According to international studies, we are now one of the least numerate countries in the developed world. In the 2019 Trends and International Maths and Science study, New Zealand's 9-year-olds, the Year 5s, ranked 40th out of 64 countries. Year 9s were even worse - their scores fell by the largest margin since the study began in 1994. Māori and Pasifika students ranked lowest of all.
In 2021, a report published in New Zealand by the Royal Society of Mathematics Advisory Panel, which advised the Education Ministry, noted that 1/4 of preschoolers cannot count from 1-10. That's not on the ideological educators at the ministry, that's not on teachers, that is on parents. By Year 9, fewer than one tenth of students are working at their age-appropriate level. Massey University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Gaven Martin described maths education in this country as a “goddamn mess”.
Families with money or access to money or the desperation to find money from somewhere, anywhere, have been sending their kids to after school tutoring. The NumberWorks’nWords franchises and the Kip McGraths that you'll see around the country. One parent in a New Zealand Herald story from 2021 said if you have the money, the kids go to Kumon, which is a another one of those franchises, or NumberWorks, two to three times a week. It's like a form of wealth separation, he said, as only the wealthier families can afford it. And at around about $700 a term, they’re right. The wealthy families will do it, but they seldom talk about it. The other kids just languish in the school system and remain at the bottom of the class. And so the gap between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider and wider.
Now the Government has announced a form of after school maths tuition, but actually in school, and free. They're starting with intermediate students in terms 1 and 2 next year – around 2000 Year 7 and 8 students who are behind in their learning will take part in an intensive support program to bring them up to the required curriculum level in maths. The trial will use small group tutoring and supervised online tuition for 30 minutes, up to four times a week for each child. Basically, your Kip McGraths, Your NumberWorks, and what have you. There will be $30 million for high quality curriculum aligned workbooks, teacher guidance and lesson plans to be provided into every primary and intermediate School, $20 million for professional development and structured maths for teachers as well as (hip hip hooray) getting the Teaching Council to agree to lift maths entry requirements for new teachers.
Education Minister Erica Stanford spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night, saying intensive tutoring is one of the best things you can do if you're behind in maths.
In 2021, a report published in New Zealand by the Royal Society of Mathematics Advisory Panel, which advised the Education Ministry, noted that 1/4 of preschoolers cannot count from 1-10. That's not on the ideological educators at the ministry, that's not on teachers, that is on parents. By Year 9, fewer than one tenth of students are working at their age-appropriate level. Massey University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Gaven Martin described maths education in this country as a “goddamn mess”.
Families with money or access to money or the desperation to find money from somewhere, anywhere, have been sending their kids to after school tutoring. The NumberWorks’nWords franchises and the Kip McGraths that you'll see around the country. One parent in a New Zealand Herald story from 2021 said if you have the money, the kids go to Kumon, which is a another one of those franchises, or NumberWorks, two to three times a week. It's like a form of wealth separation, he said, as only the wealthier families can afford it. And at around about $700 a term, they’re right. The wealthy families will do it, but they seldom talk about it. The other kids just languish in the school system and remain at the bottom of the class. And so the gap between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider and wider.
Now the Government has announced a form of after school maths tuition, but actually in school, and free. They're starting with intermediate students in terms 1 and 2 next year – around 2000 Year 7 and 8 students who are behind in their learning will take part in an intensive support program to bring them up to the required curriculum level in maths. The trial will use small group tutoring and supervised online tuition for 30 minutes, up to four times a week for each child. Basically, your Kip McGraths, Your NumberWorks, and what have you. There will be $30 million for high quality curriculum aligned workbooks, teacher guidance and lesson plans to be provided into every primary and intermediate School, $20 million for professional development and structured maths for teachers as well as (hip hip hooray) getting the Teaching Council to agree to lift maths entry requirements for new teachers.
Education Minister Erica Stanford spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan last night, saying intensive tutoring is one of the best things you can do if you're behind in maths.
“We know that all of the international evidence tells us that if you are really far behind, especially in mathematics, one of the best interventions you can do is intensive tutoring in small groups to get up to where you need to be. Because a lot of our students have missed big chunks of their learning and mathematics, and we are particularly targeting those in Year 7 and 8 who are not going to see all of the benefits of our amazing new curriculum and all of our new materials and they're going to go off into high school and, you know, not be where they need to be. So we've had reading interventions in the past, we've never had one for maths, and my intention is that we put this trial up, see what it does and then roll it out.”
Yes, yes, yes, yes and more yes! We know the tutoring works. Anyone who has sent their child to one of the expensive but efficient after school tuition programs knows that it works. You've got that one-on-one – and I'm quite sure that our teachers, if they had one-on-one time sufficiently with kids who were falling behind, would be able to raise them up as well, but they simply do not have the time or the resources. Now they will.
To be fair to the previous administration, they understood that education was failing our children, they were not getting the education they deserved. The gap between the haves and the have nots, those who could and those who couldn't, was getting wider and wider and wider. In fact, I think we managed to top one aspect of the Trends in Science and Maths by having the biggest gap between those who were succeeding and those who were not. The vast majority of parents cannot afford that kind of one-on-one tuition, but we had Labour tinkering with the curriculum and bringing into Te Ao Māori into maths and science, and it was all very localised and communities could kind of pick and choose how they wanted to teach, with no resources teachers were left floundering as well. They basically had to do the work of the many thousands of bureaucrats and the Ministry of Education and come up with a curriculum.
As Professor Elizabeth Rata at Auckland University said, the draft of the new curriculum, as devised by Labour, was a national disgrace. It's a curriculum without content, it's an ideological manifesto. Children in the Far North should receive the same education as children in the far south. It should not be left to chance. And that's what happened. That's exactly what has been happening now. We've got an Education Minister who is a) passionate about giving our children what they deserve and b) has ideas about how to make it happen.
It shouldn't be left to chance, as Professor Rata says, it shouldn't be left to teachers to come up with some kind of vague curriculum which they have precious little time to do. And it shouldn't be left to parents to find $700 a term to shore up the gaps in our education system. It shouldn't be that those who can and those who have are able to circumvent our education system and be better and do better, leaving the others languishing. That is not the way we make a better New Zealand. That is not the way we make a productive of New Zealand and that's not the way we make a New Zealand that gives every child the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
Not only hi-jacked but subverted to boot.
As Prof Rata said it is an ideological manifesto.
What sort of person who is a true educator would stand for a curriculum being rather than a reason to teach but more a manifesto to indoctrinate?
I come from a line of educators and frankly I find this highly offensive to all the dedicated educators from years gone by where lifting a child to learn and think was a key goal.
Now it is give them a book like 'Paku Manu Ariki Whakatakapokai' and let the lies fester....
PS if you don't know what this title is, google it. It is an eye opener to race theory writ large.....
Teacher trainees need to be encourages and selected for their ability in maths and English, not for their enthusiasm for te reo and tenuous matters maori. Obsession with the latter deters many objective able energetic from the profession. The prospect of having to spend endless hours in maori time meetings, sitting through powhiri, karakia, hakas, repetitive kapahaka, tip toe around the failings of maori parents and their chideren etc etc is daunting for the truly able.
... or go here to understand the full depth of the curriculum hi-jack during the past six years:
https://www.nzcer.org.nz/
Hurrah for this. Thank you Kerre for your article . Spot on.
Just in in time before all those who know what real education, as we used to have , have died off. We unfortunately have had an entire educational establishment for decades who have had little idea of real effective teaching ;indoctrinated into a thoroughly destructive
Progressive ideology instead.
I am ashamed of the well off who have smugly been going to costly tuition all these years and failed to consider those who couldn't afford this.
Providing an additional learning opportunity is great but will only reap dividends if students attend. Once again it comes down to the attitude of the parents. Look at any private school at leaving time, by far the majority of children will be Asian, then white, then from the Indian sub-continent, because these parents put a high value on education and the prosperity that it can bring. Unlike material things, no-one can ever take a good education away from a child.
There was a time when Maori chiefs petitioned Parliament to make English the only language spoken in Maori schools because they could see the advantage of their children being able to speak it. Perhaps Maori and Pacific Island leaders would do well to press parents to make sure their children attended school, and encourage their children to take advantage of the opportunity to get a free education.
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