A National MP claims that Education Minister Trevor Mallard sees Maori and Pacific Island students as "an albatross about our neck" in raising standards of education.
The Opposition education spokesman, Gerry Brownlee, says Mr Mallard's attempt to strip out performance by those two groups from overall results and then talk up New Zealand's relative international standing is wrong.
He told a meeting of independent schools yesterday: "Trevor Mallard recently tried to deny that New Zealanders' literacy performance was just average on the world scale by blaming Maori and Pacific people for our mediocre results internationally.
"He was trying to tell middle New Zealand, 'Well, you guys do okay; it's Maori and Pacific Island people who don't'. He alleged that we 'would be as good as anywhere else' if it weren't for what he may have described as that albatross about our neck."
But Mr Brownlee said New Zealand would clearly not be as good as anywhere else in the world on that basis. "At the moment we perform the same in international comparisons with other English-speaking developed nations.
"Subtract blacks or Hispanics from the American figures and I'm sure the United StateS would look better. Subtract certain elements in class-ridden British society and Britain would be up there with the Nordics, too. Let the Canadians cut out the French Canadians, the Indians and Inuit and their results would be much better, too," he said.
"The question is, which statistically significant disadvantaged groups can the Australians and the Irish exclude, because their literacy results aren't too hot, either."
Mr Brownlee said the bottom line was international comparisons and they showed that New Zealand still had a job to be done. "Our performance is just average and being just average is not good enough to make us successful as a nation."
About 48 per cent of New Zealand adults fell into the bottom rankings of the International Adult Literacy Study conducted by the Organisation for Education and Cultural Development.
"Now half of all New Zealanders aren't Maori or Pacific Islanders. The problem affects many New Zealanders of lower socio-economic background, but not exclusively.
"The problem affects New Zealanders regardless of ethnic origin."
He said a National government would re-establish the scheme in which students with high potential from poorer backgrounds would receive state funding to enable them to attend independent schools.
War of words on NZ literacy
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