What is the purpose of public education in a democracy? In this 1-on-1 in 10, Martyn Bradbury speaks with Professor Welby Ings — educational academic, author, filmmaker, and teacher — about the government’s radical changes to NCEA and what’s truly at stake. Ings warns against rushed policy and one-size-fits-all assessment models, arguing that education must empower all students — not rank them. He critiques the push for exams, scaled grades, and charter schools, calling instead for a compassionate, intellectually rigorous system rooted in fairness, collaboration, and critical thinking. This is a powerful defence of public education — and why we must protect it from being reduced to economic output and test scores.
Education as an academic discipline has lost its way. It has no answers and no one believes educators can make any difference. Sad but true.
I don’t know if educators can educate any more but I hope they can.
My 5 yr old grand daughter begins school next month. She can already read and write and do maths at a basic level.
She is so excited to be going to school and I am assuming the teachers will be skilled way beyond what me and Mum offer to continue her education.
While I was at primary school, my parents were advised by several education experts that I was mentally retarded, and could never learn to read or write.
Educators have not lost their way but education continues to be underfunded by all governments in recent times. NCEA didn’t work because it was underfunded and didn’t cater to the top students – which is what traditional education caters for. A return to the bad old days will NOT improve educational outcomes for us and the rushed and autocratic way reforms have been pushed through without mandate (mandate is NOT defined by winning an election – unless you refer to Labour’s landslide under Jacinda when Labour had the numbers to govern alone – but wisely chose to share with the Greens) … this was even more sleazy and despicable when pay-equity was highjacked by this CoC government – for the most part under the cover of darkness!
Some educators/teachers are just plain batshit crazy. When I was at teachers college many years ago it was fashionable to believe that a rising sea lifts all boats, kind of an inverse trickle-down effect. To ‘prove’ this the faculty used to divide us into groups of 4, give everyone the same question, randomly select one assignment from the group, and give everyone the same mark, thus ‘proving’ that a rising sea did indeed lift all boats. The assumption was of course, that the stronger members of the group would assist the weaker members to write better assignments as it was in their own self interest to do so. The reality of course was that people did just enough to scrape by.
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