The Curriculum MAG’s Evidence Base Falls Short

Aotearoa Educators Collective has released, ‘Review of the Ministerial Advisory Group Report March 2024’, raising big questions about the lack of evidence behind a number of the claims made in the MAG Curriculum Report released by the government last week. While AEC acknowledges that the intent of the report is to improve outcomes for learners, the MAG report uses limited ‘evidence’ selectively to set up an argument that change is needed and to justify its recommendations for change.

For example, the MAG makes causal claims about the outcomes of whole language instruction based on an observation that “the decline in reading performance … coincides with the adoption of the whole language approach to literacy teaching during the 1980s”. The 1980s was also followed by a sharp increase in inequality. Observations of coinciding phenomena are not grounds for claiming causality. The MAG makes claims about initial teacher education programmes based on a cursory survey of web information published in a NZ Institute report that was not quality assured.

This report points to a significant shift in curriculum for teachers and principals and in Aotearoa. The size of this change needs to be underpinned by a strong and robust research base. This report is not that.

While the report authors draw on ‘evidence’ selectively, they set out very narrow criteria for acceptable evidence in education. AEC spokesperson Sarah Aiono says “There is a focus on mainly quantitative evidence which ignores insights afforded by qualitative research into the relational and cultural aspects of learning”.

AEC spokesperson Jodie Hunter says, “Recent reviews of mathematics education in New Zealand have drawn on a comprehensive body of research and provide well-documented recommendations and these seem to be completely ignored by the MAG.”

The recommendations in the MAG report are not representative of the wider research and professional knowledge base in the education sector. It is disappointing that it did not take into account the excellent research and practice that can be found here in Aotearoa, especially the work taking place in Māori Medium education where we find the strongest outcomes for learners.

Wider issues discussed in the review also include the Eurocentric focus and assumptions related to teaching practices and curriculum delivery, lack of engagement and consultation with the sector, and the over emphasis on cognitive science and narrow interpretation of the science of learning.

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