The public should be aware of proposed changes to our national primary and secondary education curriculum, embedding matauranga Māori (traditional knowledge) throughout the curriculum, probably requiring students of all ethnicities to spend significant class time on Te Reo. Both Te Reo and matauranga Māori should be treasured and preserved, but the changes are excessive.
Coming into force in 2026, the refreshed curriculum will damage the education of millions of students over future decades and impose costs of several billion dollars on taxpayers. A negative consequence will be the effect on every child of substituting time on critical learning with much Te Reo and matauranga Māori. Matauranga Māori is to be accorded equal status with world science, probably taught as truth, and the quality of education and portability of our secondary qualifications will suffer as a result.
Embedding of the Treaty of Waitangi and matauranga Māori within our innovation system follows similar trends in education, public health and elsewhere. Government now proposes to favour Māori and Pacific research and researchers. New Zealand should support excellent Māori and Pacific research, but within defined limits, and there is no sufficient justification for preferring lightweight research of limited reach over true excellence on a systemic basis.
One of our research funds is the Performance Based Research Fund. Formulae used to allocate money to research organisations through this fund involve numeric weightings that will increase for Māori researchers, Māori-oriented research and Māori postgraduate degree completion, and similarly for Pacific. The benefits may indeed include increases in Māori and Pacific employment in tertiary organisations and restoration of mana. However, the funding process must be supervised carefully so as not to disadvantage significantly other excellent research of potential value to New Zealand, attenuate the worth of non-Māori researchers, diminish the credibility of New Zealand research internationally, and induce declines in international university rankings and competitiveness in international tertiary education. More detail can be found here:
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/03/dr-david-lillis-capture-of-research.html
We will not achieve long-term success in tertiary education and research by appointing academic staff on the basis of ethnicity rather than genuine research and teaching capability. Many academics assert that excellence and relevance are the only acceptable criteria and that preferring one ethnicity over others will lead to divisiveness and erosion of quality.
All New Zealanders, including Māori, have gained from rule of law, education, healthcare, a more peaceful society and other benefits. However, we recognize historic injustices and damage to Māori culture and self-confidence. The trajectories thus created have contributed to Māori emerging poorly in various indices of social and economic wellbeing. Today such negative outcomes are being offset through diverse financial assistance; scholarships and other education-related incentives; preferential admission to Medical School; heavily Treaty-centric, Matauranga Māori-based early childhood, primary and secondary education curricula; an increasingly Treaty-centric tertiary sector; a Treaty-centric public service; naming of public institutions in Te Reo, and a dedicated health authority. But - have we forgotten that New Zealand is a multicultural rather than bicultural society, comprising many ethnic and cultural groups, and that other demographics are similarly disadvantaged in health, education and other measures of socioeconomic wellbeing?
Unfortunately, academics and primary and secondary educators who question the elevated status of any particular ethnic group, or the intrusion of traditional knowledge into science and education, are at great risk of allegations of racism and losing their jobs. Many have reported bullying of themselves and others. Surely, highly-qualified professionals who advance such perspectives do so in good faith and with concern for the good of New Zealand. They deserve to be heard, rather than to be threatened or punished.
Dr David Lillis trained in physics and
mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a
teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has
published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing
and statistics.
6 comments:
Great paper David. It is disgraceful that the msm and government refuse to allow these issues to be discussed openly.
Much of what passes as research in education today is actually ideological proselytising parading as research. Good solid quantitative studies which seek to answer questions are increasingly rare while make-believe research methods that begin with a conclusion and then make 'soft' data fit it are the norm. You see an attention-grabbing assertion as the title of a research paper and it turns out to be the opinions of half a dozen unimpressive interviewees (carefully chosen on the basis of giving the 'researcher' exactly what s/he wants to hear). It's pathetic and grossly intellectually dishonest.
Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has been a leader in eroding scientific rigour in research. Its family violence research was almost entirely corrupt in methodology, being simply advocacy research to promote feminist victim status. Unfortunately their research template has since been replicated in many countries by feminists wanting predetermined results to promote their cause.
University ethics committees are largely responsible for eroding science and the reliability of human knowledge from science by allowing all manner of methodologically corrupt research designed to promote favoured causes, as well as by censoring scientifically robust research that might result in findings challenging modern ideological sacred cows. Those committees appear to ignore the most important ethics for research i.e. to ensure that research will provide maximally reliable knowledge. Instead, they seem to think they are there to promote the subjective ethics underlying whatever social engineering may be fashionable.
Thank you , David for putting so much effort into these articles. I have had comments unaccepted even on this blog site. I have never been given an explanation but concluded, myself, they were just too long. Have you thought of writing for 'Upfront' in the '"Listener' where submissions can be 600 words long?
From the article by Dr Brian Gill last Thursday on this site, I learned from A' A's comment that " Science is being criticised because it is perceived as an instrument of oppression, colonisation, critical racism etc." According to A we need to consider the world view it presupposes.
From my background of three NZ generations of being educational critics, I would suggest those interested in investigating the worldview read a recent article from 'The American Spectator', entitled 'Dewey's Destruction: The Ideas and Influence of the Pioneer of Public Education'. This is the main influence in our education as well as the US- A sort of subtle form of socialism. When I studied Education at University in NZ the Deweyian classic 'Democracy and Education', was the set text.
Another excellent summary article David. It is a huge concern that the mainstream media will not publish these articles that show the damage that the cultural re-engineering of NZ is doing to the future of our children and to the international credibility and reputation of our education and research system.
Yes, well said David. Here's a sound bite from what another person (Thomas Sowell, who has more than a modicum of first-hand world experience, knowledge and public standing) has to say on his education, which I think is particualrly pertinent to what is now going down here in NZ. "Down" being precisely the direction education is currently here headed.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rwl7zHrHvEE
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