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In 2011 the Ministry of Education embarked on a 10 year strategy to rejuvenate New Zealand's ageing classrooms. Millions of dollars were spent building open plan classrooms and implementing student led learning strategies. But in his report for The New Zealand Initiative, Dr Michael Johnston, found there was little evidence the policy has worked at all, and in some cases may be making learning even more difficult for some students. Read more

Dr Michael Johnston, a Senior Research Fellow from the NZ Initiative joined the program to discuss his research on 'Modern Leaning Environments'.

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Ideology rather than evidence is the basis for the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) ‘Modern Leaning Environments’, research by The New Zealand Initiative has revealed. Dr Oliver Hartwich and Dr Michael Johnston discuss the fact that a government ministry could not produce data to support its policy for mass conversion of New Zealand’s classrooms to Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) and other findings of the Initiative’s new report, "No Evidence, No Evaluation, No Exit – Lessons from the 'Modern Learning Environments' experiment". Read more

There are some worryingly low pass results in a NCEA literacy and numeracy trial. Year 10 students have trialled the test, which will be made compulsory for year 11 students in 2024. Read more

Michael Johnston discusses improving our childrens' reading and writing with Belinda Blick-Duggan and Dr Helen Walls. Click here to view a range of content that teachers and parents can use to improve childrens' handwriting. Read more

There are many pressing problems facing New Zealand, but none more urgent than the decay of our once great education system. Every time a young person leaves school without basic literacy and numeracy, it is a travesty. Read more