Education Secretary on the challenges facing the Ministry

Peter Hughes took over as Education Secretary earlier this year after the departure of Lesley Longstone, who ended her contract after a breakdown between herself and the Minister, Hekia Parata. He inherited a Ministry in the midst of the Novopay debacle, controversy over mergers and closures of Christchurch schools, teacher unions unhappy over National Standards, public sector funding cuts and a public sector trust and confidence survey which ranked it last out of about 40 government agencies.