GUEST BLOG: Peter Hughes – Listen to our Teachers I say
Primary school teachers across the country are striking for the second time in 3 months. This is Historic. I think…
Primary school teachers across the country are striking for the second time in 3 months. This is Historic. I think…
In theory, education is supposed to be the ‘great equaliser’ – this is an idea we often tell ourselves and others. For well-meaning liberals, the answer to a significant amount of the world’s problems lies in its citizens being better educated. Sociologists have amassed a great deal of evidence that demonstrates the power of social class in enabling or disabling children’s achievement potentials at school right off the bat.
People have a sense of some hope, some improvement. The “change of style” introduced by the Democracy Coalition to Tonga’s politics is something the people can still support despite the “hiccups”, says ‘Atenisi’s Dr Michael Horowitz.
Here in New Zealand, National’s funding cuts have not been restricted to the Health sector and NGOs. Government agencies from the Police , Radio NZ, to the Department of Conservation have had their funding slashed (or frozen – a cut after inflation is factored in).
My take on the matter is that it is racism, Institutional Racism that does not like the independent Māori doing well and being successful. Pākahā dominated institutions still want to apply Pākehā rules and tell Māori what to do and how to do it.
If I despise any individuals in education today, then it is those individuals, those privileged to be academics (not to downplay their efforts to get there), siding with the powerful against those who should be able to, desperately need to be able to, trust in the integrity of academics.
What was even more disturbing was learning that the Minister of Education had known about this for two months and appears not to lifted a finger until she was outed by Autism New Zealand and concerned parents.
Hekia couldn’t commit herself to the extreme hardline right education policies being prepared for 2017 election manifesto.
John Key: ‘We can count rodents easily – neglected, abused or sick children living in cold, damp houses not so much.’ Stuff, 3 October, 2016.
For Hekia to use this populist, down-home stuff to distract from the way she has ripped the heart out of New Zealand schools, especially primary schools, and to further her plans for more rough surgery (better called the ‘big shakedown’), demonstrates she senses a problem of tenure, and she knows it.