Education Minister Erica Stanford faced questions on the government's focus on structured literacy and the Budget allocation to cover depreciation of school buildings. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Handwriting, tidal waves of property problems, and a clash with a former minister featured when the Education and Workforce Select Committee reviewed the government's education budget on Wednesday.
Education Minister Erica Stanford faced questions about the government's focus on teaching children to read using structured literacy approaches based on the sounds represented by letters and groups of letters.
Stanford asserted structured literacy was the only effective way to teach children to read, prompting her predecessor, Labour MP Jan Tinetti to interject "That's not true".
"Well, name something else, Ms Tinetti," Stanford responded.
"I can actually," Tinetti said and went on to state that some structured literacy approaches were known to put too much "cognitive load" on children, damaging their learning.
Stanford also faced questions about the Budget allocation of $780 million over four years to cover depreciation of school buildings.
She told the committee the increase was based on a revaluation of school buildings and was important for ensuring classrooms were kept up to scratch.
She said some rooms were in a terrible state.
"I've been into schools that have got buildings sliding into lakes, black mould, mushrooms. I've been sent pictures of chairs falling through floors. We do have a tidal wave of these sorts of issues," Stanford said.
Stanford also backed calls from her Ministerial Advisory Group on English and maths for a greater focus on handwriting.
She said handwriting was important for children's literacy because children who could write naturally were better able to concentrate on the content of their work.
"Many schools are doing handwriting and it's fantastic, but it's not consistent," she said.
The government would look at how it could include handwriting in its push to improve children's literacy, Stanford said.
There was no evidence about the effect of many education initiatives and the government was focused on ensuring money was spent on things that were proved to work, she said.
Stanford said the government was also looking closely at learning support for children with disabilities with the aim of focusing funding on the most effective interventions.
Earlier in the day, Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds appeared before the committee to answer questions about the government's tertiary education budget.
She said switching the fees free policy to pay for the last rather than first year of study would reward tertiary students who completed their qualifications.
The change would save $800m over four years in money that would otherwise be spent on people who did not complete their qualification, Simmonds said.
She said the policy might improve retention rates but that was not its goal.
"It's not set up for incentivising people to continue, it's a reward for those that have continued and that have been successful and it shows a better value for government spend of that funding," she said.
Waiving fees for people who did not continue their studies beyond the first year was not a good use of public money, Simmonds said.
Simmonds also said polytechnics were under-utilising property worth $131m and selling that property would reduce their operating costs and improve their viability.
She said she had told Te Pūkenga in a letter last month to consider asset sales.
"Some work had been done in identifying around $131m of assets that were either under-utilised or un-utilised that were being looked at for consideration of being divested from Te Pūkenga and I was making it very clear that that work should continue," she said.
Education Review Office chief executive Nicholas Pole told the committee it had just completed an investigation into initial teacher education.
"Subjects like maths, science, technology were areas where primary school teachers particularly struggled," he said.
The Secretary for Education Iona Holsted clarified expectations about the use of contractors in light of staff cuts at the ministry.
The ministry had always employed fixed-term contractors to help with curriculum work and that would continue, she said.