It Is a Stark Choice between Success and Failure

If Phil Twyford, David Clark and Poto Williams had to resign for failures in Housing, Health and Policing then there are many more reasons for Chris Hipkins to hand in the Education portfolio. Clearly, the massive failure of the polytechnic centralisation is reason enough, based on the waste of money, administrative failure and lack of student growth while there are 10,000 NEETs in Auckland alone.

But what is happening with school attendance is simply unprecedented. It is failure to a mind-blowing extent. It marks Hipkins as having absolutely no peer as the worst Minister of Education in the history of our nation. The Ministry of Education is culpable but the responsibility ultimately lies with the Minister. In media yesterday:

• Record low levels of school attendance hit Maori and Pasifika hardest, with fewer than a third of those populations attending school regularly (attending more than 90 per cent of the time).

• The latest Ministry of Education data showed overall 46.1% of all students were attending school regularly.

• This was down from 72.8% in term 1 2019, pre-Covid, 50.5% in 2020 and 66.8% in 2021. In term 4 last year it was 65%.

The PPTA has excused it (RNZ yesterday morning) and school principals are asking for piles of ghost credits without insisting that they are linked to attendance.

The Government’s response has completely ignored school quality and teacher quality. Covid is not an excuse.

A part of the solution that every New Zealand parent should know about is what the Mt Hobson Academy has done with its nationwide online school.

1. It is private which gives it more freedom. There is a cost but compared to a normal private school it is a fraction at $8k per year for a full teacher-delivered online programme and $2k per year for a parent-led programme (which does not require a home school exemption). This expenditure should be seen as an investment in the future of the child.
2. The curriculum is simply first class, and throughout our school network students thrive right through their development and into their qualification years. The curriculum covers core subjects superbly and the project-based aspect of it is engaging, skill building and knowledge building.
3. Our teachers are simply first class and have been drawn from very high-level and high-quality positions in both the state and private sectors.
4. We are never closed, students are not rostered out, there are no teacher-only days, you don’t have to wear a mask, there is no uniform, there is no bullying and you are deeply cared for.
5. Families get a considerable choice of topics and how they are covered. The sovereignty of the family and their values is highly respected. There is very significant resourcing for people home-schooling through our parent-led programme which saves a great deal of time for developing your own programme.
6. You don’t have a zone that forces you to a school, we have no upper limit to enrolments and keep our virtual classes manageably small.
7. Your child will be working towards a very good level of qualifications and enhancing their future opportunities.

I am very proud to have been connected to the development of this programme, and under the leadership of the remarkable Saira Boyle, the programme is of the highest quality.

It is well worth checking out and sharing.