Amidst Ministry Of Education Job Cuts, Change Is Most Urgent At The Top
The job cuts within the Ministry of Education announced
last week are undoubtedly distressing
for staff, and we
wish to acknowledge the stress and upset that the
government’s ‘cost saving’
exercise has caused, and
will continue to cause, over the weeks and months to
come.
Lifting Literacy Aotearoa has long pointed to
serious shortcomings in the leadership, strategy,
policy
development and policy implementation of the Ministry of
Education.
Our criticism is squarely directed at the
upper leadership of the Ministry and the
educational
‘establishment’ that has been insular,
self-serving, protective of the status quo and
vested
interests, and not up with the play on
evidence-based practice.
“It’s hard to imagine
that personnel changes at the advisor level will address the
longstanding
failures of leadership in policy and
operations at the Ministry. We need to see change at the
top”
says Chair of Lifting Literacy Aotearoa, Alice
Wilson.
“There are many well documented failures,
including the Curriculum refresh, NCEA change
package,
provision of PLD, the research strategy, and in property.
Lower level job cuts will not
lead to the sort of
transformational change required in the
sector.”
PLD rollout urgent, but requires clear criteria
Lifting Literacy Aotearoa has
been advocating for a change to evidence-based
Structured
Literacy, and PLD is due to be rolled out to
support this change over the next few months.
On 11
April the Ministry communicated to schools and PLD providers
and facilitators that
applications for the Term 1
Regionally Allocated Professional Learning and
Development
(RAPLD) funding have “been realigned to
support the Government’s commitment to
increasing
literacy rates for all students and upskilling
existing kaiako in teaching reading and writing or
pānui
and tuhituhi and the use of assessment for learning and
aromatawai”.
The email to schools also says that
more information about what PLD will be available in
future
rounds of RAPLD funding, and how this can be
accessed, will be shared in early May.
LLA welcomes this
refocus in PLD priorities, but there is a concerning lack of
guidance provided
on what constitutes quality PLD
provision based on research findings from the science
of
reading.
The PLD facilitator search function on the Ministry PLD website is of little help.
“The old
PLD priorities are still listed, and there is no detail on
the specialisation or qualifications
of individual
facilitators in providing PLD on Structured Literacy” says
Alice Wilson.
The urgency of those details becomes
more and more pressing as more and more providers
and
facilitators with scant knowledge of the science of reading
and structured literacy start to
pepper their marketing
materials and ‘programmes’ with those terms, and make
claims that they
provide a whole-school approach to
structured literacy.
“We cannot afford for the
market to be flooded with pseudo-science at this critical
point. Right
now it is a case of ‘buyer beware’ when
looking for PLD providers” says Alice Wilson.
“At
the same time, the government must get the design of PLD
provision and the rollout of
PLD right. Rushing into it
without safeguards and clear criteria would be another
mistake.”