Opinion: Stop playing with our children's future

Hekia Parata has made some big education announcements recently. PHOTO/FILE

The Minsiter for Education dropped a few bombs on teachers, parents and our children recently.

The first one is a funding proposal similar to bulk funding which was shot down years ago. Schools are not funded adequately as it is and 'global budgets' in my view will mean not employing the qualified teacher because they are more expensive and deciding to make classes unmanageably large so schools can afford to day to day operational costs.

The latest bomb from Hekia Parata is that students would soon have the option of signing up to an "accredited online learning provider" instead of turning up to school. According to the minister, it's time for New Zealand kids to "move into the digital age".

Newsflash. They already are. It's everywhere. Our kids from year 0 to year 13 are fully immersed. COOL - community of online learning - is the hip new acronym. But, for those who have not been in a classroom for the last decade or more, make no bones about it cyber learning, or the internet is an integral part of your children's learning.

Quite often schools are at the front of the wave, ahead of mainstream society, as teachers work and train tirelessly to keep our future generations ahead of the curve.

So why is the minister calling this an opportunity to move into the digital age?

Schools are about more than academics, they are expected to show how they deliver "soft skills". Schools and polytechs are expected to show how students could work in teams for example, basically - did they have the interpersonal skills to function in the real world.

- Fletcher Tabuteau is a Rotorua-based NZ First List MP.

The internet is just another tool. It's like the best encyclopaedia ever. But make no mistake, the teacher is an integral part of a child's learning no matter what the available technology is. Any attempt to promote COOLs as a way to promote smarter kids is delusional.

No learning is improved by isolation. Care to get a qualification from Harvard online? You already can and many of those qualifications are free now. But the success rate for these MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses is arguably less than 20 per cent. It's hard even for the best of us.

A foundation in the US, representing nearly a quarter of online charter schools commissioned three reports into its own cyber schools. They came out and told the truth; online public school instruction delivered by cyber charter schools had been a "colossal disaster" for most students.

If the minister wanted better learning outcomes, streamlining compliance would go a long way to improving student outcomes. Instead, schools are drowning in paperwork, data collection and compliance. And teachers and schools are constantly in reaction mode. It's depressing for teachers. There's no semblance of trust, let alone respect, between the government and our educators.

This minister needs to stop playing with our children's future and work with the education sector.