Adopt the Shanghai approach to improve student learning – NZEI
ZEI Te Riu Roa agrees that New Zealand could match Shanghai’s PISA test score of student achievement by adopting a
similar strategy of excluding results that make us look bad.
President Judith Nowotarski says that if New Zealand politicians can revere such blatant manipulation of test scores she
has a revolutionary idea that could transform New Zealand education forever.
“We could initiate a public private partnership to build a super partnership school in the back blocks to cater for the
250,000 children that are pulling our rankings down. They could all be in one mega barn class with a super good quality
teacher. We then can exclude this school from our PISA results and New Zealand would once again lead the world.”
Shanghai tops the charts in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment because it has a greater concentration of China’s elite with wealthy parents who invest heavily in education inside and outside school as well as the effects of the hukou
system that forces many children of migrants back to their rural villages to attend school.
“Identifying children for this new school would be a breeze. They would be the ones that live in poorly insulated
housing, in low income families that can’t afford nutritious food or health care.”
“We could call it ‘Inequality Academy’ and it would have the best inter-school sports teams in its region.”
This idea is backed by leading international education expert John Potty-Tester who defends Shanghai’s scores against
accusations that the results are meaningless because of the hukou system.
“If we could ensure that only the top achievers were tested, then, like Shanghai, New Zealand would be education
champions of the world”.
Ends