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Maori could be the best readers in the world again - but that won't happen while the education ministry is "ideologically" opposed to using phonetics as a teaching method, a Massey University academic believes.
Speaking to 200 educationists at Waipareira Trust's education summit in Waitakere yesterday, Professor Tom Nicholson said in 1971 New Zealanders were the best readers in the world, but now the country sits 26th in the Progress in International Literacy Study.
He blamed the fall on the switch from phonics to the whole language approach to teaching reading.
The method's failure was proven by the fact that more than half of Maori boys last year couldn't pass basic literacy tests, Professor Nicholson said.
"The bureaucracy doesn't want to change. I can understand that. Who wants to be the first one to say they've been doing the wrong thing?"
The "one size fits all" approach wasn't smart and countries such as England were again investing in phonics.
That New Zealand wasn't moving in the same direction meant that Maori could be in for more of the same poor literacy results, he said.
However, a Ministry of Education spokesman said efforts such as the Literacy Professional Development Project, where experts go into selected schools for two years and build teachers' professional knowledge, was making headway.
This week the $3.8 million project revealed that after joining it 20 per cent of learners at the bottom end of the literacy scale were beginning to catch up with other students.
The trust's chief executive John Tamihere lamented that only three principals out of 93 schools were at the summit, which showed "that principals do not want to engage with Maori - when they are invited into Maori territory they do not want to connect.
"No one in the English speaking world has come close to winning an argument against teachers - it's like they're untouchable."
However, West Area Principals Association president Bruce Dale said the cost was a prohibitive factor.
Teachers also didn't want to go along to a summit where they would be "harangued" when they were trying to lift educational performance.
And talking could only do so much, Mr Dale said.
"I want less hui and more doing. I've heard it all before. I'm totally committed to raising achievement levels - I think a lot of principals are working towards that."
