Education Minister Hekia Parata told TV One’s Q+A programme that the decile system is “very blunt.”

“Every time it’s re-calibrated after a census, about a third of the schools go up, a third go down and a third stay the same,” she said

“It assumes that all kids who are in lower-decile schools are struggling – that’s not the case – and that no kids in higher-decile schools aren’t struggling – that’s not the case – and the kids in the middle deciles, they’re just average and okay. That’s not the case either. So we want a system, using the information that we can gain now, to more precisely target the resources to where they’re needed most.”

Here’s the link to the full interview: http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/curbing-underachievement-in-education-video-6419880

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live atwww.tvnz.co.nz

Thanks to the support from NZ On Air.

Q+A is on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/NZQandA#!/NZQandA and on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/NZQandA

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