Parata says despite an increase in Pasifika achievement, they're still lagging behind (Getty)
The
second full year of National Standards data released by the Government
shows a small increase in achievement across the board, Education
Minister Hekia Parata says.
Released today, the data from more than 2000 primary
and intermediate schools across the country shows a 1.2 percent
increase in reading achievement, from 76.2 percent in 2011 to 77.4
percent last year. Maths improved by 1.4 percent, from 72.2 to 73.6
percent, and writing improved by 2 percent from 68 to 70 percent.
Pasifika pupils showed an increase in all three
areas by about 3 percent. Maori students had an average increase of 1.8
percent compared to 2011.
However, Ms Parata says a disparity continues to
exist in the education system, and in particular "achievement is
significantly lower for Maori and Pasifika learners than for others and
boys trail girls".
This is the first year National Standards has been
broken down by year level which, Ms Parata says shows some "concerning
trends", including the decline in the rate of achievement as year level
increases, especially in maths.
She says the ministry has established an advisory
group of literacy and numeracy experts to consider National Standards
data and other information, and make recommendations about "what we can
do better to address these issues".
Meanwhile, the New Zealand Educational Institute has
slammed the data as irrelevant and a waste of money which doesn't
provide any new information.
NZEI president Judith Nowotarski says teachers have
always identified the children who are struggling with their learning
through assessment and their own professional knowledge.
The Government needed to stop obsessing over data, she says.
"In the end it comes down to the time and money the Government provides to ensure every child gets the education they need."
Ms Nowotarski says the National Standards data is as
unreliable and invalid as last year in terms of judging teacher or
school effectiveness. Parents will not find it reliable or useful to
either make judgements about their own child or their local school, she
says.
NZ First education spokeswoman Tracey Martin has also called the data "completely useless".
Ms Martin says the data used to show Pasifika
achievement did not show the performance of Maori and Pasifika students
was already increasing under successful programmes such as Te
Kotahitanga, which have now been scrapped.
"What use is this shonky information? Parents should
ignore it. It's another example of this government putting New
Zealand's education reputation at risk," says Ms Martin.
While this aggregate data is pooled from all schools
nationwide, the ministry will be releasing school-by-school data later
this month.
Around 400 schools had
a small discrepancy in their data which could be because of a change in
roll numbers. The school-by-school data was not released at the same
time as the national data because the ministry wanted to make sure the
data "had as much integrity as possible".
About a
dozen schools were not part of the sample, but Ms Parata says the
remaining schools in the data set were still a "very comprehensive"
sample size. The ministry was working with those schools which had not
reported their data. Ms Parata was not aware of any schools refusing to
report their results.
"There are a very small
number of schools that we want to make sure the schools themselves are
happy that they represent their students, so that when we put them up
school-by-school, schools are comfortable that it's faithful to their
own records."
She said more work needed to be done around moderation and ensuring there were fewer errors when moderating students' results.
Gender gap widens
Figures between boys and girls shows the achievement gap has widened since 2011.
Females
are still well ahead of their male counterparts in reading and writing,
with a gap in the latest data of 8.7 percent and 15.2 percent
respectively. That is a widening of 1.4 percent between the genders for
writing and 0.2 percent for reading, compared with the 2011 data.
The
difference between girls and boys for maths is much smaller, but has
grown over the last year by 1.1 percent – with girls on an average of
74.1 percent and boys, 73 percent.
Downward trend for time at primary school
Today's
National Standards data shows an overall downward trend in achievement
for maths and writing from when a child starts primary school to when
they leave.
Achievement for maths starts with an
average of 85.1 percent in Year 1, with a decreasing trend to Year 8
where the average is 66.21 percent.
Writing achievement has a similar downward trend, starting at 77.1 percent and finishing at 64.7 percent.
The only increase is for average reading achievement, which has a very small upward sloping trend line.
Maori and Pasifika achievement up, but still behind
The
data shows that while Maori and Pasifika children have shown increases
in all three measured standards, they are still behind compared to the
national figures.
Maori pupils showed an average
increase of 1.8 percent in reading, writing and maths, with each
standard sitting between 60 and 68 percent last year. Pasifika pupils
showed an average increase of 3 percent, with results sitting between 56
and 63 percent. This is compared to the national total, which increased
on average 1.5 percent with results between 70 and 77 percent.
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