Kate Hawkesby: The future of this country depends on our kids' education

As we await Budget day announcements and an inkling as to where the Government’s interested in putting money, I hope we see some more investment in education. Our stats around education are now so woeful and so depressing that I’m not even sure more money would fix it – but it needs drilling down on as a priority for this Government given where we’re at. The latest global study shows the reading skills of Kiwi kids continues to go backwards. Backwards. Our reading score is the lowest now that it’s ever been; we are sliding backwards on every measure. So we have record numbers of kids not going to school, and the ones who do, clearly not learning anything. The International assessment of year 5 students reading abilities, PIRLS – which is the Progress in International Literacy Study, shows the lowest score for our kids in 20 years. That’s an international measure. We are out performed by Russia. Let that sink in for a minute. In our domestic measure, half of 15 years olds cannot pass a foundational numeracy and literacy test. How is it possible that we have the worst literacy in English speaking countries? Is it the curriculum and where it’s now focussed? Is it the teaching? Is it the methodology? Is it the hijacking of education by ideology? Is it a combo of all of those things? Do we really understand, how critical it is, that we teach our kids to read and write? That used to just be a given, like learning to tie your shoes. We just did it and kept going until it was auto pilot and targets and measures pushed us along. But now, we have to stop and actually remind ourselves, that these basics are not even basic anymore. They’re in the too hard basket it seems. We’ve lost sight of it as being part and parcel of growing up, we’ve replaced that with a bunch of theory and gobbledygook. I mean when Russia, a war ravaged country run by a crazed dictator, has overtaken New Zealand in terms of reading, you know we have a serious problem. It was reported that, “New Zealand students were 20th out of 43 countries. Every English-speaking country and every Canadian Province that participated beat New Zealand. The bottom half of participants is made up of countries like Turkey, Brazil, The Islamic Republic of Iran, and South Africa.” How embarrassing. Trying to make things easier for kids hasn’t worked. Dumbing stuff down hasn’t worked. Excusing stuff hasn’t worked. Continuing to decline on every metric shows none of it is working. So why do we persist with it? The ACT party has pointed out that there is no mention of spelling, grammar or punctuation in the English school curriculum here. Instead it focuses on ”Recognising and using the power and influence of literature, language, and texts (to) give us tools to advocate for ourselves and others. Exploring the effects of colonisation on our languages and literatures is an important part of understanding power relations in Aotearoa New Zealand.” What does that even mean? It’s a whole bunch of word salad ideology. ACT describes it as a ‘fad’ by the current government, which it may well be, but a) it’s not working, and b) it needs to change urgently in order to turn this ship around. We have to stop tinkering around the edges and pouring ideology all over curriculums, and actually just get back to basics. Our kids’ futures and the future of this country depend on it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.