Erica Stanford: Education Minister on the bill requiring school boards to make achievement the ultimate goal

The Education Minister's looking to set it in stone what a school's ultimate goal should be. 

Erica Stanford's introducing a new Bill requiring boards to have attendance management plans. 

It includes amending school board objectives to make educational achievement the ultimate goal.  

Stanford told Mike Hosking she wants to make it clear. 

She says under the previous government it became very convoluted and it took away from the previous goal of having students achieve. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Also in Parliament has been more reformed for schools, or
will be more reform for schools teachers who will now
need to give a week's notice before they strike, not
three days, and the paramount objective for school boards will
be to boost achievement. The Education Minister, Erica Stanford is
of course in charge of all of this and she's
with us. Very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, mate, educator. I'm well.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
The Education and Training Amendment Bill number two ensure schools
prioritize achievement, teacher education, teacher discipline and teacher confidence processes
as opposed to what what else are they doing?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well? The Section one two seven of the Education Act
told boards what to do, and under the previous government
it was very convoluted and had many different things, and
you can imagine the types of things that were there,
and it took away what it said the prior, which
was actually children are at school to achieve, to raise achievement,
close the equity gap, that's the paramount objective, and that

(00:52):
was taken away, and there was a whole lot of
other things that you can imagine. We're there. So we've
tidied it up and made sure that schools understand it.
Paramount objective is to make sure that our kids are
achieving at school.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Can the boards do that? Are the board's hands on
enough to make an educational achievement? The paramount objective is them?
Or is that the principal? Or is that ultimately the teachers.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well as you know, our schools are all self managing
entities and the boards are the ones who have the
power and the control. And it depends on board. You
have some boards who do an excellent job, who make
sure that schools are assessing their children, they get copies
of that assessment, They make sure that their schools are
on track. I mean, I've seen some excellent strategic plans

(01:37):
and excellent annual reports where schools are tracking student achievements
very well. Other schools who just don't have sometimes the
quality of people who are putting themselves forward for the
boards who don't do as goot a job. So what
we will try to do, I think in future, is
try and get some standardization across board so that they

(01:57):
are they are they are looking at the same things
and reporting on the same things in the same way,
so that for example, ero in the ministry and the
Minister can look across the board because at the moment,
schools all report on completely different things in different ways.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
We had the Children's Commissioner on earlier attendance things like
that that things seem to be tracking slightly but surely
in the right direction. Yes, good, so you'd be happy
with that.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
But I didn't hear what they said earlier. I just
know from my education portfolio I'm starting to see things
change in the education space. One thing I can tell
you is that we are world leading in the education
reforms that we are undertaking at the moment. In fact,
when in the Northern Hemisphere earlier this year, we had

(02:50):
other countries coming to us really interested in asking what
we're doing because they could see that we're world leading
as well in the explicit teaching, the year by year curriculum,
the knowledge rich curriculum, the science of learning. And we
will assess our kids later this year against the baseline
that we did last year, which was frankly terrible, and
then going into the election next year, we'll be able

(03:10):
to show that things are on track.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Good stuff. Appreciate your time, having a good weekend. Erica Stanford,
Education Minister for more from the MIC Asking Breakfast listen
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