Significant drops in NZ educational achievement - OECD report

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New Zealand educational achievement has dropped significantly in the core subjects of science, maths and reading, according to a OECD report.

Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins revealed the details of the report - which is due for release this evening - in the House today.

It showed that New Zealand's ranking had fallen from 7th to 18th in science, 12th to 23rd in maths, and 7th to 13th in reading.

Education Minister Hekia Parata said she could not comment on the details of the report because it would not be released until 11pm.

Mr Hipkins said: "It's a wake-up call to the whole education system but also to the Government that their education approach isn't improving things and under National the decline of our education system is accelerating.

"The fact that is it such a significant decline is something that we should really wake up and pay attention to."

Ms Parata said in a speech last week that a fall in the OECD rankings was expected.

She emphasized this afternoon that the report measured the performance of 15 year-olds who had not done National Standards, because the data was taken from the years 2001 to 2012.

The minister said that National Standards data from 2011 to 2012 showed a "small overall improvement", with reading up 1.2 per cent, writing up 2 per cent and maths up 1.4 per cent.

"Obviously, we have data across two data points only and so it is early days."

She said that parents had told her that they valued the clear information that National Standards provided about their children's progress.