Garth George: Basic literacy proves a tough test

The Government's insistence that primary schools give priority to teaching literacy and numeracy is a no-brainer.

Grave concerns over children's competence in reading, writing and reckoning when they leave primary school, and even high school, have been around for years.

So it's high time the teaching profession was directed to concentrate on those things, even to the exclusion of other easier and more popular subjects.

Surely it's not difficult to understand that unless children are competent in reading, writing and basic mathematics they are unable to take their education any further.

One can understand that teachers are reluctant, and for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that many of them can't spell themselves.

One of the harshest critics of the Government's national standards is Principals' Federation president Ernie Buutveld, who the other day said his biggest fear was that people would start judging the curriculum on being simply reading, writing and maths, but that "our students need much, much more than that".

Does he not understand that if children can't read, write and count then there is no "much more than that"?

And Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in Britain, was quoted in this newspaper as saying that future employability skills were the product of a well-rounded education.

"The creation, growth, maturation, and possession of the skills required to succeed in employment in adult life depend on good teaching of a broad and enriched curriculum at primary school," he said.

Does he not understand that without having mastered basic literacy and numeracy skills, there can be no future employability skills or even a well-rounded education?

It seems that the education unions' main worry about the national standards is that teachers have to report twice a year on their pupils' progress, in plain language.

And teachers are terrified that this might not only hold them individually to account but their schools as well, and the last thing they want is for schools to be compared with one another.

Any move to make the teaching profession accountable has been strenuously opposed by teacher unions for at least the past 40 years. They seem to think that understanding their profession is way beyond us ordinary folk, and that lay judgments of their competence should not under any circumstances be allowed.

In spite of all that, I do have considerable sympathy with teachers over their complaints at the timing of the Government's national standards policy.

For several years now, after much research, lengthy and wide consultation with all the stakeholders, including teachers, parents and respected academics, and after much trial and error, the Ministry of Education has developed the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC), due to come into operation at the beginning of next year.

It is described by one educator of my acquaintance, a man never given to hyperbole, as "brilliant", "wonderful", "really neat" and "if not the best, then one of the best in the world".

And while teachers are studying and discussing the implementation of this complex document, along comes the Government with its national standards.

The complexity of what teachers face is doubled.

The difficulty is that there is tension between the provisions of the national standards and the curriculum. In some ways the national standards interfere with the implementation of the NZC.

As one teacher put it: "If they'd just left us alone to get on with the NZC, all the aims of the national standards would eventually be met anyway because literacy and numeracy are a significant part of it.

"But just as we've done almost all the work of preparing for the NZC, and are on the verge of being able to say 'okay, let's do it', we get a hand grenade lobbed at us out of left field by a Government bound by an unnecessary election promise."

Having ploughed through two A4-sized booklets explaining the national standards - a 35-pager on reading and writing and 55 pages on mathematics - I'm not a bit surprised that teachers are grumpy.

Here they are deeply immersed in the NZC preparations, and now they have to divert their attention to the national standards, some of which are in conflict with the NZC.

It seems to me that the national standards are another example of Prime Minister John Key's "rolling maul" tactic, and the trouble with rolling mauls is that some players get flattened, some get ejected, some get left behind, some get penalised and some even get injured.

It will be more than interesting to see how all this falls out, for the future of our nation depends on the ability of the schoolchildren of today to read, write and figure to a high standard.

It might help if the Minister of Education had more experience in her portfolio than merely a stint on the Napier Girls' High Board of Trustees.