The Ministry of Education spent more than $100,000 building a wellbeing website that it later decided to scrap, National’s Education spokesperson Erica Stanford says.

“The fact that $100,000 was wasted on a now-cancelled ‘Curriculum Wellbeing Website’ shows that Labour has no respect for taxpayers’ money.

“This news comes just after a heartbreaking new report revealed that just 2 per cent of decile one students could pass a basic writing test.

“After five years in power and an extra $5 billion spent on education, students' outcomes are going in the wrong direction. Attendance levels are shocking, with more than 100,000 students chronically absent, and just one-third of students could meet the new minimum literacy and numeracy standards for NCEA.

“At the same time, the Labour Government has hired 1,400 additional staff at the Ministry of Education head office and increased the number of ICT staff by over 50 per cent to 211.

“Instead of hiring more bureaucrats to design vague websites that don’t end up seeing the light of day, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti should reflect on the fact that our children do not have the foundational literacy and numeracy skills to be successful in the world.

“The Government urgently needs to get back to basics to ensure that students begin their NCEA journey with the reading, writing and maths skills they need so they don’t continue to fall behind. This starts with students spending at least one hour every day on numeracy and literacy in primary school.

“Without urgent change, our literacy and numeracy standards will continue to decline and our children will continue to fall behind the rest of the world. This is not just a social failure but a future economic crisis.

“Labour’s lack of delivery in education is failing an entire generation of children.”

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