I.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm well indeed, you say, what have you seen these emails?
By the way, and this has become a thing this week?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, of course I have, Mike. I mean, this is
what happens when you get a bunch of people who
get all whipped up with hatred and frothing at the
mouth and spouting complete and utter garbage lies. Guess what
happens to politicians, you know, I get sent emails and
messages and all sorts of things telling me how what
an awful person I am, but all based on complete
and utter rubbish, complete lies. There is not a single

(00:56):
thing that said that has got an ounce of truth
to it.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Represents the public on their behalf right.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
It represents one of the boldest attempts yet to entrench
co governance and identity politics in the classroom.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
True or not, No.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Is trio muri being made compulsory in the classroom. No
is co governance being entrenched in the education system. No.
Did I put a treaty waiting a clause in section
one two seven. No, none of those things are correct
at all. There was an existing clause. And when we
went through the process there were some legitimate questions raised
about whether or not there should be a treaty clause

(01:33):
for boards of trustees, and as it is their job,
legitimate questions and I agree they are legitimate questions. And
so now this whole piece of work has been included
in the work that Paul Goldsmith is doing with his
review of treaty clauses, not only in the Education Act,
but in lots of pieces of legislation. So they're all
up in arms about absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Right, let me read you this section one two seven
gives effect to relevant student rights set out in the
SAC the New Zealand Bill of Bright Tech nineteen ninety
and Human Rights Act nineteen ninety three. When students are
made to sing Maori prayers, being made to sing curricus
currica gives no consideration of the person's own culture or religion,
massively offensive. Why is this forced on students? That violates

(02:13):
their Section thirteen right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion,
and belief, including the right to adopt and hold opinions
without reference. Is any of that true?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Schools may well be doing that, And that's why I've
said it's a very legitimate question as to whether or
not there should be a treaty clause in what boards
have to do in their obligations. But by the way
these treaty clauses are throughout the Education Act. You take
it out of one two seven, fine, and it's a
legitimate question as to whether or not it should be there.

(02:43):
They exist all over the place. You take it out
of there, it exists somewhere else. That's why we need
to have a proper, thorough review of all of these clauses,
where they sit, what is the purpose, and what are
they leading to. Now You've also got to remember schools
are independent agencies. They have all like little mini crown entities.
They make their own decisions about what they do. Does

(03:04):
section one two seven have any bearing on that. Maybe
maybe not. As I say, legitimate question, and we're going
to look at it. We are currently looking at.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
It right, but in looking at it with a view
to do what.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well exactly what you've just said. There are legitimate questions
around whether or not a board should be involved in
deciding whether or not my mattrang Amari and Treo Marii
and TiO Marii should be included in the curriculum. Those
are legitimate questions that should be answered. But it's not
only in that section. It's in section four, section six,
section thirty two. Like I could name you a dozen

(03:37):
clauses that it's currently in.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, seven, I mean, to the extent the people who
write and have whipped this up, it is correct to
say it is in there, and therefore the outworking of
that means that some of the stuff that they're talking
about does, in fact and can happen.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Therefore they are correct.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, hold on a minute, likely probably happen at those schools.
Regardless of section one to seven. The more important thing is, yes,
it's there. I didn't put it there that claiming it's
been there for a very long time. Should it be
looked at. Are there legitimate questions, yes, which is why
we're looking at it. But like I say, it's in

(04:17):
many other places, and schools will use those other places
to legitimize their use of cut of care if they
should wish to. So it needs a proper, thorough, careful
look at to work out what are the what is
the purpose of the treaty in education? Does it have
a place, where should it sit? Who has responsibility for it?
Not just chest thumping about one little part in section

(04:40):
one to seven to make ourselves all feel good when
actually it won't make a blind bit of difference. When
what we should be worried about is student outcomes, which.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Is yeah, this is where we get into the difficult part.
I think this is probably in its own way misguided
or not. What drives this, and what drives it is
we want some attendance, and we want some past marks,
and we want some kids getting graduating with actual qualifications,
when what we appear to be doing is spending a
tremendous amount of time down in this particular rabbit hole
on schools who fixate on aspects of life that many

(05:11):
would argue are not productive or conducive to a better
tomorrow and a brighter future.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well that's what I'm focused on, a better tomorrow, a
brighter future with our massive reform program and our day
of reading and writing a Math's a complete overhaul of
the curriculum to make it knowledge rich year by year,
internationally comparable training tens of thousands of teachers, and structured literacy,
structured maths setting out eight hundred and thirty thousand maths.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Books this year.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
We are up to our eyeballs and making sure that
kids who turn up to school getting the very best education.
This is a side show. All the work I've been
doing is to make sure that kids are achieving at
school and they're turning up to school. That's the important thing.
All this Hobson's Pledge stuff is a bunch of people
yelling at the sky and frothing at the mouth with hatred,

(05:55):
where it's actually not going to make a blind bit
of difference to student outcomes. Because the work that I'm doing,
that's the stuff that matters. Structured literacy, structure maths with
knowledge rich curriculum, that's the stuff that matters.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Is there too much MARI in schools.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Depends which school you go to, Mike. If you're a
school on the East Coast with ninety percent Mary students
and they want to speak today as part of their curriculum,
that's very different than another school who might have a
couple of Mary students who wants to be able to
teach their children to say everyday words in Mari so
that you can live your life and understand words like
KaiA and muana and faro and stuff and how to

(06:34):
pronounce them correctly. It depends. I mean, would you say
to a school in Auckland with two Marty students compared
to a school in the East Coast with eighty percent
Marty students, you must all do the same.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Of course not probably not right. But I can tell you,
at the risk of going down a rabbit hole again,
I know a commerce exam that was held the other
day at University that commerce that asked a Maori question.
It's got nothing to do with commerce. But there's a leaning,
there's a bent, there's an overt practice towards mardom or
the moarification of New Zealand and education. Whether it seems

(07:07):
applicable or obvious or not.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
It's everywhere, Mike. You go on a bus at the
moment and the thing you see signs in Tamata. You
go to a supermarket your will the other day and
the signs are bilingual signs. It's happening everywhere. So it's
not blame the education not.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Blaming the education system, but there is a frissons in
this country as a result, and you give very good
examples as I and a lot of that costs money,
and a lot of that cost money that we're spending.
And it's a it's a thing. It's become. You know,
it's the thing of the day, and a lot of
people are questioning whether we've gone too far.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
I don't know about that. The thing of the day
is reading, writing a mass in our brand new curriculum.
You go to any school right now what I want
them to be focused on and what they are and look,
it's a lot. I've asked them to implement two new
curricula in one year, and I know it's a huge amount.
Those teachers right now are unpacking a massively knowledge rich
English and maths curriculum that we've not seen in this

(08:03):
country for decades, and they're trying to make sure they're
getting on top of it and teaching their kids in
a structured, explicit way. That's what they're focusing on to
go into any classroom. They've all got their maths books
that we have provided out, their structured literacy books that
they're doing their hour a day. I mean, we are
undertaking the biggest reform and education worried about what matters
for student outcomes and this other stuff is Look, I

(08:25):
get it's important, and we are looking at it, and
there are legitimate questions to be asked but actually answered.
But actually what matters is the.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
That's a shame. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
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