National's Education Policy A Recipe For Failure For The Kids That Need The Best

MANA education spokesperson John Minto says National's education policy announced yesterday is a recipe for continuing education failure for kids in low-income areas while shifting the blame onto teachers and schools.

"New Zealand has a high quality public education system which shows most kids outperforming their peers in most OECD countries.

"However children from low-income communities, disproportionately Maori and Pacifika children, are failing."

Mr Minto says National's "solution" is to stigmatise teachers and schools in low-income areas and blame them for failures which start well before the kids enter the school gate.

"For a generation now National and Labour have promoted economic policies which have left hundreds of thousands of kids living in poverty while the rich have prospered.

"It's not poverty itself which is so corrosive but poverty in a land of plenty which does the damage as plenty of robust research can now demonstrate.

"National standards are now being developed to promote league tables for schools, so-called performance pay for teachers and competition rather than co-operation between schools.

"This is as serious a threat to quality education for all as bulk funding was in the 1990s. 'The barbarians are within the walls' is how one respected educator puts it."

MANA will be releasing our education policy tonight at a candidate forum in Otahuhu in the Manukau East electorate.

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