Kristina Kallas: Estonian Education Minister says they're keeping an eye on how New Zealand's educational reforms pan out

European nations are eyeing New Zealand’s education overhaul as a model for their own reforms. 

Education Minister Erica Stanford's implemented new curriculums, scrapped NCEA, increased learning support funding and put a sharper focus on teaching the basics this year. 

Estonia’s Education Minister Kristina Kallas is here meeting Stanford, and says her country and others are considering similar changes after drops in achievement. 

She told Mike Hosking New Zealand's direction is the right one. 

Kallas says basic skills are needed to develop critical and analytical thinking. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I shouldn't have been surprised, but one of the most

(00:01):
profound education announcements, as I mentioned earlier on the program
in a very long time, came yesterday afternoon. It was
largely ignored by the media as part of the government's
maths overhaul, and now a day of Maths has on
average delivered a full year's progress in just twelve weeks.
Now the specific trial group actually got towards two years advancement. Anyway,
the new curriculum draws heavily from Estonia. They currently sit

(00:21):
seventh on these PIASA education rankings. They are the top
in Europe. And Christina Kellis is the Estonian education minister
who is in the country and is with us. Good
morning to you, Good morning now as far as you're
concerned versus what we have done, are we doing better
than you or you are still doing better than us
when it comes.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
To METS well, comparing piece A results, which is an
international comparison of education systems globally, Estonia is doing really great.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
New Zealand has had drops in mathematic results, especially not
so much in reading but in mathematic. So we do
learn from each other. I think that's the most important
part in the politics in general. We've also not only
learned from the good results, but also actually from the
things that other countries have done and which maybe have
been a mistake. Or learning from other mistakes I think

(01:16):
is also a thing to do. So I'm here in
New Zealand not to look, of course at the New
Zealand mistakes, but to look at the reforms that are
currently be done in education and to see whether those
reforms are actually going towards the direction that I have
to admit that many European countries are pondering and wondering
the same thing right now, because there is a significant

(01:37):
drop in performance and students, especially in mathematics, but also
in functional reading in many many European countries. We also
had a drop because of the pandemic, but not that significant.
But there's a big debate in Europe, including in Estonia,
about what do we need to change in education system
to bring the performance up again. And the Estonian case, yeah,

(01:58):
we have a very high results right now. We have
this kind of a knowledge rich focused on learning, memorizing
and repeating, applying, but also we need in Estonia a
lot to go to the other levels of knowledge, which
is and skills, which is more about critical thinking, and
I think New Zealand here has done that prior. So

(02:22):
I'm here to look at the New Zealand reforms, but
also about the things that have been gooded past and
where New Zealand has been doing very well in education system.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
What's your observation of our reform so far.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
I think that this is a right direction because in
order to actually develop critical thinking, analytical thinking, systematic thinking,
for example, ethical thinking, all those what we call twenty
first century skills, in order to develop those, you actually
need to get basic skills there first. And basic skills

(02:57):
are very fundamental functional reading skills, mathematical logical thinking skills,
and math skills. Like on a knowledge level, you need
to understand a lot of geographical and biology and science
subjects in order to actually develop any kind of what
we call higher order thinking skills. So if we don't

(03:18):
get the basic skills straight for the young kids before
the age of fifteen, then all other more complicated skill
developments are not going to be there. And that's what,
for example, in Europe we're really worried about because according
to the piece of results, thirty percent of European students
fail on basic skills in mathematics thirty percent. That's almost

(03:42):
every third, every fourth student, and we need to do
the changing curriculum for that as well.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
The one hour. It struck me in watching it yesterday
when they made the announcement that one hour a day
of maths, which is our policy now one hour myths
to be able to gain a year in twelve weeks
is a remarkable thing. Do you see it as remarkable?

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Well, we have five hours maths per week, so one
hour per day. We have six seven hours of language
Estonian language reading per week, so we have a very intensive,
quite ambitious curriculum and we have always had it. So
students do a lot of math, a lot of reading,
a lot of science every day and every week at

(04:23):
school and we do see that you know, that performs
and they perform as a result of this. So I
think that what New Zealand where is going doing one
hour math per day or one hour reading per day,
vocabulary and phonetics and grammar and text production and telling storytelling.

(04:45):
This is the right thing to do because that's how
the kids developmentally developed, that's how they acquire knowledge, and
based on knowledge they acquire skills and then then they
go much higher order skills as they proceed in education systems.
To our what New Zealand currently is doing in curriculum
is something that we have always had in education system.

(05:06):
We have always done that, a lot of math, a
lot of math at school.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Good on you, Christina listen, nice to talk with you.
I appreciate your time very much. Christina callous and enjoys
stay in the country education Estoni an education minister. It's
sort of like it's the weirdest thing to me, and
the way she explained that, so they're successful. They're indisputably successful.
We now clearly are on the right track, and yet
we're talking about something. There's no rocket science here. There

(05:34):
was no revelation there was there. We just do an
hour of maths a day, We do an hour of
reading a day, as though that somehow we woke up
one morning and went, now, what were we doing at
school previous to this. It's just unbelievable. I believe I
have to apologize to TV one because number of you
let me know that they by six thirty six, and
this is my fault. By six thirty six, they did,

(05:56):
in fact, for forty seconds briefly mention this story yesterday,
So then we get into the slightly separate argument, is
what I heard yesterday from the Education minister was a
lead story. I mean, you know, all day long. But
we can argue that till your blue in the face
counsels or your kid's future, which is your favorite story
of the AAA councils getting reformed, or your kid's future anyway,

(06:17):
be that as it may.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
I mean, they did have to tell everybody that Jimmy
Clifford died as well.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Of course they had to get that on you.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Anyway, for forty seconds. TV one found in this, but
that doesn't excuse the rest of them that just astonishingly
stood there as journalists listen to those results, and I
think they ended up asking two questions about the results,
and then they moved on to all the other conspiratorial
crap that currently occupies their minds. I'm sure TV then

(06:44):
posted a longer thing on their website. Or did they
Apparently they didn't, according to according to the people next
to Euglenn they didn't do any of that. For more
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