The failure to deliver any kind of transformational reform, the failure to deliver on the absolute basics, the arrogance around co-governance, the breathtaking and utterly tragic waste of taxpayer money, more on that later, Treasury's report that came out yesterday slamming the governments spending during the pandemic just confirms everything we knew – but now this.
Labour's absolute refusal to even acknowledge changes taking place within NCEA. The Herald has the story and its a good one. The Government offered Labour multiple opportunities to be briefed on the NCEA change process, but the party’s education spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime initially didn’t respond to these invitations and then flat-out declined them. This after Hipkins said to the Herald last month that the Labour Government consulted with the then-Opposition to ensure changes were “going to be enduring” and expressed a desire for the current Government to do the same. A text message appears to show Stanford reached out to Prime about NCEA after the Labour MP took over the education portfolio from Jan Tinetti in March.
“Hey Willow-Jean, congrats on the new role! Will need to get you up to speed with the NCEA change process. Jan and I had started working cross-party on this given the importance of our national qualification,” Stanford wrote, according to a screenshot provided.
“Would be good if we could meet first and I can run you through where we are at and what the process is. There is a policy advisory group of principals who are working on the details and you can have access to them when they meet as well as my officials and also NZQA.”
The Minister said her office would get in touch with Prime’s “if that’s ok?”. Nothing. Tumbleweeds. Now I get that she doesn't have to like the changes. She doesn't have to agree with the change. But a letter along the lines of 'Thanks Minister, but I am philosophically and intellectually opposed to the changes you intend to make and I will be rolling them back once I am Minister. Nga mihi, Willow Jean' would have let everybody know where they stood. Nothing? No response at all?!
Stanford's office reached out again in May. Again, nothing. In mid June, Stanford reached out personally and then when again, there was no response, Stanford emailed Chris Hipkins office on July 1. “I’ve sought on multiple occasions to get input from your education spokesperson on NCEA curriculum reform, with no response,” Stanford wrote to Hipkins on July 1.
“It is important to have cross-party collaboration regarding a national qualification, and the offer remains open to arrange a briefing from officials or from the Professional Advisory Group.”
The next day, an adviser for Prime emailed Stanford: “I acknowledge your email regarding NCEA curriculum reform."
“Willow-Jean has considered your email and declines the invitation."
That is Labour's education spokesperson. Some one who is so rude, so out of touch, so out of her depth she refused to be part of transformational change. But no, this is not just Labour's education spokesperson, this is Labour. Out of touch, out of their depth, and while Chris Hipkins remains as leader, they should never be allowed anywhere near the levers of power ever again.
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.
Labour's absolute refusal to even acknowledge changes taking place within NCEA. The Herald has the story and its a good one. The Government offered Labour multiple opportunities to be briefed on the NCEA change process, but the party’s education spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime initially didn’t respond to these invitations and then flat-out declined them. This after Hipkins said to the Herald last month that the Labour Government consulted with the then-Opposition to ensure changes were “going to be enduring” and expressed a desire for the current Government to do the same. A text message appears to show Stanford reached out to Prime about NCEA after the Labour MP took over the education portfolio from Jan Tinetti in March.
“Hey Willow-Jean, congrats on the new role! Will need to get you up to speed with the NCEA change process. Jan and I had started working cross-party on this given the importance of our national qualification,” Stanford wrote, according to a screenshot provided.
“Would be good if we could meet first and I can run you through where we are at and what the process is. There is a policy advisory group of principals who are working on the details and you can have access to them when they meet as well as my officials and also NZQA.”
The Minister said her office would get in touch with Prime’s “if that’s ok?”. Nothing. Tumbleweeds. Now I get that she doesn't have to like the changes. She doesn't have to agree with the change. But a letter along the lines of 'Thanks Minister, but I am philosophically and intellectually opposed to the changes you intend to make and I will be rolling them back once I am Minister. Nga mihi, Willow Jean' would have let everybody know where they stood. Nothing? No response at all?!
Stanford's office reached out again in May. Again, nothing. In mid June, Stanford reached out personally and then when again, there was no response, Stanford emailed Chris Hipkins office on July 1. “I’ve sought on multiple occasions to get input from your education spokesperson on NCEA curriculum reform, with no response,” Stanford wrote to Hipkins on July 1.
“It is important to have cross-party collaboration regarding a national qualification, and the offer remains open to arrange a briefing from officials or from the Professional Advisory Group.”
The next day, an adviser for Prime emailed Stanford: “I acknowledge your email regarding NCEA curriculum reform."
“Willow-Jean has considered your email and declines the invitation."
That is Labour's education spokesperson. Some one who is so rude, so out of touch, so out of her depth she refused to be part of transformational change. But no, this is not just Labour's education spokesperson, this is Labour. Out of touch, out of their depth, and while Chris Hipkins remains as leader, they should never be allowed anywhere near the levers of power ever again.
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.
7 comments:
Willow Jean Prime says her passion is Māori and Indigenous development and the promotionof Te Reo. She's another product of the woke Waikato University program of producing politicized but useless graduates who can't get jobs outside the public service and politics (just like Jacinda). In her maiden speech she reckons that she came to Parliament for the purpose of upholding the Tresty.
Prime's underlying problem is not only incompetence but a lack of interest in educational reform that doesn't involve the Maorification of the system and rewriting history.
Very much agree that W-J Prime has behaved incompetently, and have said so on a Labour-friendly site. But as for being critical of Labour, that's just what the Newstalk lot do all the time. I don't fuss about it, but just expect it. A Labour politician could save several people from drowning, and the Newstalk lot would just say the person was doing it for the publicity; Mike would say that it'd been staged. Could be worse: Plunket would say that the Labour person caused the near-drowning to start with, and others would say it was a Maori conspiracy. Just how it rolls.
Prime’s version of events saying she was researching on her own and the Hipkins’ u-turn after Stanford exposed the texts they ignored, smacks of the usual labour/greens/tpm tactics of when they are caught with their pants down (in more ways than one), make up some explanation to deflect and rewrite the narrative.
Anonymous at 11.15am. Your affiliation to rnz, tvnz, stuff, newsroom, spinoff and paddy Gower is overwhelmingly obvious. Opposition and undermining of this democratically elected government and disuniting the people of New Zealand has been their main pursuit since Hipkins and the greens were shown the door.
Na, don't agree. Follow a lot of news outlets, but not TVNZ or (regularly) Paddy Gower. Main problem I find with outlets in general is that they make much of trivia. Some outlets go too easy on Labour, others, like Newstalk, are always looking for things to attack Labour for. As for the government, you'd expect the media to criticise it, whatever its complexion. People on this site find the media too left-wing, those on other sites find it too right-wing. As I said, it's how things roll.
You mention P Gower. (Anonymous 4.14pm). I refuse utterly to watch or read any of his contributions. After his disastrous interview with the Canadians I could not take him seriously on any level. Also I did send him an email regarding his use of that obscene word – used in his publicity banner. To the effect that if he must use obscenities and vulgarities he has lost the argument.
The banner at one point actually had the full word. After my complaint to Stuff some characters in the word were replaced with hash and percentage signs.
Again to Anonymous 4.14pm you are right about TVNZ doing trivia. Name TriViaNZ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have a field day if he were still alive, with his theory of stupidity and the susceptibility to manipulation of which modern society is still prone.
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