In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Education Ministry employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. This past week it was announced 202 of them were being laid-off. When you look up "The New Zealand Curriculum" on the Ministry of Education's Website, it says, "We're preparing to close this site as we transition to Tāhūrangi" but if you click on that site you get an incoherent jumble of chaos.
At least it is amusing - there is a "unit" that helps "students develop an understanding of the financial challenges faced by superannuitants in their local community". That must get the youth of NZ excited out of their minds. As for the NZ Curriculum document, it contains the flimsiest, shallowest, lightest-of-weights 60 pages of silly blurbs & patronizing clichés, mostly in bullet points, mixed with waffle, with 30 pages focused on specific subject aims. Even those are full of funny lines like, "Key Competencies - Thinking ..". This shambles is introduced with a line, "It is my pleasure to introduce this revision of the NZ Curriculum" by the Education Secretary. After you've read it, you are left wondering, "So where is the NZ Curriculum? Did I miss something?".
The odd feature of the document is that its "Published in 2015 by the Ministry of Education" & was "First published for the Ministry of Education [in] 2007". But that pre-dates the Ardern government. So what have the 308 staff working in the Curriculum Centre been doing these past several years? Were the 202 staff just made redundant mulling over changes to a 60 page document? Maybe how to change font size & color? If the document called The NZ Curriculum was submitted as a Year 12 school project, it would fail. If you multiply the 308 staff by an average salary of $80,000, a conservative number given Wellington pay-scales, you get about $25,000,000 - yes $25 million dollars. Has the Kiwi Tax Payer been billed that amount of money year after year - that is, over $100 million - for 60 pages of PR, marketing and communications-inspired glossy pages of nothingness?
Sources:
https://assets.education.govt.nz/public/1-OIA-releases/Appendix-A-v7.pdf
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/514542/ministry-of-education-plans-to-cut-565-roles
https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum
The odd feature of the document is that its "Published in 2015 by the Ministry of Education" & was "First published for the Ministry of Education [in] 2007". But that pre-dates the Ardern government. So what have the 308 staff working in the Curriculum Centre been doing these past several years? Were the 202 staff just made redundant mulling over changes to a 60 page document? Maybe how to change font size & color? If the document called The NZ Curriculum was submitted as a Year 12 school project, it would fail. If you multiply the 308 staff by an average salary of $80,000, a conservative number given Wellington pay-scales, you get about $25,000,000 - yes $25 million dollars. Has the Kiwi Tax Payer been billed that amount of money year after year - that is, over $100 million - for 60 pages of PR, marketing and communications-inspired glossy pages of nothingness?
Sources:
https://assets.education.govt.nz/public/1-OIA-releases/Appendix-A-v7.pdf
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/514542/ministry-of-education-plans-to-cut-565-roles
https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum
10 comments:
Ask Rose and Chris Hipkins, Jacinda Ardern and champion of higher education, Grant Robertson. All I can say is those people better pray that the people don't start asking for accountability. It's enough to make us very angry and cry at the wicked waste.
As an aside we could have a lot of self sufficiency and anti-bullying written into the curriculum. There will be plenty of room when the maorification is deleted.
MC
Robert , dear oh dear. Great work as usual.
I think a lot of these govt workers (am I allowed to use the word "workers"? ) have done anything but!
Shame, shame, shame.
Anon... Not 'workers' but just drones. There for payday only.
"What were they doing?"
Looting, mooching and grifting.
It seems impossible to stop or even slow the rate of growth of the State.
Where are we now with the history(ies) curriculum? Without the integration of local contrived maori folklore should be very simple; there are several notable publications to draw from. As far as I konw the public submissions on the histories curricualum were never made available and never chahsed by the msm. a chance to redeem some of their status. As proposeda nightmare for teachers who were somehow expected to integrate local maori fairy stories presented by maori appointed local propoganda proponents.
Progressivism demands you are to constantly come up with new stuff. That means getting rid of 'old hat' practices and materials that don't for example have transgender focus,Te Reo infused into all syllabi, myths and legends in the science section, as well as cancel culture history in the social studies section, anthropomorphism climate change, and extremist and alarmist environmentalism.
What you ignorami don't appreciate is paper shredding and rewriting all the nasty racist, sexist, transphobic, science denying old materials is an enormous task. Brainwashing teachers and students into the new exciting social engineering schemes needs very careful wording by expert staff who are adept at insinuating Marxist ideas into the curriculum without alarming parents.
You, cynical lot just don't get what 21st century learning involves..We have an exhilarating future ahead of us and our akonga desperately need to learn skills to keep up .Critical studies are so crucial in our new age approach.
IF , yes IF - our current Minister of Education wants to do something decisive with the Ministry of Education, then can I suggest that she look at, as part of staff reductions, dis-establishment of the Head of Dept who is paid $600,00.oo per annum and as been pointed out by 'other observers of said Ministry'- has presided over the increase of staff without challenge.
A 'head should roll' and should be hers, but me 'thinks that the Minister does not have the mojo to do so'.
For the number of bureaucrat hours that have gone into 'weaving' that rich tapestry of spiritualistic, hubristic Manglish nonsense they call the curriculum, it must be up there as one of the biggest and most expensive wastes of space in our history?
All presided over by Iona Holsted, Rose Hipkins, et al., whose unblemished record of declining outcomes and unmet KPIs precedes them. Well past due time for the swamp to be drained Minister Stanford, or will you just tinker around the edges and re-appoint existing in-house ideologues in the hope that our children's futures will come right?
December 2024 ( if correct):
CEO Ms Holsted ends her term
The Advisory Panel on the curriculum present its report. (Panel led by Michael Johnson and with Prof Liz Rata as a member).
Maybe Minister Stanford ( though very woke herself) is waiting for this moment to totally reform the Min of Ed.
What were they doing? Following Marxist ideology which is the governments of the Wests new religion and direction of travel,that's what.
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