Letters: Study history to improve our education standards; the morass of the health system

"All New Zealand children should have access to music education." Photo / 123RF

Study history to improve education

Don’t the answers to the current debate about the problem of declining standards in education that this country has been experiencing for many years lie in the past?

It has often been said our nation used to have a reputation of having a world-class education system. If this was the case, then what did we use to do to achieve that reputation?

What is it that we used to do to be consistently near the top of OECD countries for rates in numeracy and literacy? What did we do in the meantime to fall so ignominiously to the low levels of achievement we are now seeing?

Answering these questions and addressing them might go a long way to restoring pride in our education system.

Bernard Walker, Mt Maunganui.

Music and learning

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he is prepared to see schools deferring arts and music curriculum to raise achievement in maths and reading (NZ Herald, Aug 6.)

He went on to ask, “How on earth do you get a four-lane highway from Auckland to Whangārei with future generations that can’t do maths?” The truth is we don’t know what the world will look like in five years’ time.

We certainly don’t know what it’ll look like by the time my children retire from the workforce in the 2070s. An education in the arts, and music in particular, is an education that fosters creativity, adaptability, problem-solving and creative thinking.

All New Zealand children should have access to music education from properly trained music teachers.

Huw Dann, Mt Eden.

On song

Christopher Luxon and Erica Stanford are determined to lift maths and science statistics. Great. But to defer (abandon) arts and music is precisely the wrong strategy.

Many studies have shown increasing [an educational focus on] the arts also increases intelligence, resilience, discipline, co-ordination and many other crucial skills involved in learning an instrument and playing in an ensemble. Have the ministers done their homework? I fear not.

Look at any school’s top achievers and it’s no coincidence many of them play an instrument or sing in a choir.

Robert Howell, Onehunga.

Health morass

Congratulations to the Prime Minister for stepping in belatedly to accept more timely free access to Keytruda to cancer patients who otherwise had to wait till October to allow the Health New Zealand - Te Whatu Ora bureaucracy to cope with the drug company’s offer of free supply. (And, as pointed out, if they had to resort to alternatives in the meantime they may have been rendered ineligible for Keytruda.)

This highlights the blinkered, cumbersome bureaucratic siloed thinking of said department - as a retired GP, I know, having witnessed it over decades.

Unfortunately, not every patient needing similar intervention for absurd decisions or lack thereof can rely upon the power of the Prime Minister’s position to rescue them.

Let us hope the new tsar of Health NZ, Dr Lester Levy, can cut a pragmatic swathe through the multi-layered morass using his medical background and new authority to get more patients more modern medications and nurses and doctors to help with their care.

Dr Richard Stirling, New Windsor.

Nursing budget

Dr Lester Levy, as health commissioner, tells us he has launched a review to determine where staff shortages are most severe. He also tells us Health NZ has 1000 more nurses than its budget allows for.

We have all heard at length about many areas of staff shortage. Surely, if Levy is correct, the urgent need is to find the areas where there are too many nurses, so they can be redeployed.

Or is the real problem not too many nurses, but not enough budget?

Ross Boswell, Christchurch.

Power sources

Rob Rogers is correct about the electricity supply situation but the solution he proposes is not sufficient to solve the problem (NZ Herald, Aug 6).

Over the last few days, wind power has been in the region of 10% of installed capacity and the lack of wind, combined with very low hydro lake levels, has driven the power price on the wholesale market up to $1.60/kWh. Three times the current domestic price. All the reliable generators, including those burning expensive diesel fuel are effectively flat-out.

According to Meridian we need to build more than 500 megawatts of windfarms every year to keep up with growing electricity demand and to replace the ageing Huntly coal-fired station. If we do this, the price will crash when wind and solar power are abundant and very high when it is not. This price volatility would be bad for consumers, disastrous for industry and for the economics of wind and solar farms.

Until a new technology that provides long-term low-cost storage is developed, we cannot do without gas to keep the lights on when the wind is not blowing. For as long as this simple fact is ignored, blackouts and price rises are inevitable.

Bryan Leyland, Pt Chevalier.