Posts by KevinHicks
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The alternative is to come up with a real alternative. Not just recycling 1970s "dont worry about facts and memory" rhetoric. The people I work with have memories you would not believe. The best people have memory/knowledge plus problem solving ability.
You mention a couple of minor reasons why New Zealand isnt as competitive as it once was. The main reason is the godzone mindset - the unbelievable idea that somehow the world owes NZ a living and that NZ owes its citizens a living. Until we can change that mindset we are doomed to slip down the OECD ladder. The EU should have been a blessing in disguise to us - a signal that the world does not owe NZ a living and that someone in Europe, or India or Africa has just as much right to struggle for existence.
Stop excusing us - yes our education system is not as bad as come of our other "systems" but it could be better. We are a democracy competing against not so democratic countries - we need to get real.
You government and bureaucrats need to listen to what is being said by people much brighter than me - they can solve the problems. As Churchill said "give us the tools and we will finish the job".
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Russell, I stand corrected, we can all go on holiday and leave the education system in the capable hands of those who would correct "disparities".
Honestly, yes we are averaging a bimodal distribution and yes we can hide mediocrity well when our diary exports are bringing in large amounts of lovely money to be redistributed. But when Bejing sniffs and we realise we have not got the people to drive the switch to a more self reliance then what?
Isn't it strange that we are slipping down the OECD in almost every other repect? Doesnt that get the alarm bells ringing a bit.
I think you will find the most significant part of those reports to be "The report reinforces the Government's decision to fund new and expanded assessment tools and literacy programmes in both primary and secondary schools."
Homespun at a government near you.
Our problem is not a lack of resources being put into the mediocre - we've plenty of that. The problem is a lack of resources being put into the excellence we need for long term sustainability. Look at history - look at all the great scientists and technologists of the past - they reworded their countires a thousandfild in return for their countries putting the resources into them. These are the people who can solve our problems (not me, but I work with some!).
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Present company excepted of course, Paul. But that is the standard bureaucratic response - to quote international studies that show our education system isnt falling as fast as the average, rather than to go down to the coal face and take a look. As people have alluded to we now have a two tier system - the successes and the failures - the average may look good but it is the average of a bimodel distribution.
Observationz - yes we have an interchange but it is unhealthy. We train great people, they go overseas and we replace them by training more or those trained to a lesser standard. You may not have a problem finding bureaucrats qualified in spamming government websites with pdfs or inventing ever more creative ways for the government to tax or regulate initiative but we have a great deal of trouble finding scientists and technicians or holding on to the great ones we've got.
Judge the outcomes - if we had had a really good education system here we would still own more of our country.
".....opportunity or salary package isn't competitive" to those offered by the government bureaucracy because that is the only career path available to many NZers unless they go overseas.
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We have a reasonable education system for churning out people qualified to enter the international labour market and for "call centre staff" for local consumption as someone alluded to above.
I am not nostalgic at all - I think we should be doing better than those days but in science and technology (my field) we are not. Now you may say that because we now have greater capacity to train policy analysts and bossy bureaucrats that we have progressed.
The problem is that it is not sustainable - while there may be a worldwide demand for these people because all western nations are having the same teabreak as us - doesnt mean that the bubble wont burst eventually. Why can't NZ seize this opportunity, just for once, and progress the knowledge economy in the hope of getting ahead of the field and being more self sufficient in the bad times.
The problem is that science and technology requires discipline, memory, problem solving ability, dedication, entrapreneurship etc and our system is not good at that because it may make the "underclass" feel bad about themselves. In actuality it would go a long way toward's solving the problems we have.
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I went to Auckland Grammar 1968-72. Being in the bottom classes there saved my bacon, although its not the right school for everyone.
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"adequate supply of high-end graduates"
No, and the ones that are go overseas. We would have a successful system if they were so bright that they could figure out how to solve the problems here.
We have few elite educational facilities and we dont create enough elite "graduates" (in a broad sense, not just academic). If you really wanted to solve the problems of "the system failing this group" or "becoming underclass", you would encourage elite competitive education and then you would pay its products properly and sick them onto solving these problems.
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Most of the international studies a flawed in that they compare across countries and many of those countries have the same type of watered down system we have. I would like to see the comparison over time in our own country with standards slowly going up. For example comparing a 7th form science graduate now to one 50 years ago. But no one ever does those studies so I can't give you the hard evidence. But it is there - all you have to do is look around. Take for example the rise of pseudoscience. While I admit there has been a concerted effort to discredit science and raise pseudoscience, that could not have happened if our education system had been robust.
Now we have thousands employed in watered down fields where a little bit of knowledge really is a dangerous thing.
One of the great problems with the system at present is that there is this push for "independent thought", "problem solving", "individual research", active learning and the like before the pupils have even been given the tools to do this with. That is why we see this dichotomy between the successes* of the system nd the failures that the archaic left-right divide needs to create in order to keep the political elite in power, and food on minto's table whatever he does for a living.
There is another way - respect each others individuality without being jealous of each other. But in NZ that will really be the frosty friday. Because parents always interpret the system narrowly in their own frame of reference the majority hates the person who crosses the finish line first. But we could have a country where there are enough finish lines to go round if we cahnged our attidudes.
* not quite as successful as Russell would have us believe, but successful none the less. Real success will be when they can stay and do their thing here!
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Paul Williams, the system fails us because it does not support individual excellence either in pupils or teachers. Pupils should be able to work at their own pace and progress through the system faster or slower depending on their skills. Good teachers should be paid more and we should have the flexibility to pay science and tech teachers more in order to attract the best.
How else has it failed us? let me count the ways - standards have been slipping despite more people "graduating", we have failed to intill loyalty so that our bets and brightest come back after their OE, we have failed to do anything but talk about the "knowledge economy" needed to keep our bright kids here, ...
The "call centre" post was excellent - yes the education system has succeeded well in producing a dichotomous compliant educated population and a population who think they have been disenfranchinsed because minto says so to them. Yay success!
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As a parent and a university educator all I heard about it was the someone got their knckers in a twist because the treaty was removed.
I must keep my ear to the ground better because this aspirational BS may be the way forward if we are to become a retirement village for wealthy retirees who have made their money overseas. But it is not the way to move towards a clean lean green sustainable economy and more self sufficient country where we can afford the costs of the first world health, education and social systems we all seem to want.
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I thought that Minto and the cronies would love this. It looks like the way forward to a knowledge economy but not as we know it. It is full of the same aspirational BS that has failed us for the last 30-40 years, and in that regard they proably did all the "consultation"* and then copied it straight off a 1970s bubblegum wrapper anyway.
"learn how to learn", "dont remeber, just derive", "problem solving skills are better than memory", "method is more important than fact", "active learning" - all this BS I can remember was being held up as the way forward when I was at school in the early 70s. How long do governments need to stick to failed initives before they given it up.
* consultation = spamming your own website with pdfs by your own yay sayers asking you to change the wording of paragraph 1.3.2.4.5 from "to" to "for".
It must give the government a warm feeling knowing that they have at least 10000 yes persons/organisations.
Luckily for us, from my experience the responsible teachers just get on with the job of teaching the kids well in spite of all this expensive glossy BS.
The other thing NZ needs to get over is this BS that "only an academic carreer is success". The education system is highly slanted towards the "academic" rather than the "practical" because its cheaper and easier for the teachers.
Finally,
Unit Std 1.1.1 The last thing
Unit Std 1.1.2 we needed
Unit Std 1.1.3 was
Unit Std 1.1.4 another
Unit Std 1.1.4a navel gazing
Unit Std 1.2.1 education
Unit Std 1.2.2 review.However, obviously the "full employment" directive from on high necessitated it.