National’s education policy

Christopher Luxon announced National’s education policy today.

The aim:

• 80 per cent of Year 8 students being at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing, maths, and science by 2030.
• New Zealand students to the top 10 in the world in maths, reading and science, measured by the international PISA rankings, by 2033.

The how:

• require all primary and intermediate schools to provide at least an hour of reading, an hour of writing and an hour of maths, on average, every day.
• re-write the curriculum to clearly state what must be taught each year in reading, writing, maths and science to every year group.
• require standardised robust assessment at least twice a year in reading, writing and maths from Year 3 to Year 8
• detailed results will be reported to parents.
• refocus initial teacher training so that all new teachers are themselves confident in the subjects they are teaching as a requirement for registration.
• scrap teacher registration fees so that teachers don’t have to pay to teach.

This is an excellent and important policy. Far far too many kids are leaving school deficient in literacy and numeracy. It can doom them to a bleak future.

I was shocked to discover that schools are not already doing an hour a day on average on reading, writing and maths. Some schools are, but on average most are not.

I’m lucky that my oldest is at a school with an excellent focus on literacy and numeracy. In fact I was at a workshop for parents yesterday where we learnt about the Best Start Literacy Approach, and how both teachers and parents can use this to improve literacy. There are some great teachers and resources out there. But it will require good policies from the Government to support them.