Monday, December 05, 2011

More half-truths from Labour

In response to John Banks getting the Associate Education Ministership Labour's Education spokesperson Sue Moroney says:

John Key has used a bogus agreement with ACT to bring in education policies promoting bulk funding and privatisation that National were working on before the election, but did not tell voters about, Labour’s Education spokesperson Sue Moroney says.

“News today that the confidence and supply agreement between ACT and National includes plans to push on with a trial charter school system will come as a shock to most Kiwi parents.

“The ‘charter school’ proposal is bulk funding in drag. It is a model that has been blamed for the decline in educational achievement in Sweden.



An overview of trends in government in Sweden 2011 contains the following:

In Sweden, the proportion of pupils at compulsory school attaining the set knowledge targets, i.e. passing in all subjects, is rising.

On the other hand, surveys carried out in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that the proportion of 15-year-olds with poor reading ability increased from 12.6% to 17.4%, while the pupils' results in mathematics and science deteriorated, between the 2003 and 2009 surveys.

The proportion of pupils eligible for the national study programmes at upper secondary school decreased, mainly among pupils whose parents'education ended before upper secondary school.

The proportion of young people aged 20–24 who have completed upper secondary school in Sweden rose from 86% in 2000 to 88% in 2008. The corresponding EU averages were 77% and 78%. The proportion of Swedish pupils leaving upper secondary school with basic eligibility for higher education rose from 85% to 91% during the same period.

The number of students attaining first and higher degrees and diplomas in higher education, as well as PhDs, in the period 2000–09, increased. At the same time, the level of achievement in basic higher education fell slightly.


A mixed picture but hardly an all-out decline.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who cares. Banksie has let Key privatise schools!

pretty f**g amazing!

Blair said...

The major problem with the Swedish model is not the proliferation of privately run schools, but the complete lack of independent assessment of those schools. It seems that the government doesn't have a national set of standards, and the private sector has yet to properly fill the gap.

I don't envisage that being a problem in NZ's case.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Blair, 'Educational achievement' is also subjective. We sent our son to an independent school when aged 11-15. He had a lot more freedom (and was based in the central city) than he would have had in the state sector. To be honest I don't think he did well academically BUT he developed character-wise. To the point that HE decided he wanted to go into the state system for NCEA simply because he recognised he needed the greater direction and discipline necessitated by larger class numbers. He starts a degree next year and now wonders if he can have the money that he saved us in private school fees.....

Redbaiter said...

Really, anyone who claims to be a fan of freedom, and simultaneously thinks any facet of Swedish society should be duplicated here in NZ, needs to see a psychiatrist.

Sweden is a socialist sewer. Its schools are indoctrination camps.

Read Roland Huntfords "The New Totalitarians".

Link.

Anonymous said...

complete lack of independent assessment of those schools.

and why is this a problem?

Paulus said...

Why listen to Moany Moroney ?

Didn't David Lange's have something like Charter Schools, or similar, in it ?