3. JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this
to the Prime Minister
Does she stand by her statement that “In the school sector, our main focus will continue to be on standards and achievement, especially in literacy and numeracy.”; if so, what are those standards?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) Link to this
Yes; and the standards reached in our schools are very high, with the achievement level of New Zealand students overall ranked sixth in the OECD, and the top 40 percent said to rate as the best in the OECD.
How many New Zealand children left primary school last year without reaching the standard expected of them in reading, writing, and maths?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
Unlike the member, the Government does not support age-related national standards, testing, and league tables. We do not impose centrally minimum standards. We know that the National Party thinks National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) sometimes runs the risk of ticking the box; now it wants to do this for 6-year-olds.
Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this
Has the Prime Minister seen reports of how the New Zealand education system compares with systems with national standards?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
I have indeed seen a report from the New Zealand Principals Federation, which states that our education system is the envy of countries that have standardised testing. I would further say that in the very week when 1,400 principals have come from around the world because they admire our education system, the Leader of the Opposition has bagged it.
Hon Brian Donnelly Link to this
What proportion of primary schools does the Prime Minister believe send out reports that read like real estate ads, and does she believe that anyone who suggests that that is the practice of most schools is blatantly insulting the professionalism of our primary education service?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
Such a person not only would be insulting the professionalism of our teachers, which I have great respect for, but also would be totally out of touch with what happens in our State schools.
Metiria TureiDoes the Prime Minister agree that a policy to test kids more but then failed to provide any additional funding for support staff or more programmes would serve only to stigmatise young students, without offering them any support they may need to do better?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
Absolutely, and such a policy would be a very empty policy. I would add to “empty” the description “confusing”, after what the Leader of the Opposition offered yesterday.
Judy TurnerDoes the Prime Minister agree that testing primary-aged children against standards should, and does, take place regularly, but that its primary purpose is as a diagnostic tool for teachers and parents, and that, as such, this information must be readily available for parents at all times?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
Yes, I absolutely agree with the assertion in the member’s question, and say that information is available to our parents—as it should be.
Te Ururoa Flavell Link to this
Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa. Is the Prime Minister aware of the Ministry of Education report, Achievement at Maori Immersion and Bilingual Schools, which shows that year 11 candidates at bilingual schools did very well in meeting the literacy and numeracy requirements of NCEA level 1, and were more likely to meet these requirements than both Māori and non-Māori in English medium schools; and how will she use that information to support Māori immersion programmes?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
I am broadly aware of those results and of the fact that our bilingual schools are doing particularly well for our students, and I think that it does show what investment in te reo can do to help raise achievement overall.
Is the reason that the Prime Minister would not answer my earlier supplementary question—which asked how many children were leaving primary school without reaching the expected standard in literacy of reading, writing, or maths—that the Government has not actually set a standard, and therefore the Government has absolutely no clue how many children fail to meet the standard?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
As my colleague the previous Minister of Education said, that approach was abolished in the 1930s. We do not have centrally imposed minimum standards that result in a “tick the box” approach to education.
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
Can the Prime Minister confirm that the purpose of testing tools, such as asTTle and Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading, is diagnostic to enable teachers to recognise where remedial work is required, and the kind of national testing in standards advocated by the Leader of the Opposition stigmatises children early in their school career, leading to later failure rather than success?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
I absolutely agree with that. The Leader of the Opposition’s approach reminds me very much of the failed Eleven plus approach that used to prevail in the United Kingdom and saw so many children condemned to failure from an early age.
Will the Prime Minister come with me to Glen Taylor School, a decile 1 school in Glen Innes, and observe the work of the principal, Lyn Avery, who has used exactly the formula I outlined yesterday—a school that has received outstanding Education Review Office reports since she took over but that, for the previous 12 years, received Education Review Office reports that were very poor indeed; and will she explain to Lyn Avery that what she is doing is wrong and she would rather they go back to the failed policies of the past?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
That school is one of hundreds and hundreds of good State schools, about which the member knows little, that apply those assessment tools to develop children’s learning. The member really is very out of touch with what happens in our State schools.
Madam SPEAKERI could not hear that answer, at all. The level of barracking is now rising again. I am sure members at the back of the Chamber could not hear the answer, either. I ask all members to keep the noise down or we will be having questions and answers in silence.
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
Is the Prime Minister receiving reports suggesting why it is sensible to introduce standards-based assessment in primary school when people are in the early stages of education and reject it in their late stages of secondary school?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
I am indeed struck by the irony that the National Party preaches one thing for primary school students and another for secondary school students.
Can the Prime Minister explain to the country and to the parents of New Zealand what is wrong with determining a minimum standard about whether their child can read, write, and do maths, what is wrong with using one of the well and truly approved tests such as asTTle, Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading, or progressive achievement test, what is wrong with using the diagnostic information that comes from those tests to improve teaching standards and to improve the outcome of those schools, and, finally, what is wrong with giving that information to parents in New Zealand about what their child is doing—because if the Prime Minister thinks that is wrong, then she is the one that is out of touch, not the National Party?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
Obviously, some of my answers have really stung the member today because he is out of touch with what happens in our State schools. I am advised that our Education Review Office finds that something like 90 percent of our schools are good or very good at informing parents on how our children are doing, and we are working on the others.
Is the Prime Minister aware that the Education Review Office stated last week that one in two schools are not effectively reporting to parents about their children’s education, and has it now dawned on the Prime Minister that the one of us who is out of touch is not me, but her?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
Of course the member has just managed to utterly misrepresent what the Education Review Office report stated. What actually happened is that in the past assessment used to be put on the shelf and not looked at again; now it is supposed to be used to inform a teacher as he or she prepares the learning programme. About half our schools are making progress on that; the other half could do better—and we are working on it.
Hon Steve Maharey Link to this
Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Education Review Office report shows that 90 percent of primary schools—the schools the Leader of the Opposition is attacking—are said to provide feedback that is very good, or good, to all parents, and that only 4 percent of primary schools were identified as not doing this; and would the Prime Minister say that this is an inopportune time for the Leader of the Opposition to attack these schools as 1,400 principals from around the world are gathered in Auckland because the system is so good and they have come to look at it, while he is bagging it?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
The Minister is exactly right. Firstly, 90 percent of our schools are said to be good or very good at informing parents about how their children are doing. Secondly, 1,400 principals have come from around the world because they admire the New Zealand school system. Thirdly, the member just does not get direct feedback from our State school system.
Is the Prime Minister aware that the Government’s own agency, the Education Review Office, says that one in five children is not succeeding at school and that schools are, in fact, doing a bad job of identifying those students who are struggling; and, if the Prime Minister cares about all of the children in New Zealand, she will focus not just on those who absolutely do achieve well at school but will take some time to work out why 150,000 children are now failing to reach even minimum standards in literacy and numeracy?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
The member should be well aware that across the population there is a range of levels of ability and that there are, conventionally, thought to be something like one in five children who may have difficulty even fitting into the discipline structure of a school, which makes it hard to learn. Our Government is absolutely committed to raising standards for those children.
Hon Steve Maharey Link to this
Can the Prime Minister confirm that at the international conference in Auckland, where 1,400 principals from around the world are joining principals in this country, the emeritus professor at Warwick University, Sir Ken Robinson, told the conference that in most education systems there is confusion between standardising education and raising education standards, and that he described standardising tests as the “enemy of achievement”?
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK Link to this
I have indeed had that statement referred to me, and I believe it would be consistent with a wide body of professional opinion about testing. I am further aware that the chief executive of the exams watchdog in the United Kingdom, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, has come out and suggested that in that country the tests for 11-year-olds should be scrapped. At the very time these issues are being reconsidered in the United Kingdom, the National Party wants age-related national standards, testing, and league tables. Unless ACT has spoken up, I am not aware of any political party in this Parliament that would support it, because it is so old-fashioned and wrong.
Gerry BrownleeI raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You regularly appeal to the House to come to order to give questioners a fair go, and all the rest of it. Although none of that is, strictly speaking, written in the Standing Orders, there is a convention that the House would, obviously, follow that. Question time is for the Opposition to question the executive. I suggest to you that there is also a strong convention that the executive does not question itself during question time. Yet today we have had no less than four Ministers ask a total of six supplementary questions of the Prime Minister. We have even seen the absurdity of the Minister of Education asking the Prime Minister questions about his own portfolio.
Parliament is supposed to be a place where information is made available to people—at least, question time is—by virtue of Opposition questions. I know you will say that there is no strict restriction on members of the executive asking each other questions, or perhaps taking the opportunity of having the time to talk to one another, but I think it would be fair to say that that is not how question time runs. It may help with the general order of the House if members of the Labour Government recognised that and started having their conversations in the lobbies or in their own offices.
Hon Dr Michael Cullen Link to this
I notice that the member referred to “no less than four Ministers”. Of course, in the light of the previous range of questions, it should have been “no fewer than four Ministers”, so the member failed that standards-based achievement. But apart from that, there is no such convention in this House. Ministers have raised supplementary questions on many occasions over many, many years.
I thank members. As the member who raised the original point of order noted, I have ruled on this before. There is nothing to prevent Ministers from asking supplementary questions. There is, however—and I think we are fast getting to it—not only a convention but also a Standing Order stating that members are entitled to be heard in the House. So if we have a continuation of what we have had so far, then we will be having question time in silence.
Rt Hon Winston Peters Link to this
I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It was very clear from the beginning what the tenor and purpose of the last point of order was. In short, it had no merit, whatsoever. So, Madam Speaker, my inquiry is to ask why you heard the member out when the point of order was nonsense. I do not believe that you would have heard out another member from this end of the House, had he or she sought to raise such a spurious point of order.