Ready, Fire, Aim! Standards Advisory Backwards

Ready, Fire, Aim! Standards Advisory Group Gets It Backwards.

Setting up an advisory group after the controversial and untested National Standards have been rolled out in schools shows the government has its priorities backwards, PPTA president Kate Gainsford says.

“We have seen this time and time again. What will come next will be a raft of expensive, unbudgeted, ad-hoc groups brought in to prop up a process that was deficient to begin with,” she said.

Education minister Anne Tolley’s claims that she is open to “independent, free and frank advice,” were seriously open to question, Gainsford said.

“Instead of proper thinking and planning, the government has insisted on rolling out an untrialled scheme that is fraught with unresolved difficulties and risks. It is trying to do things on the run without due diligence,” she said.

Tolley’s claims that National’s standards woul help identify students that needed more help showed a serious lack of understanding of the situation, Gainsford said.

“The problem is the lack of options when struggling students have been identified.”

The government’s priorities should be about addressing the resourcing needs of those students, not focusing on glossy documents, she said.

“In a year where secondary schools have been required to implement the new New Zealand Curriculum, standards alignments for NCEA and behaviour action plans, the last thing the education sector needs is a poorly thought out add-on.”

ENDS

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