The Prime Minister promised $20 million for targeted professional development in maths for teachers.
Luxon announced twice-yearly maths assessments in primary schools starting from 2025.
Richard Prebble is a former Labour Party minister and Act Party leader. He currently holds a number of directorships.
OPINION
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s speech to the National Party annual conference was extraordinary. He spoke about primary school arithmetic. The commentators did not know whatto make of it.
Now we do know. Luxon’s politics is motivated by a desire to lift education achievement.
The PM revealed “shocking new data on student achievement in maths last year. Looking at kids who are about to go to high school, this data shows that just 22% of students are at the expected standard for maths at year eight”.
“And it gets worse: three out of five are more than a year behind … there will be 50,000 more next year, if nothing changes.”
Luxon said that schools by using “broad multi-year bands” for reporting meant that “many parents were being told that their children are doing just fine when the reality is they could be years behind”.
“I’m standing before you as Prime Minister and my promise to you today is that it’s time for change.
“So, for every kid walking into school tomorrow morning, backpack on, ready to take on the world, my message is simple. I cannot change the choices you make, or the home you were born into, but I will move heaven and earth to give you the best possible start in life with an outstanding education.”
Christopher Luxon delivers his speech to the National Party annual conference earlier this month. Photo / Claire Trevett
Luxon did not have to give this speech.
He could have given a rip-roaring campaign speech blaming Labour. Instead, he said “politically gratifying as it would be to blame the other lot … this issue is bigger than politics”.
This did not stop former education minister Chris Hipkins blaming National. Hipkins said that last year’s Year 8 poor maths results were because seven years ago they “started school with national standards”.
We should be pleased that we have a Prime Minister who realises “we won’t be the world leader in agriscience, or advanced aviation, or artificial intelligence, if our kids can’t do maths”.
Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in his brilliant book Thinking fast and slow explained why humans find maths challenging. The brain is wired to detect danger faster than a computer. When we were apes on the African plains it was necessary to know that it was a lion but not how many. For most of us maths is not instinctive, we must be taught.
Education reform will always be controversial. You cannot do experiments on children so critics can always say any reform is untested. But Luxon is right that failing 50,000 pupils each year is “a total system failure”.
The latest OECD PISA maths test of 15-year-olds from 81 countries concluded that what is most important is the quality of teaching.
A recent Institute of Economic Research report found that over half of all new primary school teachers had failed to achieve Level 2 NCEA maths. If you cannot do maths, it is hard to teach it.
Critics agree that the PM’s pledge to spend $20 million “on targeted professional development, focused on structured maths for primary and intermediate teachers” is a good investment.
The present maths curriculum is vague. Maths is a subject where you do need to know each building block. I believe the proposal to have a structured maths curriculum is sensible.
The Government has told primary schools to teach maths for an hour a day. My observation is that many schools are ignoring the instruction. No doubt this is why the PM announced, “there will be twice-yearly assessments for maths in primary schools starting from 2025″.
Here is my suggestion. The OECD PISA maths test revealed that pupils who had computer-assisted learning did a significant 10% better in maths.
During the Covid school lockdown I bought my grandson an internet maths teaching programme. Even grandad can teach maths with a programme that supplies examples, the way to tackle the problem and the answer.
Every pupil needs access to a computer. Immediately buy internet maths teaching programmes while developing New Zealand’s own computer-assisted maths teaching programme. By using AI, pupils’ maths teaching could be tailored to their needs then even the most maths-challenged primary school teachers could teach arithmetic.
With the help of AI, Luxon could create a numerate generation.
