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Prime Minister John Key has criticised teacher unions saying they are protecting under-performing teachers.
The attack comes a day after Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples, an associate education minister, said he held "grave fears" about new nationals standards.
Key said on Monday that the government would continue to work with Sharples about his concerns.
The standards will set benchmarks for reading, writing and maths, and pupils will be assessed against them with regular reports sent to parents. However, many are concerned about the effect of league tables created by media using the information which would be publicly available. Sharples was concerned about the impact that would have on some schools' rolls.
Key said on Tuesday unions were worried the standards would show some teachers were not making the grade.
"We are a government that's not going to sit back and accept the status quo which is decades of under-performance from some teachers and a failure of a whole bunch of kids," he said.
Education Minister Anne Tolley had faced a lot of flak over implementation of the standards and last week Key reduced her workload by giving her tertiary education portfolio to another minister.
Key said she was a capable minister.
"I think you are always, if you are a National Party education minister, up against a little bit with the teacher unions. That's just the way it is, there's always been a fairly hostile environment there."
Tolley told Radio New Zealand on Tuesday morning that she had talked regularly to Sharples about his concerns.
As the requirement to report the standards had been pushed out to 2012 the league table issue "did not need to be dealt with this year", she said.
A group had been set up to look at the issue.
Key said on Monday that the government would work alongside Sharples and other interested parties to ensure useful information was available to parents without negative side effects.
Sharples refused interviews on Monday but issued a brief statement saying he had been voicing concerns held by several kura kaupapa Maori and Maori teachers in mainstream schools.
Labour MP Kelvin Davis pointed out the Maori Party supported legislation enabling the standards.
"It's all a bit late for Pita Sharples and the Maori Party to wake up to the fact that this policy they voted for may in fact disadvantage Maori students.
"Dr Sharples is trying to have his cake and eat it too. If he is against national standards, he should explain why he and his party helped National get them through parliament."
Tolley said there was a lot of support for the standards and parents wanted to know "the good, the bad and the ugly" about their children's performance.
"There's very good evidence that if you set clear challenging goals for children in their studies they understand what those goals are, you use quality teaching and you involve parents in the learning process that you can raise learning achievement."
She said parents already used a range of factors to decide which schools to send children to.
The standards might highlight areas schools were failing children and teachers who were not doing well so the government was putting $26 million new funding into teacher training.
"We are determined to ensure every New Zealand child gets a good education."
Do you think the introduction of national standards is a
good thing or do you think they are ill conceived and poorly
implemented? Leave your comments on the messageboard below.
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Add a Comment:
Post new commentExpat1 said on 2010-02-03 @ 02:08 NZDT: Report abusive post
Watch for narrowing of the curriculum, watch for losing time for the stuff that is inherently part of NZ schools - sports, art, music, assemblies, anything that takes time away from instruction for benchmarks. Might not be right away, but progressively chipped away at. Look to the U.S. for lessons on how not to do it!
tahifu said on 2010-02-03 @ 01:01 NZDT: Report abusive post
Does National really know what it's doing? They look at statistics and data and make a judgement from that. It's obvious that National are being PC and not discussing the real underlying problem; children of specific ethnicities being the majority of the illiterate that contribute to the findings of Key's Stat's. Leave the primary school system alone and fix the real problem, NCEA
jamm said on 2010-02-02 @ 23:01 NZDT: Report abusive post
Surprisingly education here is not as good as what I expected. I teach my child at home anything under the sun as he hasn't got any homework to do, in short I find NZ's education low quality compared to others. Change is what NZ needs.
jamm said on 2010-02-02 @ 22:50 NZDT: Report abusive post
I came from a country where education is far better than what NZ has. At gradeschool students have about 7-10 class a day and each class got a homework that you need to work on at home. All students cannot proceed to secondary school without passing an assesment. They say good education will take you to a better palce and probably that's what took me to live in a first world country like NZ.
mistarex said on 2010-02-02 @ 19:44 NZDT: Report abusive post
Now we know why there is a shortage of quality teachers. Who would stay and cope with this cr.... More banal politically driven mumbo jumbo, not even trialled and threats of removing principals/ Board of trustees if not implemented...is this NZ or some third world dictatorship. More smarmy Key rhetoric, he is more boring than Helen. Same old, same old we know best......... who will profit from this I wonder..