Government Distorts Research to Manufacture Crisis

20th September 2010
For Immediate Release

Government Distorts Research to Manufacture a Crisis in Education

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says the government is distorting latest research to continue manufacturing a crisis in education.

Information from the National Education Monitoring Project, which measures what students know and can do at Year 4 and 8, shows they are performing well and are holding their own across the curriculum.

The government claims there is cause for serious concern as there has been no meaningful improvement in maths in the past 12 years.

NZEI President Frances Nelson says what the NEMP results show is that “we have a high performing system which is holding its own with very stable levels of achievement.”

The research does show a drop in performance at Year 8 in complex multiplication and in Year 4 with basic fact recall, however international comparisons show New Zealand students rank in the top six or higher in maths against other OECD countries.

“Teachers will find the NEMP information useful as it helps them identify their next areas of work, but complex multiplication and basic fact recall are two small areas of the overall maths curriculum. For the Education Minister to distort the research to whip up panic and argue the case for National Standards is disingenuous,” says Ms Nelson.

NEMP provides a useful snapshot of how primary students are performing nationally and to give schools information on where things are going well and where they need to adjust what they are doing to lift student performance.

“It is ironic that the government is happy to quote from NEMP when it is essentially getting rid of it and that it gives us much richer information about student achievement that any system of flawed National Standards can,” says Ms Nelson.

ENDS

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