3rd November 2010

For Immediate Release

More Boards Predicted To Take Action Over National Standards

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa believes the number of school boards taking action over National Standards will continue to grow.

More than 225 school boards of trustees from around the country have said they have no confidence in the Standards and are deferring setting student achievement targets against them next year.

“This action is significant as it is about school boards - made up of parents - standing up and saying they don’t believe that National Standards will do anything to enhance their children’s learning or raise their achievement,” says NZEI President Frances Nelson.

Principals, teachers and academics have been expressing their concern about the flaws in the Standards and their rushed implementation since they were introduced at the beginning of the year.

Ms Nelson says this situation comes as no surprise. “It has been created by the government ignoring the chorus of concern about National Standards and pushing ahead with a policy which has no clear educational base to support it.”

“All schools and their communities have been asking the government to do is to stop and listen and halt implementation until the problems with these untested Standards are addressed.”

“Sacking these boards and finding more than 200 commissioners to replace them would be an impossible task and the wrong response,” says Ms Nelson.

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