Our stats around education are now so woeful and so depressing that I’m not even sure more money would fix it – but it needs drilling down on as a priority for this Government given where we’re at.
The latest global study shows the reading skills of Kiwi kids continues to go backwards.
Backwards.
Our reading score is the lowest now that it’s ever been; we are sliding backwards on every measure.
So we have record numbers of kids not going to school, and the ones who do, clearly not learning anything.
The International assessment of year 5 students reading abilities, PIRLS – which is the Progress in International Literacy Study, shows the lowest score for our kids in 20 years.
That’s an international measure. We are out performed by Russia. Let that sink in for a minute.
In our domestic measure, half of 15 years olds cannot pass a foundational numeracy and literacy test. How is it possible that we have the worst literacy in English speaking countries?
Is it the curriculum and where it’s now focussed? Is it the teaching? Is it the methodology? Is it the hijacking of education by ideology? Is it a combo of all of those things?
Do we really understand, how critical it is, that we teach our kids to read and write? That used to just be a given, like learning to tie your shoes.
We just did it and kept going until it was auto pilot and targets and measures pushed us along.
But now, we have to stop and actually remind ourselves, that these basics are not even basic anymore. They’re in the too hard basket it seems.
We’ve lost sight of it as being part and parcel of growing up, we’ve replaced that with a bunch of theory and gobbledygook.
I mean when Russia, a war ravaged country run by a crazed dictator, has overtaken New Zealand in terms of reading, you know we have a serious problem.
It was reported that, “New Zealand students were 20th out of 43 countries. Every English-speaking country and every Canadian Province that participated beat New Zealand. The bottom half of participants is made up of countries like Turkey, Brazil, The Islamic Republic of Iran, and South Africa.”
How embarrassing.
Trying to make things easier for kids hasn’t worked. Dumbing stuff down hasn’t worked. Excusing stuff hasn’t worked. Continuing to decline on every metric shows none of it is working.
So why do we persist with it?
The ACT party has pointed out that there is no mention of spelling, grammar or punctuation in the English school curriculum here. Instead it focuses on ”Recognising and using the power and influence of literature, language, and texts (to) give us tools to advocate for ourselves and others. Exploring the effects of colonisation on our languages and literatures is an important part of understanding power relations in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
What does that even mean?
It’s a whole bunch of word salad ideology.
ACT describes it as a ‘fad’ by the current government, which it may well be, but a) it’s not working, and b) it needs to change urgently in order to turn this ship around.
We have to stop tinkering around the edges and pouring ideology all over curriculums, and actually just get back to basics. Our kids’ futures and the future of this country depend on it.
Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.
6 comments:
If you don't want your kids indoctrinated by Marxist/CCP ideology, Home School.
Russia is comprised largely of northen Europeans. with ability according. NZ no longer is. As with so much esle in NZ we confuse expenditure with positive progress.The effective proscribed teaching methods of 70 and more years ago did not require a high degree of teacher skill. The problem is getting rid of all the embedded woolly make work word specialists who infest teaching, the training institutions, the Teachers Council and the Unions. And adopt streaming as of old to make the teacher's task manageable and to enable the able to succeed.
The marxofascists don't want a literate population as literate citizens would be able to read dissenting material, and marxofascism has zero tolerance for dissent.
Lies lies and more lies. Political dogma. Propoganda….. All dressed up as the English curriculum.
The problem is all those things mentioned above.. It is also partially a world view of freedom versus discipline which goes back to Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century. His philosophy was elaborated on by socialist successors who formed Progressive Education, which rebelliously and aggressively blanked out many of the values, wisdom and methods of traditional education.
Certainly these were changes needed because of some elitist stances at higher levels of education beyond primary school.
Traditional liberal education was always open to correction and judicious change. Progressive education, we have now, on the contrary, as mentioned by Barand, is inflexible and has a fundamentalist resistance to both these acts of constructive criticism and change.
However these attributes are the essential characteristics of an open western democratic society and its education system.
No, you and your commentators clearly have it all wrong. The introduction of and the wider understanding of both matauranga and tikanga will turn these results around in no time. After all, if we look back a couple of centuries, our reputed 'indigenous' were doing so very much better under the guidance of their 'world view.' While it's appreciated that that cohort make-up well under 20% of the population, the boffins in our Ministry of Education have been intensively reviewing the curricula and we can all sleep comfortably in the knowledge that our children's literacy and other scores will all soon improve as a result. After-all, they have all staked their own and our children's future livelihoods on it.
Although there's no doubt about the latter, I've not actually seen that the former's employment contracts have been so amended. Perhaps we ought to follow that one up?
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