Cormac O'Duffy: School curriculum lacking in content

COMMENT

Coming from Ireland to teach and do educational research in New Zealand, I was fascinated and impressed by the curriculum, localised administration and examination systems.

What it seemed to offer was something so novel and, indeed, revolutionary that it might offer a model for the development of Ireland's much older education system. One year on, however, I am not so sure.

I am beginning to think that, in attempting to be radically child-centred, practically based and politically correct, New Zealand's curriculum might have no clothes.

The Education Review Office seems to have come to a similar conclusion. In a report in April 2001 it stated: "The curriculum statements contain certain achievement objectives, and some suggested learning experiences, but does not list the content to be covered."

Is this possible? A national curriculum with no content?

Coming from Ireland's traditional education, with plenty of prescriptive learning in Irish history and geography, classical and Irish music, culture and literature, one might question the emphasis placed on these areas in the New Zealand curriculum.

Surely students here would have to learn about the history of their land and be able to plot the chronological events that have helped to shape modern society?

What of being able to name the regions, towns and cities and their histories, the population mix, ecology, geology, landscape and climatic environment? Are these all not required learning in New Zealand schools?

What about the canon of English literature and the best of British, Irish, American and New Zealand writers and poets, and the greatest artists, dramatists and musicians of the world? Surely all of this learning is required by all students.

The answer to all of these questions is, amazingly, "no". There is nothing prescriptive about the New Zealand curriculum in terms of content. No chronological history or national geography is required to be learned, and no novelist, composer or artist or their work is prescribed by the curriculum.

Shakespeare is given a solitary mention on page 137 of the English curriculum as an example of exploring a shared text at Levels 7 and 8. It is not, however, required to study Shakespeare.

The only legislative requirement for study I have been able to locate in the whole of the curriculum is given on page 53 of the health and physical education curriculum. This relates to the obligation of the school to provide sexual education at least once every two years.

Only sex education is obligatory. Certainly a brave new world of education. I might well indeed ask if the emperor has no clothes.

New Zealand children, however, seem to love their schools, and have plenty of excitement in their hands-on approach to learning. If children enjoy their schooling, isn't this an improvement on the older teaching styles and methods, even if the curriculum content itself is not prescribed in any detail?

Hasn't New Zealand compared very well with other OECD countries in terms of its literacy, numeracy and scientific standards of learning?

Four major surveys of education were carried out internationally between 1999 and 2003 comparing the educational achievement of the OECD countries. Before the reforms in politics, society, economics and education in the 1980s and 1990s, New Zealand was ranked first in the world in terms of literacy. Now, according to these findings, it has slipped to 13th.

While 19 per cent of 15-year-olds (11,000 of 59,000) are performing well, according to fixed international standards, 50 per cent of New Zealanders (and 72 per cent of Maori and Pacific Islanders) perform at the two lowest levels in an international literacy study.

In numeracy skills, New Zealand comes last among six participating English-speaking countries, and 20th out of 24 OECD countries. Science skills are no better: New Zealand comes an average 19th among 38 countries, 13th among 15 OECD countries, and last among five English-speaking nations.

What does this international research say about the factors that influence high achievement in schools? Have new immigrant groups, many of whom are not first-language English speakers, helped to pull down the country's performance internationally?

According to surveys, the following have little effect on educational outcomes internationally:

* Decile rating. The socio-economic range of New Zealand schools cannot be used to explain the gap between the highest and lowest achievers.

* Levels of immigration have little effect on achievement. The Innocenti report says that levels of non-native or first-generation pupils make little difference to overall results.

* Levels of spending on education. High spending does not necessarily correlate with pupil achievement, as is shown by high-achieving Korea, which performs as well as Japan even though Japan spends 70 per cent more on each pupil.

* Class size has a minimal impact on pupil performance. Canada and Korea have the highest results and some of the largest class sizes of participating countries.

Research suggests the following do have a positive impact on educational achievement:

* Well-qualified teachers with bachelors or masters degrees.

* Regular and effective reading regardless of parents' work status.

* Class management discipline and an orderly classroom atmosphere.

* Class interruption harms achievement. Nations with schools that have few class interruptions perform well.

New Zealand undertook a brave experiment with Tomorrow's Schools, when it jettisoned a traditional programme for a more child-centred, skills-based curriculum. It started to boldly go where no national education system had gone before.

The question now, however, is whether it is time to come back to Earth.

* Cormac O'Duffy has an MA in educational research from Limerick University.