Submission on the Education and Training Bill

The Education and Training Bill (Bill) replaces all major existing education and training legislation. Our submission focuses on provisions in the Bill that relate to school governance.

We support the introduction of the Bill to ensure there is up to date, relevant and accessible legislation in place. In relation to school governance:

• We have called for minimum trustee duties to be included in the Bill and appropriately tailored for trustees taking into account the voluntary and representative nature of the role to help raise governance standards and improve accountability. We also support the development of a code of conduct for trustees.
• The existing restrictions on personal liability for trustees in the Education Act don’t appear to have been carried across in the Bill. We have highlighted that it is essential that these restrictions are clearly provided for in the new Act.
• We support the existing primary objective of boards (to ensure every student at school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement) which is clear, impactful and well understood. The proposed additional objectives are critical enablers to achieving the existing primary objective and we note that they could be presented in the Bill as critical enablers to support the primary objective.
• We support the development of school principal eligibility criteria, as well as the ability for boards to develop additional criteria.