Labour backs govt's NCEA support package

A Labour MP and former Education Minister says she will help in any way to speed up the government's promise to uplift struggling NCEA students.

This week, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced an incoming support package for students in maths, reading, and writing tests.

Stanford pledged this at the Post Primary Teachers Association's annual conference, including planned changes to the recently revised NCEA level 1 standards.

She also said they would alter the $100 million annually funded Kahui Ako programme, which is a group of education and training providers who work with youth across 1800 schools.

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, Labour's Education Spokesperson Jan Tinetti said her support is sourced in her continued advocacy of not playing "politics with NCEA".

"We need a really strong qualification framework," Tinetti said.

"In the past when I've been Education Minister and the opposition spokespeople played politics on [NCEA] it has undermined the framework.

"We do need some help in [NCEA] but it needs to be fast. Whatever we need to do to help, I'll be there."

Labour’s Education spokesperson Jan Tinetti. Photo /Facebook/Jan Tinetti MP.

NCEA figures from May showed a staggering 77 per cent of Pacific students and 71 per cent of Māori failed in maths, with the national total being 54 per cent.

In reading, 63 per cent of Pacific students alongside 54 per cent of Māori did not pass, with writing 56 and 55 per cent failing respectively.

Charter schools have been suggested for solving these staggering results, which various educators and MPs have debated on Pacific Mornings.

Some have said it's an alternative to character schools, which has a difficult process of actualising that both those who are supportive and not supportive of charter schools agreed on.

Tinetti said these NCEA failure rates for Pacific and Māori are shocking and that the results are not a fault of those students but of how they learn and are assessed.

"That is something I'm currently investigating for when we are back in government - How we can make that special character school be a part of the act more flexible."

As for yay or nay on charter schools, Tinetti said they are not the answer, and that overseas and in Aotearoa charter schools have been detrimental for young people failing in the system.

"Charter schools are predominately about funnelling taxpayer money into a private system.

"Even the associate minister last week when we were debating in the house, constantly used business examples as the rationale around competitiveness.

"This is my argument - we're not dealing with coffee beans that are inanimate objects, we're dealing with young people in their learning and so we need to make the system work for all."

Watch the full interview via 531pi's FB below:

She said opening charter schools still leaves a majority of Pacific and Māori learners in the state system, which desperately needs flexibility where taxpayers' money works for all rather than is funnelled into a private institution.

She said cultural considerations need to coincide with the curriculum, and that when Tinetti brought that proposal into government as Education Minister she received pushback.

"People would say 'it should be a one size fits all' but who's one size is it?

"Are we going to that European once again and white-washing our assessment regime? We should be looking at an assessment regime that will work for everybody.

"Cultural competency needs to be at the heart of it and if that is where the government is going to lean into I fully support them."