A privilege to be hosted on Stuff today on The State of Education in NZ and the remarkable opportunities.

Time for Honesty and Aspiration in NZ Schools.

“Some key indicators are that: Even our Level 2 NCEA graduates often lack functional numeracy and literacy. We have in excess of 8500 students not enrolled in any school as of July. Our full attendance for Term 2 was less than 40% across all deciles and just 23% for decile 1 students. We have 12% of our students graduating with less than Level 1 NCEA (33% for Māori students in South Auckland). The gaps across socio-economic levels are the worst in the developed world. Our ethnic gaps are also horrendous with Asian students getting University Entrance for leavers at 67%, back to Māori at 18%.”

Lots of change can be made and the piece discusses that.
Sometimes on Kiwiblog commentators express their frustration that it seems hard to get narratives into the MSN that challenge powerful institutions. I appreciate this opportunity and a positive comment to: opinion@stuff.co.nz would be a bad thing for readers to send.

alwyn.poole@gmail.com