Education. I simply do not understand, and I really do want to, how two sides can be so passionate about education and about the curriculum and what is truly important in a classroom and have two sides who want the very, very best for our children and yet be so diametrically opposed.

It's a conundrum.

Education Minister Erica Stanford announced over the weekend that there'll be a ban on screen time in early childhood education centres, limited use in primary schools, and given the concerns around how devices and social media are contributing to declining abilities for kids to engage with complex texts and analyse data, I mean, surely this has got to be a good thing.

"We need to move on quickly to what the rest of the world are doing to help set our kids up with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in life, and we can't afford to sit down and have another cup of tea. That's what Labour always want to do. They'll do the same with the curriculum. Let's sit down and have a cup of tea and a break and create a group that they appoint members to to have another think about it for 10 years. I mean, 60,000 kids start school every year, we can't afford to wait. And the key thing is, Mike, in all of this, our reforms are working. Why would you want to put that all at risk so Labour can have a cup of tea?"

That was Education Minister Erica Stanford talking to Mike Hosking this morning. Yet when I was talking to Chris Hipkins in studio on Friday, he made it abundantly clear to me that National's initiatives would be rolled back should they form a government. He seemed to take absolute personal umbrage that I would suggest that from what I'd seen the reforms were working. Education seems to be as personal to him as it is to Erica Stanford.

CH: "The reality here is that any curriculum change does need to

KW: "For Ginny to put a halt on what's happening would be a disaster."

CH: "That's rubbish, absolute nonsense. Erica Stanford is trying to rewrite the school curriculum in her own image, basically trying to and making it much, much more political than it should be. We're saying that the curriculum should be decided based on evidence of what's going to work, based on what we want all kids to be learning."

KW:  "It wasn't working."

CH: "No, there's no question, there was curriculum, there was a need for the school curriculum to change, there's a need for the NCEA to change, but doing it in the way that the current government are doing it where they're alienating so many people, they're shutting parents out of the process, they're shutting teachers out of the process, they've got school principals up and down the country saying this is going to be bad for kids' education, that is a time to take a pause and say, okay, let's try and get this back on track because there is a need for change."

KW: "I couldn't disagree with you more."

Clearly I'm passionate about education too, so that was Chris Hipkins talking to me in studio. But you can hear in his voice that he genuinely believes that everything Erica Stanford is doing is wrong, and yet I'm looking at what she's doing and looking at the overseas evidence and looking under my own roof and I can see that it is working.

Who's right?

I mean, I think the education of our children and the options that a well educated child will have no matter where they start in life, the future of the country depending on a world class education is way too important for politics and shifting ideologies.

I would gladly support Labour's curriculum if they could show they'd got it right, but their last session in office did not convince me of that in any way, shape or form. And it's not just me. You've got the Royal Society of Mathematicians saying that it was an absolute disaster what was being proposed. It's not just my reckon.

There were academics and there were teachers and there were people with experience of educating children and knowledge of core curriculum subjects who said that Labour's curriculum that had been drawn up, and when you look at the money they spent on the reviews and the reforms and the contracting out, was a disaster.

For all of that money and all of that time, disaster. There were probably some bits that were good, so keep those, but when it came to teaching the core subjects, they had got it completely wrong. Then you've got Erica Stanford coming in and the poor teachers are lurched in another direction again with the handwriting and the back to basics and the minimum amount of time spent on English and maths, and it seems to be working.

I am so sick of reviews and reports and commissions that we have reports, reviews and commissions up the yin yang. If they propose another one on the education, it'll be a complete and utter waste of time and money, just as it will be with the bloody supermarkets. How many commissions have we had on that?

But what Erica Stanford is proposing seems to make sense and it seems to be working and some educators agree with it and some do not, and then you argue that it's because some of the educators are influenced by the teachers' union. I don't necessarily buy that, but what works?

It seems looking at overseas data and anecdotal evidence what Erica Stanford is proposing works. So why is Labour so vehemently opposed to what seems to be the best for our kids?

Education. I simply do not understand, and I really do want to, how two sides can be so passionate about education and about the curriculum and what is truly important in a classroom and have two sides who want the very, very best for our children and yet be so diametrically opposed.
It's a conundrum.
Education Minister Erica Stanford announced over the weekend that there'll be a ban on screen time in early childhood education centres, limited use in primary schools, and given the concerns around how devices and social media are contributing to declining abilities for kids to engage with complex texts and analyse data, I mean, surely this has got to be a good thing.
"We need to move on quickly to what the rest of the world are doing to help set our kids up with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in life, and we can't afford to sit down and have another cup of tea. That's what Labour always want to do. They'll do the same with the curriculum. Let's sit down and have a cup of tea and a break and create a group that they appoint members to to have another think about it for 10 years. I mean, 60,000 kids start school every year, we can't afford to wait. And the key thing is, Mike, in all of this, our reforms are working. Why would you want to put that all at risk so Labour can have a cup of tea?"
That was Education Minister Erica Stanford talking to Mike Hosking this morning. Yet when I was talking to Chris Hipkins in studio on Friday, he made it abundantly clear to me that National's initiatives would be rolled back should they form a government. He seemed to take absolute personal umbrage that I would suggest that from what I'd seen the reforms were working. Education seems to be as personal to him as it is to Erica Stanford.
CH: "The reality here is that any curriculum change does need to
KW: "For Ginny to put a halt on what's happening would be a disaster."
CH: "That's rubbish, absolute nonsense. Erica Stanford is trying to rewrite the school curriculum in her own image, basically trying to and making it much, much more political than it should be. We're saying that the curriculum should be decided based on evidence of what's going to work, based on what we want all kids to be learning."
KW:&nbsp; "It wasn't working."
CH: "No, there's no question, there was curriculum, there was a need for the school curriculum to change, there's a need for the NCEA to change, but doing it in the way that the current government are doing it where they're alienating so many people, they're shutting parents out of the process, they're shutting teachers out of the process, they've got school principals up and down the country saying this is going to be bad for kids' education, that is a time to take a pause and say, okay, let's try and get this back on track because there is a need for change."
KW: "I couldn't disagree with you more."
Clearly I'm passionate about education too, so that was Chris Hipkins talking to me in studio. But you can hear in his voice that he genuinely believes that everything Erica Stanford is doing is wrong, and yet I'm looking at what she's doing and looking at the overseas evidence and looking under my own roof and I can see that it is working.
Who's right?
I mean, I think the education of our children and the options that a well educated child will have no matter where they start in life, the future of the country depending on a world class education is way too important for politics and shifting ideologies.
I would gladly support Labour's curriculum if they could show they'd got it right, but their last session in office did not convince me of that in any way, shape or form. And it's not just me. You've got the Royal Society of Mathematicians saying that it was an absolute disaster what was being proposed. It's not just my reckon.
There were academics and there were teachers and there were people with experience of educating children and knowledge of core curriculum subjects who said that Labour's curriculum that had been drawn up, and when you look at the money they spent on the reviews and the reforms and the contracting out, was a disaster.
For all of that money and all of that time, disaster. There were probably some bits that were good, so keep those, but when it came to teaching the core subjects, they had got it completely wrong. Then you've got Erica Stanford coming in and the poor teachers are lurched in another direction again with the handwriting and the back to basics and the minimum amount of time spent on English and maths, and it seems to be working.
I am so sick of reviews and reports and commissions that we have reports, reviews and commissions up the yin yang. If they propose another one on the education, it'll be a complete and utter waste of time and money, just as it will be with the bloody supermarkets. How many commissions have we had on that?
But what Erica Stanford is proposing seems to make sense and it seems to be working and some educators agree with it and some do not, and then you argue that it's because some of the educators are influenced by the teachers' union. I don't necessarily buy that, but what works?
It seems looking at overseas data and anecdotal evidence what Erica Stanford is proposing works. So why is Labour so vehemently opposed to what seems to be the best for our kids?

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Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Kerre Woodham: The back and forth over education is doing our kids a disservice

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/0daef734-437c-45de-983d-b4cb018af858/transcript