NZ records worst ever PISA international test results, amid global decline
NZ records worst ever PISA international test results, amid global decline
New Zealand was not alone, with overall average scores for maths, reading and science dropping in the 81 countries and economies participating in the tests.
This is, of course, concerning, but I seriously doubt the suggested enforced 3h of learning is going to change things one iota. IMHO, the biggest problem is not how schools are teaching core subjects, but how much learning is happening at home.
I say this with no judgement. Parents are, increasingly I feel, using a tablet to babysit their kids when they are younger, and not monitoring their social media use when they are older. I would also be interested to learn how much reading to your kids has declined. I could be wrong, but I suspect it has been slipping in line with the PISA results.
I don't think mandatory 3 R's will help, but I wouldn't be so quick to push the blame home. Personally I don't remember much parental involvement in my learning.
But what has happened with teachers the past 20 years? For one, I have worked with half a dozen ex-teachers that trained as teachers but didn't find the role worthwhile. When leave teacher's college and find you can get a contact centre job with no training and higher pay you have some choices to make.
Is it possible our teachers aren't as good, or more likely, aren't as well supported as they used to be?
In general I'd expect that the best teacher's would also make the best candidates for other roles. Perhaps all the good teachers left for higher paying roles, leaving the teachers that can't get other roles to continue teaching and leaving new teachers without great role models.
Well I certainly agree teachers are undervalued, underpaid and overworked. I was a teacher once upon a time, and the workload has only increased. Couple that with dealing with increasingly difficult parents, students with increased needs while taking support away will naturally lead to things falling through the cracks. There have also been a number of changes to the ECE curriculum that were not entirely evidence based. Recently, our primary school has rolled out a brand new, evidence based, reading strategy which really appears to work well.
TBH I agree with @Splenetic@lemm.ee below - it is a difficult problem with many causes, and any one "cure all" solution will ultimately fail.
Parental involvement goes beyond direct involvement in school learning. It also includes reading and fostering an environment where reading is viewed positively, general life learning for skills like adding and subtracting, and so-on. However, I fully acknowledge that I made somewhat of a blanket statement.
Time to make the tests easier? /s
It worked for water quality...
I'm actually most interested in if it bounces back or not. Kids lost a lot of schooling over COVID, will younger kids return to previous levels (noting the article also mentioned a downward trend).
And international as well. Vaguely reassuring to know we're not alone...
Honestly though, I look at what my kids do (or don't do) at school and the actual learning appears to be waaaay less than what it was when I was at school (admittedly we were still using slates and writing script by candlelight). Our usual "what did you do at school" conversation is typically at least 50% "non-learning" - videos, games etc. Yes, kids still learn through these (the Cahoot quizzes are great) but this shouldn't be at the expense of the basics.
While concerning, I think the "amid global decline" is the real headline here (and I'm glad they added it). My reading of this is that NZ almost exactly mirrored the average change across the OECD