For a brief moment last year, it looked as if the Ministry of Education was finally going to embrace methods of teaching literacy and numeracy supported by scientific evidence. They published a new literacy and numeracy strategy that made reference to structured teaching methods. Read more
Tokona Te Raki, an advocacy and research group for Māori issues, has recently released a report titled Kōkirihia. The report takes aim at the practice of streaming in our schools and pushes forward the bold suggestion to ban streaming by 2030. Read more
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is worried, and rightly so. His city is battling an invasion of road cones, and something must be done about it. Read more
The National Party wants to see teachers get back to the basics with a bigger focus on reading, writing and maths. The party introduced its policy yesterday, including a standardised assessment of student progress for primary students. Read more
We urgently need a conversation about education. Not the kind of ‘conversation’ the Ministry of Education typically convenes when it consults on new policy ideas. Read more
A recent report revealed that a third of 15-year-olds cannot read at a basic adult standard. Numeracy rates are similarly worrying, with many students battling to comprehend basic mathematics. Read more
There are many pressing problems facing New Zealand, but none more urgent than the decay of our once great education system. For more than two decades, the literacy and numeracy achievement of our young people has been declining. Read more
ast Thursday, most of New Zealand’s teachers were on strike. Teachers’ unions representatives say that the action was necessary to press their claim for better pay and working conditions. Read more
More families could receive a $72.50 a week tax credit, as part of a massive and fundamental change to the system, after a review of the $3 billion Working for Families tax credit system that ended last year. A review of the scheme, which currently supports just under 350,000 families with children, is before Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, and has found serious design issues in the way some of the tax credits are applied. Read more
Recent Ministry of Education publications bring mātauranga Māori concepts into the school curriculum. While concepts like mauri, a Māori term meaning “vital essence” or “life force”, may have something to offer science as a reflection of ecosystem health or the “life-supporting capacity” of rivers, any interpretation that equated mauri with chemical properties, or as “the binding force between the physical and the spiritual”, had no place in the chemistry curriculum and proposals to incorporate traditional knowledge in science curricula need a lot more reflection, with nobody excluded from the conversation. Read more
Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB asks Finance Minister Grant Robertson about his thoughts on the points raised in Dr Bryce Wilkinson's latest report, Made by Government: New Zealand's Monetary Policy Mess.
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ast Thursday, most of New Zealand’s teachers were on strike. Teachers’ unions representatives say that the action was necessary to press their claim for better pay and working conditions. Read more
No matter how good an idea, it takes time for the entire country to hear about it. But that time has now come for localism. Read more
Inflation is a problem for the first time in 30 years. Property prices have whiplashed. Read more
You may recall New Zealand’s sixteen former Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) being merged to form the mega-Polytech, Te Pūkenga. But if you do, it is a false memory. Read more