Kerre Woodham: Could this be the year education gets back on track?

Any day now, counting down the seconds, the kids will be back at school if yours haven't gone already. And this year, maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, will be the year that our education system gets back on track.

Certainly, Erica Stanford’s bigging up the new focus on structured learning. A press release out from her office says, as schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future.

A world leading education system is a key driver to economic growth. Our future playwrights and songwriters need to have a mastery of literacy and numeracy as much as our future mechanical engineers, doctors and electricians, and so on and so forth.

It's kind of a call to arms for teachers and parents from Erica Stanford.

There's also an op-ed piece from a math's and statistics teacher in the Herald this morning, Peter Wills. He says, and he's looking at the failure rates for NCEA Level 1, the news that Kiwi kids did poorly in NCEA comes as no surprise.

 Last month, NCEA results came out and we saw that in 2024 30% of students failed Level 1, slightly under a third of our kids could not pass basic numeracy and literacy tests associated with NECA Level 1. That was this 18% in 2023. Erica Stanford said the results were expected, that there’d be a high proportion of students who would not pass because they were putting in minimum standards.

Now most countries we compare ourselves to - United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, the US and Australia all have numeracy and literacy tests and these have been introduced because we know it's bad, but we need know how bad it is. 30% could

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks.
He'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Any day now, counting down the seconds the kids will
be back at school if yours haven't gone already. And
this year, maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, will be the year
that our education system gets back on track. Certainly. Ericus
Stanford's bigging up the new Focus on Structured Learning press

(00:37):
release out this morning says, as schools start back for
twenty twenty five, there'll be a relentless focus on teaching
the basics brilliantly, so all key we kids grow up
the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New
Zealand of the future. A world leading education system is
a key driver to economic growth. Our future playwrights and

(00:57):
songwriters need to have a mastery of literacy and numeracy
as much as our future mechanical engineers, doctors and electricians
and so on and so forth. It's kind of a
call to arms for teachers and parents from Eric Stanford.
There's also an oppered piece from a maths and statistics
teacher in the Herald this morning. Peter Willis, He says,

(01:21):
and he's looking at the failure rates for nca level one.
The news that Kiwi kids did poorly and NCAA comes
as no surprise. Last month NCIA results came out. We
saw that in twenty twenty four, thirty percent of students

(01:41):
failed level one, a third of it well slightly under
a third of our kids could not pass basic numeracy
and literacy tests associated with NCAA Level one. That was
just eighteen percent and twenty twenty three Erica Stanford said

(02:02):
the results were expected that there'd be a high proportion
of students who would not pass because they were putting
in minimum standards. Now, most countries or most countries we
compare ourselves to United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, the US and
Australia all have numerocy and literacy tests and these have

(02:25):
been been introduced because we know it's bad, but we
need to know how bad it is. Thirty percent couldn't
pass nca level one last year. So if you don't
have NCAA Level one, it's really difficult to get a

(02:45):
decent job, to enter any kind of training. Just by
passing NCAA Level one, on average, a student earns twelve
k more a year and is significantly more likely to
get a job and enter training. They've got more choices.
You get an education, you have more choices. You don't

(03:05):
have to be a brain surgeon, but you are still
going to need basic numeracy, basic literacy to get any
kind of job you want. Getting students to pass the CIAS,
which is the literacy and numeracy test, is a top

(03:26):
priority for schools across New Zealand, Peter Willis says mercifully,
though he doesn't advocate dropping standards, which you can imagine
other administrations might opt for to allow more young people
to pass. He says, maths teachers are adamant that the
standard not be lowered to compensate for low pass rates.

(03:47):
You teach better, you teach differently, You give the kids
the basic skills they need to pass. What we had
before wasn't working. And you know that. Employers know that.
Parents know that. That's why so many parents are spending
thousands of dollars per child every year to shore up

(04:08):
the gaps in their children's knowledge with private tuition or
sending them to private schools. They know the state education
is and has been stub standard, and it's not the
fault of the teachers, it's the policy wonks in the
Ministry of Education, whose half baked theories formulated over dinner
parties in Calbourn inexplicably and inexcusably made it into the classroom,

(04:33):
and for decades now our once world famous education system
has degraded to where it is now thirty percent of
kids last year not passing the most basic secondary school exam.
So as we start the school year as we have

(04:54):
with a call to arms from America Stanford and structured
learning is going to be the savior, Let's hope it is.
When it comes to employers, what are you seeing coming
out of our schools at the moment. According to Peter Willis,
it'll be seven years before we see any benefits from
structured learning. We've got concerns about our productivity. We've got investors,

(05:16):
as you heard this morning, traveling New Zealand looking for
bright young things with startup ideas. Where the hell are
those bright young things going to come from if we
don't embrace the structured learning and reclaim our world class education.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
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