National President, New Zealand Principals’ Federation
New Zealand has a world class education system. Irrespec tive of challenges to the contrary from the Secretary for Education or the Minister herself, we remain world class by definition. Our children are placed by the OECD in the top seven countries in the world for their educational achievements. End of story. We are rightly proud of our world-class status and world-wide reputation for producing high quality teachers and high achieving learners. We have a successful education system for a number of reasons. We operate in a high trust low stakes environment, subscribe to a collaborative culture and our rich and broad curriculum is the envy of the rest of the world. Our schools are self-managing giving us the autonomy to accommodate diversity, respond quickly to individual children’s needs and we are fortunate to have developed here in New Zealand some of the best learning support programmes in the world. Further, our teachers and leaders are committed to self-improvement through on-going professional development. Exposing our teachers and leaders to new ideas and pedagogies is now more important than ever. Teachers today are challenged to create new and different learning environments. Our job is to prepare children for twenty-first century living. Children in our schools today will grow up in diverse multicultural communities. They may end up working in a job which has not yet been invented. What we can be fairly sure of is that the children we teach today will not be moving into traditional manufacturing jobs, most of which will be gone. Nor will there be layers of unskilled work available. In fact many of the jobs that we consider typical or ordinary will not exist in thirty years’ time. That is why our children need to be creative, responsive, critical thinkers and problem solvers. It is our job to give them the opportunities to develop those skills that they will need to survive. One thing we don’t need is a nineteenth century education system. As we were repeatedly told at the recent Trans-Tasman conference by world experts, GERM or the Global Education Reform Movement must be eradicated. See the article by the same title in this issue pp. 14–20. One of the reasons it must be eradicated is that it simply works against everything that is required for our children’s future. It works on standardisation which denies diversity. It narrows curriculum to literacy and numeracy when children need a broad curriculum including higher order skills of creativity, problem solving and critical thinking. It creates competition when we need collaboration and it demands that the results of standardised tests or assessments be made public so that schools’ performance can be compared. This high stakes, low trust environment works against teachers focusing on individual needs of children and collaborating with colleagues to share best practice. Simply put such a reform agenda is tediously old fashioned.
It is not original and was tried and rejected in New Zealand before the 1940s. So why was it ever introduced again? Our Government presents two reasons. First it aims to lift the achievement of all those children who are not yet experiencing success. Secondly it wants to address the high levels of inequity that plague our education system. We may have a world class high performing education system, but we also have one of the highest levels of inequity in the world. The gap between our highest and lowest achievers is unacceptably huge. If we don’t accept that GERM will provide us with a solution to inequity then what will? As a profession we have always been concerned for those children who are not succeeding. It is the reason we have developed such a broad range of excellent learning interventions over the years including our world famous reading recovery programme which addresses reading problems for individual
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In order for the profession to lead the way in creating opportunities to close the gaps further, they need support and freedom from other distractions so that they can focus solely on a better future for the children of New Zealand. That means eradicating GERM. learners. What we have not until recent years appreciated is the importance of creating a culturally safe and culturally welcoming environment, especially for our Māori children. The research of Russell Bishop and Angus Macfarlane has led to some outstand ing programms such as Te Kotahitanga which secondary schools have adopted in numbers. Although not confirmed, it is likely that Te Kotahitanga has had a part to play in the sharp increase in Māori students achieving NCEA levels one two and three in the most recent report released in September this year. Bruce Jepsen principal of Te Akau ki Papamoa School, who features on p. 7 of this issue, has also produced some brilliant examples of practices that can be successfully applied in schools in order to strengthen Māori children’s identity and ultimately build
confidence and self-esteem. His approach to creating a bicultural environment for his school is also commendable. Leaders in the profession, including members of NZPF are currently working with Ministry staff to develop a programme of professional development for principals. The programme will help principals establish bicultural school environments so that Māori children can feel welcome and part of the school community. With feelings of affiliation established they are more likely to be successful learners. What will suit one school community will not necessarily suit another. It will be important for principals to feel confident in establishing strong relationships with Māori iwi leaders in their areas so that they can work with them to provide a school environment that is appropriate to their community. Identifying principals who can assist as mentors and advisors and help principals make the connections with iwi will be an essential factor in the professional development programme. Normalising biculturalism in our schools will take time. It will involve the teaching of Te Reo in all schools and will require an increase in teachers who are fluent in Māori language. Currently there are too few to go around. All of this will take a concerted effort and commitment on the part of all schools, the Ministry and will require a strong political will. Progress has been made and will continue to be made. The gaps in education are closing. In order for the profession to lead the way in creating opportunities to close the gaps further, they need support and freedom from other distractions so that they can focus solely on a better future for the children of New Zealand. That means eradicating GERM.
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