2019’s Waitangi commemorations will be mostly remembered for two debates – whether the Prime Minister should be able to recite the detail of the Treaty of Waitangi, and whether the teaching of the Treaty and colonial history in New Zealand should be compulsory. PM’s unawareness of the Treaty Articles Jacinda Ardern’s awkward answers about the …
Many children were supposed to start back at school today – but how many actually turned up? On an average day in New Zealand schools, only 64 per cent of students show up. Many absences are obviously due to illness, but there are ill-effects from societal problems that are preventing children from getting a basic …
Equality, fairness, and cooperation look set to become the priorities underpinning the operations of the schooling system. They’re the values that are explicit in the radical new proposals to overhaul education and roll back the “neoliberal” Tomorrow’s Schools model that was imposed in the 1980s.The status quo, based on competition and a business model is …
Debate has now kicked off over the Government’s most radical reforms to date – the overhaul of the way our schools are run. With the release of the “Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce” proposals for change, there is now a polarised and highly-ideological battle involving important values that will inform the future of education in this …