Stories about education, and not just from migrants. These are all from genuine sources, click on links to see where:
Kids And Schooling
“Been here nearly three years now, when we arrived my son who was seven seemed to be a year ahead. But alas, three years latter he has been dragged down to the NZ standard. Do any other posters feel their kids education is gonna suffer for living in NZ. The future is not rosy for your kids in the long term, they will soon do a sharp exit when they are old enough as there is nothing to keep them here, especially Canterbury.
So all of you prospective immigrants beware, short term gain long term pain. So much so back to the UK it is.
Along with this, NZ has not lived up to expectations in other departments as well, It’s sold as a lifestyle change the only advantage I have is I only work part time. Basically there is nothing to do here. Christchurch can be done in a day, then what? Limited activities and limited access to the countryside. But I suppose it’s what you are accustomed to, just to many downsides to list.
Returning to the kids, when they have flown the nest, are you happy to spend the rest of your life here with your immediate family thousands of miles away?”
Response to the above:
“We got here in July,just as the kids had finished a full year of schooling back home. When we got here we had the thoughts of do we make them repeat 6 months?? and allow them to settle in and not need to worry about the school work or jump ahead 6 months?? and see how they settle. The Principal made the decision to do the former,but we wish he had done the latter. My boys are bored out their heads and know much more than their class mates. I am trying my best to ensure they do not fall away from their present levels and capabilities by encouraging reading,extra maths, research etc but do not want them to be too far ahead so that they are bored in class!!!!AAARRGGHH it is really frustrating. Having said that cannot fault the school or staff in any way, it is the system.
What’s a teacher’s view on this?
“Students Get NCEA Without Learning Anything”
Students can get NCEA, that is gain credits without actually ‘learning’ anything. I watch it happening all around me in my high school. The teachers do all their work, the kids just type or write the answers. Its a scam so we can pretend that we have an educated population. In fact we have kids illiterate in 2 languages [Maori and English],Teachers who are undereducated who came through makeshift courses designed to give them a degree much like a birthday present, and yes teachers and students lacking in numeracy skills.
My school is a ‘pretend’ school. Kids spend more time on so-called extra and co-curricular then they do in ‘learning’ to read, to comprehend, to write [yes, to write, I had a 15 year old ask me to teach him how to write last week], to do the sums that will help them manage their money or more likely ‘the dole’.
National Standards may begin to redress that. I live in hope…I teach high school boys who still cannot write a sentence or comprehend even at senior school.
Basics at primary school is essential and a lot less of computers, games, cellphones and TV. The kids are so addicted they get angry when deprived; they come to school exhausted because they’ve spent the night on some electronic device.
The violence and abuse of teachers in schools has also increased and is out of hand even to kids throwing stones at a teacher without any consequence!”
See also news reports:
Schools fall behind on new lesson plan – only 2% of schools ready for overhaul of national curriculum
We fail in basic maths – 1/3 of students entering secondary schools are numerate says university lecturer
Today’s posts – click here
E2NZ.org 
As a Primary School teacher I tend to agree that standards have fallen, The primary school sector Year 0-8 is actually well monitored with high, world class standards in education maintained through the auspices of ERO – Education Review Office. ERO visit and examine each school on average, every three years to ensure that high standards are maintained. As I am now over 60 years of age, I have limited my work to doing relieving/substitute teaching now. My observation is that the teachers at Primary level work very hard to maintain a high standard of education. However, they do face difficulties, including the attitude of the students themselves to education. In the higher decile schools, 6 and above, students are generally co-operative, Below this, they can be a challenge particularly if the school has a high Maori presence. A school’s decile is determined by the socio-economic standing of families that attend the school.
Personally, I would be inclined to send my child to a higher decile school – better resources, better opportunities, better standard of student. The teachers in the lower decile schools do a tremendous job but the obstacles they face are a challenge.
I have also relieved at High School level – Year 9 – 13/14. From my observations, this area of New Zealand’s education system is in disarray – poor teacher training, overcrowded schools, student disinterest, boring curriculum, and as a previous poster mentioned, ‘cooking the books,’ or fudging results to make a school look good – NZCEA. The old system of external examinations seemed to be more successful in weeding out the best prospects for the work force. I believe it was the extreme failure rate of Maori students that encouraged internal assessment to be adopted – their ‘style of learning’ supposedly suits internal assessment better – need I say more.
If I was a parent from overseas, I would be concerned about having my child educated here. You would need to visit a school first, ascertain its decile rating, read its most recent ERO report (can be done online) and perhaps talk to parents of children who go to the school. Don’t bother asking the teachers, they will whitewash their image to make themselves look good. At high school level, I would send my child to a private school – there are some extremely good ones about, or I would seek the correspondence route/home schooling. Hope this helps
All above: TRUE!
Bullying, big problem. Consensus “agreement” type of teaching. Fudging the “outcomes” to falsify statistics so that NZ can say that they have a 97% literacy rate when the truth is more like 70-80% [that’d look bad, so let’s cook the books].
We had always homeschooled our kids, even back in the States. We continued that here in NZ. My daughter graduated H.S. via homeschool, took some classes at the local polytech, and was surprised at how few of her classmates could be living in society and be functionally illiterate, not to mention math or computer skills.
Education is one of those things where Kiwis don’t say what they mean, or mean what they say. It needs to “look right” in the stats for the OECD.
Education run by unions whose prority is to represent their members [teachers] and not the kids. Lots and I mean LOTS of kids come out of school not able to read, do math, or think, except for the agendafied material from the UN’s Agenda 21.
I wouldn’t send my kid to a NZ school.
Carpentaro – after having our children in the schools for a year or so, we homeschooled as well. At least it is fairly easy to get the permission to do so.