In New Zealand over the last five years (including, but not limited to, the Government’s Covid response) the tide has gone out on the New Zealand education system. I doubt that there is a single, even semi-informed, observer who could claim any more that we have a world-class system.
On Saturday Stuff carried an article headlined: “Principals warn literacy and numeracy changes could 'provoke a crisis'”.
The key message was: “School principals around the country warn new literacy and numeracy standards could ‘provoke a crisis’ and ‘undermine the credibility’ of the NCEA assessment system.
“The pilot of the new standards took place in 200 schools earlier in the year and saw just one-third of students pass the writing assessment. By contrast 64% passed in reading and half of students passed numeracy.”
They are wrong in significant ways. The crisis already exists but has been covered up for a long time. It is now widely known that our education system is a mess and many schools are simply not fit for purpose.
Some key indicators are that:
- Even our Level 2 NCEA graduates often lack functional numeracy and literacy.
- We have in excess of 8500 students not enrolled in any school as of July.
- Our full attendance for Term 2 was less than 40% across all deciles and just 23% for decile 1 students.
- We have 13% of our students graduating with less than Level 1 NCEA (33% for Māori students in South Auckland).
- The gaps across socio-economic levels are the worst in the developed world. Our ethnic gaps are also horrendous with Asian students getting University Entrance for leavers at 68%, back to Māori at 19%.
Labour keeps stating that this decline started under National. Under National there was a slight downward trend in attendance. Labour drove the school attendance bus off the cliff. Tinetti blames Covid but Asian full participation is above 50%, whereas Māori or Pasifika is at 27% or less. The 2022 Budget included $80 million for attendance. After a select committee investigation, that only eight schools (of 2600) submitted to, a further $44 million was added.
Who will take responsibility? The Ministry of Education, whose email footnote states: “We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes”? NZ’s school attendance is behind all the key countries we compare ourselves with (including 15 percentage points behind Australia).
When principals complain about the new credits for functional literacy and numeracy they need to remember that they can be achieved at any time from Year 10 to Year 13. Are they really saying they can’t help students achieve functional literacy and numeracy in five years? The sitting students will have had 12,000 hours of funded schooling each by then. The complaining schools have also had three years to prepare their programmes for this, and the new standards do not come in until 2024.
Where they are right is that there needs to be major change in both parenting and schooling.
As a nation we need massive education and support for pregnant women/partners regarding care for their children in-utero, including a huge programme to counter foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and other harms. We need it to be imperative that parents are the first (and most important) teachers for ages 0–5, including health, reading, numeracy, movement, music, languages.
We have professionalised pre-school learning, and it has come at great cost.
Then it is time for all parents across NZ to ask the hard questions about school leadership, school quality, teacher quality and to demand a LOT better. Parents fund the schooling and it is their children. They deserve better, but they need to be prepared to help.
Our primary school teaching and learning needs overhauling and a lot of the busy work and downtime needs to go. Primary teacher qualifications in English, Maths and Science need significant upgrading.
The Education Review Office says schools should make attending more “enjoyable” (aka fun). How about – inspirational, aspirational, high quality, demanding?
When the tide is out it is the very best time to make things right.
Alwyn Poole, a well-known figure in the New Zealand education system, he founded and was the head of Mt Hobson Middle School in Auckland for 18 years. This article was published HERE
5 comments:
The Ministry and the teacher unions have to be de-politicised. We have to refocus on what school education is supposed to be about, which is not a recruitment site for fashionable woke causes but as places where young people acquire essential life skills such as the 3 r's.
Ah New Zealand, the land of the long white illiterate.
Abandoning school Cert was supposed to assist low acheivers, esp maori/pacifica. Following a letter submitted to Herald recently burt as usual not published.
"Oliver Hartwick 9 Nov bewailed the fallen education achievement standards. For 30 years and more there has been endless tinkering in an effort to avoid discouraging the traditional low achiever groups. Their performance has not improved and the rest has declined. Without being failed to a level where they are competent, or other serious streaming measures, the low achievers are still dispirited so stay away, making the situation worse. The prospect of decades of matters maori and the need to feign interest throughout must discourage from the profession many of the objective types who are naturally better teachers of the three Rs. The task of reaching the vague new history curriculum with no single simple textbook and not objectively based must be daunting. Perhaps the experiment of dropping the time and effort consuming matters maori should be tried for a decade and the results observed. Education succeeded remarkably in the 1920s with large classes and fact based history. The techniques should be adopted. Even the remote country "native "schools probably did better than is achieved today"
I get to see Teaching Council newsletters. The organisation must be amongst the greatest contribuotrs to low acheivment in the basics
At the heart of the appalling decline,particularly,in literacy and numeracy but actually in the teaching of all subjects is the wrong ideas of progressive education.Before 1950 in NZ the prevailing educational philosophy was traditional liberal education which was based among other things on explicit and direct teaching.For example progressive education specifically condemned explicitly taught phonics and rote learning of tables.
It has proved to be a thoroughly destructive philosophy/psychology and most of the western world's academia is entrenched in it.
Without uprooting this weed which has with time strangled NZ pedagogy for at least 70 years, I don't believe much can improve.
Emily Hanford American award winning journalist has certainly helped to expose Marie Clay's flawed reading ideas which have contributed enormously to the destruction of literacy in not just the English speaking world.
I was very shocked by this. Clay was thoroughly progressive in her ideas and hopefully this will alert people to the fallacies of the whole philosophy not just as in reading instruction.
But will progressive education ever admit it is wrong?
Modern teaching is not only obscure to most pupils but requires a degree of skill, experience, aptitude, patience, application not available from the typical teacher, and esp not from recent graduates. Very few parents can help with modern "maths"", or the Clay osmosis reading technique. The range of abilities in a class is a huge handicap. Eons ago I did moderately well at school but am of very moderate IQ. I remember my times tables and still do basic arithmetic by borrowing and paying back etc. There was no need to understand the theory behind this and I would probably not have grasped anyway. Arithmetic problems had to be headed with Ans Reqd. Although the intent is clear even this fashionable at the time affectation was somewhat confusing. Maybe they did not apply to all but marking was very severe with all errors noted. No false praise just for attempting. Perhaps we should send some teachers to Japan, Hong Kong, China etc to learn the methods used here with great success in the 1920s. Do they still strap and cane there?
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