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Dear John, Back to school I’m writing from the land of the free – Wellington, that is – having finally returned to Parliament. We, the Auckland National MPs, arrived with aggressive intent, determined to make sure the Wellington-based politicians heard some of the anger and frustration felt by Aucklanders, who have endured nearly three months of lockdown, with the prospect of significant restrictions for many more weeks to come. The fact the government spent the first half of the year saying other countries needed vaccines more than us, leaving us so exposed for so long, is annoying but cannot be altered. The fact that we are now very highly vaccinated in global terms, but the restoration of our liberties is happening so slowly is something we can alter. It makes no sense that we continue with a debilitating and expensive MIQ system for fully vaccinated and tested returning New Zealanders, while we have thousands of people with Covid in home isolation. And yet, we still do it. It makes no sense that the government conceded last week that re-opening retail wouldn’t increase the risk of spreading Covid much – large, indoor family gatherings are the real problem – but it had kept retail closed for more than two months and continue to impose restrictions. It makes no sense that people can have 25 guests from many bubbles for gatherings outside at home, but hospitality businesses on their knees can’t do the same, or more. It makes no sense that the government says this week that schools are a relatively safe environment – but it had kept them closed for more than two months. Finally, on the last point we had some progress this week, with schools reopening in the middle of next week. I’m glad, but it a shame it’s taken so long. We called for more urgency with the release of our plan to get our education system Back on Track. One only has to imagine for a minute – of an 8 year old trying to learn at home, in a crowded house, with younger siblings running around, parents absent, no laptop, no regular contact from a teacher, maybe a workbook dropped off last week, the tv on – to get a sense of the tragedy unfolding in Auckland education. Parents, teachers and students have worked hard to make out-of-class learning work – but the reality, on the ground, is incredibly mixed. There are tens of thousands of kids in Auckland who have had little direct education for weeks. A good education is the most powerful gift we can give to any young New Zealander, especially to Kiwis from disadvantaged backgrounds. That gift has been taken away for too long. So where do you start to turn things around? First, we must ensure the kids actually get back to school in 2022. We’re not going to catch up if we’re not back at school. Our truancy rates are a national disgrace. Pre-Covid only 3 out of 5 kids were attending school regularly. The starting point should be to set high expectations of attendance in 2022. Schools should publish their attendance data regularly in flashing lights on their websites, so communities face the reality of the situation and are focused on change. We need to adopt a no excuses culture to truancy. Second, schools will need extra support to help next year. We think a one-off payment to schools of up to $400 per pupil would be an investment well made. Schools could spend that money early next year on extra teacher aides, or teachers to offer after-school catch up classes, or for counsellors, or for tutorial spots – anything that will help students who have fallen behind catch up academically. Third, we also should concentrate on the basics next year. Schools are currently distracted with extensive curriculum and NCEA reviews – we think much of that work can be postponed for a while, so as to concentrate on the catch up. I’m glad the government has gone some way in this direction. Fourth, we agree with the government’s maths advisers, who recommended an hour of maths a day is something we can start straight away. Most parents will be surprised to learn that that isn’t the case already – well it isn’t. Fifth, the Government meantime, has no plan to robustly measure how far our students have fallen behind during the lost class time. Labour has had a long-time ideological aversion to measuring progress during the year. Don’t ask, don’t tell – seems to be our approach to education progress. That is a hopeless basis for an education system. It’s a basic requirement to make an assessment of what a student knows at the start of the year, then to check at the end of the year that they know more than they did at the start. But we don’t do it consistently. 2022 is a year when we have to change that. Schools have excellent assessment tools available – not high impact, stressful, tests – but regular assessment tools that give parents and teachers insights into how their kids are doing. But only half the schools use it. We think 2022 is the year when all schools should make an effort to assess where the kids are at - at the start of the year, and to measure progress through the year. Finally - there has been a lot of innovation in the system during this incredible period disruption we’ve had. It’d be a shame if in 2022 we just went back to the way things were in 2019. Let’s have a structured and purposeful discussion through the year on what innovations we can build on – especially about the opportunities that online classes bring for hard to resource subjects – like physics in remote areas. We are calling on the Government to adopt National’s Back on Track education plan immediately, in full, to give parents and children the certainty they deserve.
Paul Goldsmith |
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