The Germans had prided themselves on a world-class education system. However, the first round of data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that their pride had been misplaced. Public outrage at the poor results of German students set off wholesale reform of school education.
At that time, New Zealanders had little reason to suspect that their own education system was in trouble. In the first PISA tests, we ranked third in the OECD in reading and mathematics and sixth in science. But the seeds of our educational destruction had already been sown.
During the 1980s and 1990s, New Zealand moved from structured, teacher-led learning towards an extreme ‘social constructivist’ approach.
Literacy teaching under social constructivism makes the error of treating reading and writing like oral language. It tries to bypass the essential step of students systematically learning the correspondences between spelling and sound.
Under the ‘numeracy project’, our teaching of primary school mathematics lost its way. Students are introduced to a confusing range of ‘strategies’ to solve problems. Basic knowledge is deemphasised.
The downgrading of knowledge continued with the introduction of a new curriculum in 2007. The New Zealand Curriculum emphases ‘competencies’ like ‘managing self’ and ‘relating to others.’ It is very thin on knowledge.
The latest PISA results, released this week, show a continuation of a long, slow decline. New Zealand has fallen from leading the world to the middle of the pack.
A Policy Point from the New Zealand Initiative, also released this week, discusses new tests for NCEA literacy and numeracy. If passing these tests becomes compulsory in 2026, as planned, achievement rates for the qualification will plummet. Less than two thirds of candidates in the July 2023 assessments reached a basic adult level in these skills.
In this ‘darkest hour’ of education in New Zealand, there is light on the horizon. The new Ministers responsible for school education come into office with sound policies. They have promised to reform literacy teaching, introduce a new, knowledge-rich curriculum and re-implement charter schools.
These measures have all been recommended by The New Zealand Initiative. If successfully implemented, they will help meet the Government’s ambitious target for 80% of Year 8 students to meet curriculum expectations by 2030.
The forces opposing reform will be formidable. But perpetuating the status quo is not an option.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
During the 1980s and 1990s, New Zealand moved from structured, teacher-led learning towards an extreme ‘social constructivist’ approach.
Literacy teaching under social constructivism makes the error of treating reading and writing like oral language. It tries to bypass the essential step of students systematically learning the correspondences between spelling and sound.
Under the ‘numeracy project’, our teaching of primary school mathematics lost its way. Students are introduced to a confusing range of ‘strategies’ to solve problems. Basic knowledge is deemphasised.
The downgrading of knowledge continued with the introduction of a new curriculum in 2007. The New Zealand Curriculum emphases ‘competencies’ like ‘managing self’ and ‘relating to others.’ It is very thin on knowledge.
The latest PISA results, released this week, show a continuation of a long, slow decline. New Zealand has fallen from leading the world to the middle of the pack.
A Policy Point from the New Zealand Initiative, also released this week, discusses new tests for NCEA literacy and numeracy. If passing these tests becomes compulsory in 2026, as planned, achievement rates for the qualification will plummet. Less than two thirds of candidates in the July 2023 assessments reached a basic adult level in these skills.
In this ‘darkest hour’ of education in New Zealand, there is light on the horizon. The new Ministers responsible for school education come into office with sound policies. They have promised to reform literacy teaching, introduce a new, knowledge-rich curriculum and re-implement charter schools.
These measures have all been recommended by The New Zealand Initiative. If successfully implemented, they will help meet the Government’s ambitious target for 80% of Year 8 students to meet curriculum expectations by 2030.
The forces opposing reform will be formidable. But perpetuating the status quo is not an option.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
5 comments:
Will the new Minister of ED. insist that the Te Ao (Maori world) view of the curriculum be removed from the central dominant position to a specific box
which reflects its proper place?
This is an important early test of her resolve.
Successful implementation will indeed be key. It would appear that the MoE is massively over staffed as well as radical in its approach. It is surely overdue for a ruthless “right sizing” exercise and a total reset of organisational culture. Let’s not keep our kids waiting. Their future is NZ’s future.
I have great respect for The NZ Initiative and the work they have done. I know of Christian Schools who recommend that parents read Briar Lipson's free pdf 'NZ's Educational Delusion'.
As well as advising governments I believe informing parents of the absolutely destructive nonsense schools are imposing on their precious children is paramount as well.
I suppose what I am saying is that, having been involved in the thick of the so called Reading Wars for over 50 years , being instrumental in introducing homeschooling and contributing to changing NZ back to phonics, none of this could have occurred without incorporating parents into the fray.
After leaving teacher's college in the early 1970's I was quite arrogant about
my professional skills as a teacher but quickly learned that parents from quite intellectually modest backgrounds could be easily taught to teach their own children and had discernment over the complete stupidity of modern educational theories than I did. To them the ministry and academia were the enemy-pie in the sky fools.
As you say the forces against reform are formidable and we need all the resources you can get. Visit any group of old folks and discuss education and inevitably they will often tell you of how well they were educated when NZ had a world class education system in the past.
My mother taught 1500 remedial students reading not by teaching the child but teaching the parent how to teach their own child every day using carefully structured workbooks. She had learned to do that in the 1930s when that was how universal literacy was achieved. I did the same with students requiring remedial. arithmetic. A parent always had to sit in at the weekly lesson.
Germany was very fortunate to not have had Marie Clay whose thoroughly dishonest and unscientific research not just promoted a terrible failing reading system for four decades but also perpetuated the whole shebang of progressive education with constructivist, non explicit and unsystematic learning in all subjects.
A great virtue of phonics is that the simplest of parents, of which there are many, can grasp. Wheras the Clay osmosis method requires sympathetic, able, and understanding reading to and with the child. And phonics works in reverse, assisting children to write, whereas under the osmosis system they cannot build words and are soon stumped.
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