This new government is barely two weeks old but already there are warning signs it’s not going to get anywhere fast dealing with the Public Service bureaucracy.
Two interactions between ministers and senior officials raise concerns.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell sends a letter of expectation to Police Commissioner Andrew Coster saying he expects the police to focus on core policing in communities, and that he requires strong and decisive leadership to overcome significant challenges to law and order.
But Mitchell then says he has full confidence in Coster, despite unbridled criticism of him from opposition. So Coster is staying, although the letter does put him on notice.
Even worse is what’s happening at the Ministry of Education. As yet another set of PISA results comes out showing that the academic achievement of the country’s children continues to slide, the tough talking Minister Erica Stanford makes an appointment which gives us absolutely no confidence in the ability or willingness of the Ministry to change its ways.
Stanford has made Ellen McGregor-Reid, the current Deputy Secretary for Early Learning and Student Achievement, the main education advisor in her office.
In other words, McGregor-Reid, a career public servant with no actual frontline experience in education, will be the main liaison between the Minister who promises to turn around our failing education system and a Ministry which has been a dismal failure under its current leadership.
What’s more McGregor-Reid’s role overseeing early learning and student achievement saw a decrease in both learning standards and student achievement.
It makes you wonder - what is Erica Stanford thinking?
As outspoken education consultant Alwyn Poole says this is like making Sauron the Mayor of Hobbiton. Or as we used to say, putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
The PISA results out this week show the dire state of educational achievement. This year’s outcomes were the worst ever and what’s more they were skewed upwards because of the low participation rate. That standards across all countries dropped is just no excuse.
What we should also note are the number of parents who know what’s going on and are making huge sacrifices to put their kids into private schools because they know the state system is in many instances bordering on useless.
At my 7 year old granddaughter’s state primary school, the teachers finally get around to trying to do some maths with the kids at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Not a time when enthusiasm for learning is high. She’s going elsewhere next year.
Erica Stanford has talked a big game. But this early appointment is not inspiring confidence.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
But Mitchell then says he has full confidence in Coster, despite unbridled criticism of him from opposition. So Coster is staying, although the letter does put him on notice.
Even worse is what’s happening at the Ministry of Education. As yet another set of PISA results comes out showing that the academic achievement of the country’s children continues to slide, the tough talking Minister Erica Stanford makes an appointment which gives us absolutely no confidence in the ability or willingness of the Ministry to change its ways.
Stanford has made Ellen McGregor-Reid, the current Deputy Secretary for Early Learning and Student Achievement, the main education advisor in her office.
In other words, McGregor-Reid, a career public servant with no actual frontline experience in education, will be the main liaison between the Minister who promises to turn around our failing education system and a Ministry which has been a dismal failure under its current leadership.
What’s more McGregor-Reid’s role overseeing early learning and student achievement saw a decrease in both learning standards and student achievement.
It makes you wonder - what is Erica Stanford thinking?
As outspoken education consultant Alwyn Poole says this is like making Sauron the Mayor of Hobbiton. Or as we used to say, putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
The PISA results out this week show the dire state of educational achievement. This year’s outcomes were the worst ever and what’s more they were skewed upwards because of the low participation rate. That standards across all countries dropped is just no excuse.
What we should also note are the number of parents who know what’s going on and are making huge sacrifices to put their kids into private schools because they know the state system is in many instances bordering on useless.
At my 7 year old granddaughter’s state primary school, the teachers finally get around to trying to do some maths with the kids at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Not a time when enthusiasm for learning is high. She’s going elsewhere next year.
Erica Stanford has talked a big game. But this early appointment is not inspiring confidence.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
All the encouraging statements in the coalition agreements will come to nought unless two things happen:-
1/ Key high-level personnel across all government departments are cleaned out. Based on the raft of articles published on Breaking Views over the past 3 years, there are plenty of good candidates out there.
Failing to do this will be like watching a recurring episode of Yes, Minister. They'll pretend agreement and then carry on with the old woke, Left-wing agenda, biding their time for another wacko socialist government.
Ministers need to be far more hands on and can't leave things to the CEO's and other top management until they have the right people in place.
2/ The mainstream media have to be neutered. In the case of state funded media that can be achieved by severe financial constraints. With other groups, like Stuff, the PIJF needs to be cancelled forthwith. Let them sue if they want. That will cost them even more and they're already struggling financially.
The globalists are still in charge.
As a child - long ago - arithmetic (as it was called) was the first subject each day of school. It was barely missed - perhaps twice in a year.It was taught first thing in the morning without fail. We hated it; but it was effective. When I joined the teaching ranks in the 1970s with new maths, I also taught the subject each morning. I loved new maths; but many students failed to grasp concepts. Parents sometimes ask if they could help their children with old style maths. Why not? Spelling was also taught daily - often from brutal teachers using draconian methods. As a teacher I worked to make it more palatable.
Observing children reaching high school unable to compute simple arithmetic or spell is horrifying. Several generations now have been aflicted this way.
No, Peter, it doesn't inspire confidence. But when I heard Erica Stanford previously prattling on about "our Treaty Partners", I have always had my reservations about her understanding of our history and therefore her capabilities and ideological leanings.
We need an absolute seachange of thinking within the MOE and to achieve that it will inevitably require a 'draining of the swamp.' But it looks as though we are just in for more of the same. What is wrong with these people, are they that stupid?
I have read (rarely written) that the Ardern regime increased our government staff by 14,000
additional people? I speculate this large number of additional staff in Wellington, were most
likely implanted to vigorously further the Maorification process within the buraeucracy.
That they were especially enjoined to overcome any resistance to the blatant subversion
of establishing He Puapua in New Zealand.
Rid us of this Pesky Process!
Interesting comments. Peter. I also noted your recent notification re the Three Waters staff in MBIE carrying on as if nothing had or was about to change. You can bet that the staff contracts for these bureaucrats are loaded with payout clauses when/if they ever get the heave ho and anything arranged since the election must surely border on serous misconduct. I am almost ashamed to have been a public servant for nearly 50 years, albeit in a Service that had a little bit more integrity than these ratbags.
Well Dave M, I hope you didn't work for this outfit:
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/news/new-initiatives-to-grow-future-research-leaders-for-aotearoa-new-zealand/
You would have read Prof. Elizabeth Rata's recent excellent piece on decolonisation and indigenation in the universities. The way the above Govt. Dept have effectively expunged the world-renown names of Rutherford and Cook and their association with NZ is an outright disgrace and completely lacking in integrity.
Education in NZ is a completely lost cause. As a private arithmetic, maths and reading tutor for 45 years, I have seen the unrelenting decline. over decades.
Those people who can still teach old style arithmetic, phonics and reading are now needed so much to transfer their skills and knowledge onto younger generation who are woefully lacking in basic teaching skills and knowledge.
Perhaps you are one of these old teachers or simply a grandparent. Get involved in offering to teach any child you come in contact with. It may be a neighbour's a friend's or a family member and offer to give them extra tuition. No attempt could possibly be worse than anything that goes on in our most damnable state schools.
Let me give you an example of the horror of it all A small friend I know liked school and enjoyed reading and maths (arithmetic ) until year 5 when the school started doing several strategies for the basic arithmetic manipulations. She has become totally confused by it and now hates maths and doesn't even want to go to school. She has clashes with the teacher who tries to explain the crazy methods but fails. She has a baby sister and says she would rather just stay home and help look after her since the school is so horrible, boring , confusing and useless( the child's words).
Somebody do something and soon .This is intolerable. I have basic arithmetic material I can give this low SES child but what about all the thousands of other children who are having similar school experiences and get no help. No wonder there is so much truancy.
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