The Education and Training Act 2020 is massive. It legislates parameters for nearly every imaginable aspect of publicly funded education, from early childhood to university. One of its 669 Sections describes the objectives of school boards.
Alongside enabling students to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement, the Act exhorts boards to ensure that schools are physically and emotionally safe environments. Boards must also make sure their schools cater for students with differing needs and give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi.
The New Zealand Initiative has long argued that the Act should elevate the delivery of education above the other objectives.
It seems that the government has taken note. Its recent Education and Training Amendment Bill sets ensuring students’ educational achievement as the paramount objective of school boards. The other three objectives in the 2020 Act are relegated to the status of ‘supporting objectives.’
By giving the other three objectives equal status, the current Act puts boards at risk of confusing means with ends. Naturally, schools should endeavour to keep students and staff safe. They should be inclusive of all students’ needs and cultures. But these are strategies for delivering education rather than reasons for schools to exist in the first place.
Imagine a school with very little bullying, plenty of provision for neurodiverse and disabled students, and a strong emphasis on Māori language and culture – but mediocre educational achievement. The board could claim it is doing its job well.
It might acknowledge room for improvement on one of its objectives but argue that its outstanding performance on the other three makes up for that. In fact, though, that school and its board would be failing.
The government’s intended change to school board objectives is more than cosmetic. Making educational excellence the paramount objective will provide a clear and overarching criterion for accountability. When the Education Review Office visits a school, it will now be much more interested in its achievement data than has been typical in recent years.
The only reason schools exist is to deliver education. The Education and Training Amendment Bill is a welcome reminder of that.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
The New Zealand Initiative has long argued that the Act should elevate the delivery of education above the other objectives.
It seems that the government has taken note. Its recent Education and Training Amendment Bill sets ensuring students’ educational achievement as the paramount objective of school boards. The other three objectives in the 2020 Act are relegated to the status of ‘supporting objectives.’
By giving the other three objectives equal status, the current Act puts boards at risk of confusing means with ends. Naturally, schools should endeavour to keep students and staff safe. They should be inclusive of all students’ needs and cultures. But these are strategies for delivering education rather than reasons for schools to exist in the first place.
Imagine a school with very little bullying, plenty of provision for neurodiverse and disabled students, and a strong emphasis on Māori language and culture – but mediocre educational achievement. The board could claim it is doing its job well.
It might acknowledge room for improvement on one of its objectives but argue that its outstanding performance on the other three makes up for that. In fact, though, that school and its board would be failing.
The government’s intended change to school board objectives is more than cosmetic. Making educational excellence the paramount objective will provide a clear and overarching criterion for accountability. When the Education Review Office visits a school, it will now be much more interested in its achievement data than has been typical in recent years.
The only reason schools exist is to deliver education. The Education and Training Amendment Bill is a welcome reminder of that.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
3 comments:
That's some pleasing news. What you've described of the current Act doesn't surprise me in the least, but who ín the general public would have known? Our MoE have had their eyes off the real ball for far too long and our abysmal declining education record proves it. The next necessary move is to clean out those ideologues in the MoE that were only too keen to allow those other very subordinate goals to dominate. That will prove much harder than the introduction of the Amendment Act, but we must start somewhere and this at least now identifies the educational priority so, hopefully, another generation isn't disadvantaged.
I enjoy these sorts of discussion when you go to a board meeting for a factory say, and the first item is we have a great safety record, my reply is that the safest factory is a closed factory.
I state what used to be the obvious, make a profit all else can then follow, sustainability, safety, long term productivity growth, but no profit and you are looking at closing.
Well that' s nice that they want to focus on academic .achievement.
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What a strange idea for schooling . Most people would have mistakenly thought that this has always been the aim of our schools. Well unfortunately that is dreadfully naive . Ideology including not just Marxism has been for decades the driving force in all our educational institutions . Spelling was dropped for example because it was oppressive , apparently to lower socio-economic status children. Rote learning of any topic was dropped because it was repressive to a child's creativity and would produce 'widgets out of a factory ' and into robots unable to think. Learning to read should be natural , playful , easy and meaningful by simply being exposed to good literature and fun literacy experiences. Even teaching advanced subjects like chemistry involved crazy experiential activities like having students in a classroom/ laboratory bump into each other to have a complete understanding of molecules in a chemical reaction.
Sitting in a classroom at a desk listening and absorbing information and instruction from a teacher and a text book is very nonproductive passive learning according to the entrenched current ideology. This is clearly an oxymoron and total nonsense along with all the other ideas dreamed up by rarefied intellects in ivory towers who have usually never actually taught a classroom of students.
I agree with Peter in his contribution above and am so pleased we have Michael , an astute academic who has weathered academia and survived to be able to present sensible perspectives to us.
When is the madness in our educational institutions going to come to an end? It is just not possible for a classroom teacher to try to heal educationally all children's social and personal traumas and unfortunate backgrounds but from experience of teaching , including victims from horrible homes , failing to have them achieve academically simply adds more to their load of physical, social and emotional handicaps.
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