New Zealand First education spokesperson, Hon Brian Donnelly, is attempting to broker an accord over assessment and qualifications in senior secondary schooling.

“The pros and cons of exams versus unit standards have been debated endlessly. Teachers, parents and employers desperately need some certainty in the direction policy is going in this critical area of education. The last thing educationalists need is for this issue to be used as a political football.

I have written to the education spokespeople from each of the parties asking that they commit their parties to maintaining the move towards Assessment 2001. Even though they may wish to change some of the details such as timing the weighting of external and internal assessment, it is imperative that the basic direction is maintained.

“The education spokespeople I have spoken to have agreed verbally to the initiative.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>