Too many children pass NCEA without being functionally literate. Minister Hipkins committed, in his 2019 NCEA change package, to address this by raising the bar. Read more

This week, the church of climate change was consecrated in New Zealand. Through widespread face-painting, chanting and dressing-up our newest saviour was born. Read more

In his speech last week at the NZEI conference, Education Minister Hipkins reminded the audience of primary school teachers that he had scrapped national standards because he was listening, and because the standards were neither national nor standard. It was catchy rhetoric that, if we follow his logic, has implications for our national curriculum, too. Read more

Monday saw Wellington’s Lambton Quay come alive with a joyful parade celebrating Māori Language Week. Yet, when asked whether her government would make te Reo compulsory in schools Prime Minister Ardern dodged the question, explaining instead that even if the government wanted to do this, New Zealand lacks the necessary teaching workforce. Read more

During a visit to a new London charter school in 2015, then-Mayor Boris Johnson sparred with a 12-year-old over the year the Roman Empire converted to Christianity (313 AD). Johnson was wrong (by a year) and dumbstruck by the knowledge of the inner-city children. Read more

Few parents would give their child a cough medicine that had not been trialled. The potential risks of doing so are endless. Read more

Through his review of NCEA, Education Minister Chris Hipkins has demonstrated how successful consultations can be. The six Big Opportunities presented last year by the Ministerial Advisory Group were a mixed bag. Read more

The saying goes that a camel is like a horse designed by a committee. Of course, the analogy does not actually work to denigrate the work of committees – camels are highly adapted to desert life – but, still, the image of a misshapen horse holds meaning, and relevance to NCEA. Read more

This week, we were happy to see the changes to NCEA announced by Education Minister Chris Hipkins. It is encouraging that the Minister’s NCEA Change Package mirrors so many of the recommendations in our 2018 report, Spoiled by Choice: How NCEA hampers education, and what it needs to succeed. Read more

The question of how to help schools face challenging circumstances was a key focus of Monday’s Tomorrow’s Schools review discussion held jointly by the Initiative and Victoria University’s Faculty of Education. The Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce is clear, and the Initiative agrees, that there is a serious and stubborn problem of underachievement among students from certain ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Read more

New Zealand schools enjoy relative freedom. Some teach 21st century skills, others a knowledge-rich curriculum. Read more

The Tomorrow's Schools Independent Taskforce sees competition and self-governance as bad, collaboration and ministry management as good. It is seductive stuff, if a little Orwellian. Read more

To double down means to engage in risky behaviour, especially when one is already in a dangerous situation. This is the year of the NCEA's statutory review; New Zealand sits at a perilous crossroads. Read more

Last year Prince Harry interviewed Obama. The former president told the Prince that to improve things you have to find common ground between people. Read more

As recently as in the 1920s, cyclists in the Tour de France would take ‘smoking breaks’, assisting team-mates to light-up while still cycling. Since then, scientific research and evidence has well and truly debunked the myth that smoking is good for athletic performance. Read more