What is wrong with our Education System Mrs Tolley?

Labour’s Education Spokesperson Chris Carter has welcomed news that New Zealand students have achieved, along with students from Finland, the top rank among OECD countries in Science.

“This excellent result, coupled with Kiwi students’ high ranking in OECD literacy and numeracy scores, was evidence that New Zealand has a world class public education system and NZ teachers do a fine job teaching our children.

“He condemned National and Act’s marginalisation of New Zealand education. What is wrong with our education system Mrs. Tolley?

“All of the sloganeering about a crisis in education and the poor learning outcomes of Kiwi kids put about by National and Act in the election campaign and subsequent legislative programme does not reflect the real state of New Zealand’s world class education system.

“Cheap political sloganeering has created a false public perception about the quality of New Zealand schools,” said Chris Carter.

The move to bulldoze through national standards (league tables) in primary and intermediate schools, by creating an impression among parents that somehow our schools are failing, is an excellent example of the disservice being done to marginalise the world class quality of our schools by the present Government.

The latest OECD science results demonstrate just how just how good an education system New Zealand has, Chris Carter said.

“Let’s acknowledge success in our schools rather than just focus constantly on failure and underachievement.”

Chris Carter said he hoped this excellent result in science would encourage more students to take up sciences, more teachers to specialize in science teaching and Government to resource more effectively science related learning.

ENDS

© Scoop Media