Clark announces school leaving age to 18
In a remarkable coincidence, Helen Clark has announced a policy in a similiar area and similiar to, part of what John Key announced yesterday.
She has announced an increase in the school leaving age to 18.
What is good is both National and Labour are saying that the status quo is unacceptable, and that no young person (under 18) should just be unemployed or on a benefit. There is now consensus every person under 18 should be in work, study or training.
Clark also announced a roll-out of a youth apprenticeship scheme, after a pilot in 10 schools.
I’m not sure trying to do all sorts of training through schools will be the best model. Are schools set up to train hairdressers etc if a 17 year old wants to train as a hairdresser instead of doing bursary physics, Latin and maths which they would fail at?
Letting 16 and 17 year olds choose the best provider rather than try and have everything done through their local school, would seem to be a better model for me. But, maybe the model described by Clark will have more flexibility than first apparent. It looks like a 17 year old could still leave school to go undertake say a hairdressing course at polytechnic. But presumably they would have to pay the $4,000 or so cost, while if I understand Key’s proposal correctly they would get that for free.
Sadly there are no details of the policy on the Beehive website, apart from the press release. Scoop has the full speech. One key quote:
Around half our current workforce does not have the education and skills needed to function fully in a knowledge economy.
Now some will use that to attack Clark as she has been PM for the last eight years. But it is good the Government can admit to areas where they are failing, or if that is too harsh where different policies are needed.
Ironically a political historian tells me that a lot of the Clark proposal is taken from National’s 1993 Education for the 21st century proposal. I don’t have a copy myself but it does ring some bells.
Anyway a good start to the year for voters. We are getting offered different policy visions, so people can make an informed choice about which proposals they prefer – that’s what democracy is all about.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Rodney Hide’s response to Clark’s speech sums it up well.
You can read it at http://www.nzdebate.blogspot.com
January 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I don’t think it is a “remarkable coincidence”. I think National has better information on the govt’s plans than they have had before.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Meeeeee tooooooo.
Funny how the leftards were slagging off key yesterday, but then when they got wind of Clark’s Meeee tooooooo policy, they suddenly stopped.
Clark’s problem is that no one is now listening – we all want to hear what John Key has to say. He is our next PM and he is looking to the future, while Clark is stuck in 1950’s Socialist utopia.
Cangratulations to National for setting the agenda for the 4th year in a row.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I asked Nick Smith in 2002 if he’d consider raising the school leaving age at a public meeting in Nelson – I was a student at the time at Nayland College. He said it was a stupid idea (in PC terms).
January 30th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I understand that Teachers at present are being assaulted by pupils at an unprecedented level. A lot of these 18 year old are going to be Polynesian giants many high on drugs. With the absence of discipline in the colleges already Hullo Blackboard Jungle.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
well as Rodney Hide says,
“The kids terrorising our neighborhoods at ages 13 and 14 aren’t going to school now; making them stay in school until they’re 18 will do nothing to address the problem,”
Read the rest of Rodney Hide’s press release at http://www.nzdebate.blogspot.com
January 30th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
You’ve already linked to your site once Simeon.
[DPF: Good call from Sonic. Only link once in a thread and it is best to link to a particular post rather than the blog generally]
January 30th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Simeon: link whoring?
It sounds like the difference between the two is that Labour want kids to remain in school, where National is saying you can leave school if you want, but you have to do something useful (job, further education, apprenticeship). National will give choice of provider, so if a school isn’t working for you, you may go elsewhere. Labour wants you to go to a school, and a school only.
In concept the two are similar, I think in detail there is a big difference. Labour say do it our way, one size fits all. National provide an outcome (you have to do something useful, you can’t just be on the dole) and choice for the individual so that you can find something that best suits you.
I think this actually goes to the heart of the differences between Labour and National – both seek the same thing, but they have very different ideas about how to get there. Labour believe you legislate to tell people how to do things, then grow a huge bureaucracy to check that they do. The law abiding get paperwork, the non-law abiding ignore it. National believe that you set an outcome and give choice, and minimise the paperwork and administration associated with it. I know which I prefer.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Simeon – that’s dead right. If they don’t want to go to school now, they’re not going to stay just because Clark says so, even if they can learn a trade (further eroding proper staircased tertiary trades training).
Clark’s plan will boost one thing – truancy officer job opportunities.
PS Sonic – fuck off.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
“National believe that you set an outcome and give choice”
Do what we say pr we’ll cut of your benefits and you can starve?
Sweet freedom of choice
January 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
National believe that you set an outcome and give choice, and minimise the paperwork and administration associated with it.
Are you sure? I thought National believed that you had to work out who were the bad parents and force them to take parenting classes to make them good parents, and work out who were the bad kids and force them into boot camps and rehab and the like.
I think John Key had some great ideas, but call a spade a spade, you know? His great ideas were about the state being a better nanny to kids in an attempt to cut down on crime.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
If it’s unacceptable now, then what was it when National was last in power? Catastrophic?
http://kiwiblogblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/violent-youth-offending-down-rose-last-time-national-was-in-power/
January 30th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Yup thats right.
If you give people a choice on how they do something then they are more likely to do it.
“both seek the same thing, but they have very different ideas about how to get there. Labour believe you legislate to tell people how to do things, then grow a huge bureaucracy to check that they do. The law abiding get paperwork, the non-law abiding ignore it. National believe that you set an outcome and give choice, and minimise the paperwork and administration associated with it.”
That is dead right.
It shows that Nationals policy has been properly thought through.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Choice? Let’s see … both parties want:
– mandatory taxpayer funding of education
– compulsory education until the late teens
– homeschooling to be as difficult to choose as possible
– state control of all curricula
Remind me again how we have real choice here? What we have is the illusion of choice, the choice between two substantively similar policies that differ only in a few specific aspects of implementation.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Having read Helen Clarks speech, If I were John Key I’d be a very happy man. If this is how Helen is going to operate in an election year, Labour is in serious trouble. I did not hear the speech, but it makes a difficult read, addressing too many issues, none in sufficient depth, and overall I personally felt it was a very weak riposte.
Key had one issue, stayed on message, and got the message across. Helen is talking about what Labour has done in the past 8 years, without realising that many NZers are tired of what labour has sold us, and the swinging voter, having swung towards National, in all probability will not be swayed by this sort of speech.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
roger nome: These policies are very recent and were not around in the 1990s. Its pathetic that you can claim that under the Nats in the 90s youth crime jumped, just to dispel innovation 10 years later.
Its a pretty lame party trick, though I expect nothing more from a blog that is specifically designed to attack another
January 30th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
“Around half our current workforce does not have the education and skills needed to function fully in a knowledge economy.”
According to an OECD report in 2000 NZ’s historically low labor productivity growth is in part attributable to “low workforce skills and competencies. So we’ve had this problem for a long time now. Presumably a lot of it stems from National’s Employment Contracts Act, which in effect scrapped most of NZ’s apprenticeships programs. Labour has gone some way to correcting this with its modern apprenticeships initiative, but clearly it hasn’t been enough.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Why do Leftards keep referring back to when National were last in Government? Other than their fear that National is the party of the future, while Labour remain locked into looking back.
The good news is that it was the very economic foundations laid by Ruth and Roger that have allowed the relative success that Labour has been able to ride on for the past eith years (although there are also plenty of squandered opportunities.
I thinks Clark’s “do as I say” will be seen as a failure by the electorate to address the issue. Key offers a solution (with a bit of a stick). Clark only offers a stick.
Clark is more about self responsibility and when combined with other policies yetto be released we see the general direction of National’s policy platform.
Is this panicked policy on the hoof by Clark? – to raise the school leaving age by two years at one time? Certainly reeks of that to me.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Totally agree PaulL
Nationals plan is about keeping kids from slipping off the rails when they leave school at a young age. Labours is about keeping all of them there regardless.
Some kids are better off leaving and going to work, say in a trade. We need tradespeople as well in our society too, and many who have followed this path are successful.
Why stop this option for many kids all because of a few?
Plus what would they have done with me – I left school aged 17 having done 7th form with an A bursary! Repeat a year?!
January 30th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Doesn’t really matter how long they spend being educated. The NZ education system is an unmitigated failure.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Nome
The blog for making shit up , lying and twisting info all based on Wiki, can be found at http://www.thestandard.org.nz/z. Appreciate that you might have gotten lost.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
From the Stuff website
Key bests Clark in opening salvo
Martin Kay
Is that it?
Prime Minister Helen Clark’s response to National leader John Key’s state of the nation speech was hardly the torpedo she had been expected to loose off in the opening engagement of the election.
Instead of sinking Key with a headline grabbing-announcement of her own, Clark has invited voters to compare what’s on offer from the two main parties. And Labour is likely to come off second best.
Leaving aside conspiracy theories that both leaders focused on under-achieving 16 and 17-year-olds because a Labour mole tipped off National about Clark’s speech, the fact remains that both canvassed the same issue and offered broadly similar solutions.
Key is promising free access to education and training for under 18s who drop out of school, while Clark is promising apprenticeship schemes in high schools and measures to keep kids in education and training.
In some respects, Clark may be able to claim her policy is more “visionary” – a word she will use a lot this year as she tries to paint Key as “lacking ambition”.
That may be true of some of the detail of what Labour is offering, at least in terms of engaging kids as young as Level 9 in areas such as trades.
But while vision makes for good government, it isn’t necessarily the most important weapon in an election.
There, the art of the dog whistle, the brutality of a knife twisted into a raw nerve, serve just as well. In that respect, Key has triumphed over Clark.
While his plans to ensure all under-18s are in education, training or work may not be as visionary as hers in that some of the detail is lacking, his message is likely to ring more loudly.
For Key has promised no-fees training and also backed his carrot with a stick – stripping under 18s of benefits if they don’t play ball.
He has also touched on youth crime, an issue that is highly topical and likely to be of more concern to more people, even if it is not as worthy as the ambition of ensuring all our youngsters have the opportunity to gain good jobs.
In the opening salvo, then, it is John Key 1, Helen Clark, 0.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I live in a school zone that is under immense pressure, I’ve just started my oldest at a private school – do I get a tax rebate for the seat at the local school I have just free’d up or will the govt continue to take my tax for the local school funding while I’m paying for private education.
ACT need to be elected – If Labour are elected again this year I’m moving to Aussie – taking the tax for the things I’m not using (supporting others) and the cold hard cash I’m pumping into the economy via private education with me.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
“Why do Leftards keep referring back to when National were last in Government?”
Because they haven’t actually changed perhaps? John Key is a neo-liberal at heart. Remember he said that the only significant disagreement in terms of political ideology that he had with Don Brash was the minimum wage? i.e. Brash wanted it scrapped, and Key didn’t. In fact in some areas it looks like they’re more right wing than the 1990s National crew – i.e. at least under the Employment Contracts Act 1991-1999 people were entitled to work rights, now Key and co want to take them away from us. So while Key’s team will emphasise the more centrist aspects of National’s policy platform in the run up to the election there’s still a lot of that nasty, punitive 1990s philosophy left in the National leadership.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the link Bok, but could you do the hyperlink without stuffing it up? Makes it easier for folks to find our site.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
“Doesn’t really matter how long they spend being educated. The NZ education system is an unmitigated failure.”
Here fool:
http://kiwiblogblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/09/kiwi-kids-know-their-arses-from-the-elbows/
January 30th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
ACT need to be elected – If Labour are elected again this year I’m moving to Aussie
Weather here’s better, too.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Do what we say pr we’ll cut of your benefits and you can starve?
Sweet freedom of choice
Boo hoo for them. If someone doesnt turn up to work, they dont get paid – hell if they do it repeatedly they may well get fired.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
The difference is really simple:
Labour = stay in school until you are 18. If you find a job, want to go to polytech, have a baby by accident and want to look after it, TOUGH – you HAVE to stay in school. So school, only school, nothing but school.
Labour = One size fits all solution.
National = do something useful until you are 18. If you’ve got a job, GREAT. Want to go to Polytech, we’ll pay your course fees (we’d have to pay if you stayed in school anyway). Have a baby, to get the DPB you’ll have to courses learn how to look after it safely. Want to leave school and do nothing, TOUGH – you can do it, but don’t expect us to fund your choice, and if you get convicted of a criminal offence there will actually be consequences.
National = a succesful outcome is required, but how you do it doesn’t matter, but if you want to be a bum, we aren’t paying for it.
Simple really.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Thanks for the link Bok, but could you do the hyperlink without stuffing it up? Makes it easier for folks to find our site.
Oh jolly gosh, he made a little error in his hyperlink! Hang him!
Tane, when are you going to disclose who you really are?
January 30th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
So the left-wing mantra from Roger, Tane, and the folks at the sub-standard is: “All the economic success of the last eight years is due in its entirety to this Labour Government. All of the social failures over the last eight years can be blamed, in their entirety, on the last National Government.”
It’s put the Standard in a spin, though. Their first summation of John Key’s speech yesterday that it was a strategic failure, and would fall flat on its face. Then Annette King announced on the radio yesterday evening that it was Labour Party policy. Which probably explains why nobody was listening to the PM this morning.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I dropped out of high school at the beginning of seventh form, and I would not be the insane genius you see before you if I had been forced to stay in school. What I did do was get a job when I left school, and moved out, and after four years of working I went to university. I would prefer the option.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Helen Clark’s policy of forcing kids to stay at school until 18 will mean that kids that don’t want to be there won’t.
They will be out on the street causing problems.
The won’t be on a benefit because they are meant to be in school.
The won’t be allowed to work because they are meant to be in school.
Guess what they will be doing – do you think youth crime will go up or down.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
From the National Party website
Labour’s plan – make it even harder for unhappy students
30 January 2008 – 10:59 – Katherine Rich
Education
Helen Clark and her Labour Government have taken a giant leap backwards by effectively banning 16- and 17-year-olds from leaving school to get work, says National’s Education spokeswoman, Katherine Rich.
“While National’s Youth Guarantee proposes offering free training for those teenagers who have completely lost interest in school, Labour will force them to stay – unless they want to work and study at the same time.
“This confusing policy is going to promote truancy, which is already at unprecedented levels, increase classroom disruption as teenagers rebel against being forced to stay, and deny these kids the opportunity to make their way in the world at their own pace.
“If a 16-year-old wants to leave school to work on his parents’ farm, he or she should be allowed to – without having to work towards some sort of certificate at the same time.
“Labour’s plan is draconian and smacks of ‘the state knows best’ – something that has become very familiar over the past eight years. It is also utterly impractical and lacks detail.
“National’s Youth Guarantee is the opposite. It is modern, flexible, and practical.
“And as for Helen Clark’s trades training initiative – is there an echo in here?
“In June last year, National announced a comprehensive ‘trades in schools’ initiative, including school-based apprenticeships, trades academies, and school and industry partnerships.
“If all Labour can come up with is a heavy-handed plan to force teenagers to stay in the classroom until they’re 18, they have seriously run out of ideas”.
____________________________________________________________
By the way, there is no copy of Helen Clarks speech on Labour’s site. It’s last update was on Dec 6 last year.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Helen nearly choked on her spittle when Leighton Smith asked her if you’d still be able to do a gap year. Obviously something she had never considered. She mumbled something about it not being appropriate – more handy advice about how to bring up our children!
By comparision I see John Keys policies as being logical and well considered.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Slightlyrighty – Labour have stopped updating their site because they’ve moved.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Offical Labour site is now – here
January 30th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I agree with Katherine Rich. Is there an echo in here – talk about Labour swiping policy from the Nats.
Rich will make an excellent Minister of Education this year.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
um here
January 30th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
A friend of mine, having done poorly in School Cert, left school at the age of sixteen to work as a process worker for a local factory.
In his early twenties he returned to University, wound up obtaining an engineering degree, & was invited back for postgrad studies. He declined, re-entered the workforce, and is now a very successful automation engineering contractor.
I’d be interested to hear how Labour’s grand plan for teenage school leavers would cater for his scenario.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Ah yes, chicken little, I should have remembered,
Incidently, Even the standard are calling clark’s speech “dull”
January 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Here’s what Melanie Phillips had to say about the Pommie Labour Minister of Education, the appropriately named Mr Balls, suggesting that the leaving age be raised to 18:
“According to Mr Balls, whose ability to portray black as white is straight out of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, education standards are rising but they are not yet world class. Frankly, many are now not even Third World class.
The examination system has been manipulated to support the pretence that government policy is working, with dumbed down exams and courses producing ever more incredible improvements in GCSE and A-level results.
Mr Balls sneers at the annual eruption of incredulity over these absurd results as ‘decrying the hard work of teachers and pupils’. Not a bit of it.
Academics from both Durham and Lancaster universities have concluded that such rises are due to grade inflation brought about by a lowering of exam standards.
In person, Mr Balls comes across like a less than stellar product of his own education system: semi-inarticulate, with faux proletarian-diction, and parroting recycled propaganda instead of facts.
Did I say ‘education’? How very last century. Tellingly, ‘education’ is the one word that no longer appears in the title of this Cabinet minister or the Department for Children, Schools and Families that he leads.
Doubtless, this explains why Mr Balls has extolled the Spice Girls as role models for the nation’s young women – along with Margaret Thatcher (whom he mentioned twice in yesterday’s interview, and who would therefore appear to owe her unlikely place in Mr Balls’s hall of heroines to cynical political calculation).
One can think of many epithets for the Spice Girls – vacuous, tacky and past it come to mind – but what appears to make them qualify as role models in the mind of the Children’s Secretary is simply that they embody commercial success.
Mr Balls is thus a most fitting uneducation minister: the living, breathing embodiment of our ethos of degraded aspiration and cultural philistinism that lies at the core of our education calamity.
For the noble premise of a liberal education, that children’s sights should be raised up to the very best that humankind has ever produced, has been replaced by the doctrine that children should be taught what is ‘relevant’ to their lives.
The whole idea that schools should open up the world for them is thus negated, and they remain trapped instead within their own limited horizons.
The result is a meltdown in education that has been apparent for the past two decades. The Royal Literacy Fund has described the writing skills of British undergraduates as a public ‘catastrophe’.
Good A-level grades are being awarded for illiterate and substandard work. Fewer than half of English pupils have mastered the three Rs in their GCSEs. Four in ten 11 year-olds leave primary school having failed to reach the required level in reading, writing and numeracy.
According to a recent major study, children are making virtually no progress in mathematics in the first three years of secondary education and some even go backwards.
Ofsted reports that half of secondary schools in England fail to give pupils a good education, and the numbers of ‘failing’ schools have risen by one-fifth. Even the Government’s much vaunted specialist schools have failed to raise standards significantly.
In response, Mr Balls proposes to raise the school leaving age to 18, thus trapping young people in two further years of schooling for yet more qualifications giving an illusion of achievement.”
Appropriate? DO READ THE WHOLE THING. This is quite an extensive quote, but is only a fraction of the whole.
It is entitled “Education? No, it’s Balls!”
January 30th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Here’s a link to the Melanie Phillips article:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=554
January 30th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
School is not the option for some young NZers. They don’t respond to it, and end up railing against it, or leaving it because they don’t like it, and without an alternative to go to, end up lost, aimless and eventually in trouble, having not fulfilled any potential because the education system seems unable to conceive that the solution for an individual lies in the wider community, and not the system itself.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
That would be the journalist popularly known as “Mad Mel” Phil?
January 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
“Mr Balls is thus a most fitting uneducation minister: the living, breathing embodiment of our ethos of degraded aspiration and cultural philistinism that lies at the core of our education calamity.”
What a wonderfully expressive paragraph. So true. So accurate. A judgment embodied on this site by the presence of the propagandising retard Roger Nome and other half educated products of NZ’s “Uneducation” system.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
“That would be the journalist popularly known as “Mad Mel” Phil?”
Fuck you’re a coward. Your only response to criticism is to label the critics as insane. Why don’t you just fuck off you odious band width wasting say nothing gutless little commie creep?
January 30th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Actually, the whole article is spot on. What a shame the Herald-Pravda is too ideologically stunted to run comments by Melanie- and Mark Steyn .
January 30th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
When you get a moment, check out the link below
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10489530&pnum=2
Go to the link with the video of Clark delivering her speech, and contrast that with the video of John Key delivering his.
One of these two is seriously on the back foot, and the face of that person shows it. I’ll leave to to make up your own mind which one.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=LON&q=mad+mel+phillips&btnG=Search&meta=
January 30th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
“…But, maybe the model described by Clark will have more flexibility than first apparent…”
haha! SURE it will. The sooner that woman goes the better.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
So what you sad fool? There’s thousands of dogmatic leftists out there who in response to criticism of their religion can only do as you do. Smear and lie. Tell me something new.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
“A judgment embodied on this site by the presence of the propagandising retard Roger Nome and other half educated products of NZ’s “Uneducation” system.”
So no engaging in the substance of the debate, just childish abuse Bleater? Well, a leopard doesn’t change its spots I suppose.
http://kiwiblogblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/is-redbaiter-for-real/
[DPF: Is Roger seeing how many times he can post a link to KBB today? Is he on commission or does he get a chocolate fish if he makes double figures?]
January 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
SO: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4379306a7694.html
How many more teachers will we need to cater for the elevated school leaving age ? Class sizes are already way to high and have been for years.
Another consequence of policy on the fly in response to National….
January 30th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I’m not a teacher but a lot of my friends are. If Labour push this through then I feel sorry for them. It’s bad enough trying to teach a class of 35 when you have no control, but when they hit 16, don’t want to be there and can’t go anywhere else, it will be a nightmare.
One of the things I remember about my 6th and 7th form (in the 80’s) was how good it was that most of the trouble makers had left at the end of 5th form and what was left was (mostly) people who actually wanted to be there and wanted to learn.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
““Mr Balls is thus a most fitting uneducation minister: the living, breathing embodiment of our ethos of degraded aspiration and cultural philistinism that lies at the core of our education calamity.”
What a wonderfully expressive paragraph.”
Only if you’re a complete moron who’s so out of touch with reality that they’ll base their beliefs on high flown, uninformed rhetoric over an official OECD report. God you’re an idiot.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
“[DPF: Is Roger seeing how many times he can post a link to KBB today? Is he on commission or does he get a chocolate fish if he makes double figures?]”
Not really – KBB just often has some very pertinent facts and figures when it comes to these debates. Hope you don’t mind.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Good news, A N Mouse: it won’t happen because Labour are gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
and PS woger (“Only if you’re a complete moron who’s so out of touch with reality that they’ll base their beliefs on high flown, uninformed rhetoric over an official OECD report. God you’re an idiot.”) stop talking to yourself online.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Labour are clearly attempting to promote the so-called knowledge society (whatever that is), but they should realise that not everyone has the mental faculties to take part in that, and some will find better ways of training themselves under their own steam. Not to mention the fact that a knowledge society (whatever that is) still requires skilled workers. HC’s approach is one-size-fits-all, and hardly respects the diversity that is supposed to be valued by ‘the left wing’.
I haven’t thought through the implications of this, but I’ll throw it out there anyway – what if school leaving was made subject to attaining basic levels of literacy and numeracy (enough to carry on with further education later, and enough to take part in the workforce – as well as daily life in the ‘knowledge economy’).
Combine this with Key’s proposals, and we might just have the best of both worlds (or perhaps the worst of bothe worlds??).
January 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
So the PM’s much vaunted speech turned out to be a damp squib. All she managed to offer was a third rate immitation for John Key’s proposal re 17 and 18 year olds along with a promise to establuish ‘another’ Quango. Really, is that the best she can manage.
Perhaps Cromwell’s speech best sums up the situation.
And I see Labour sources are openly speculating about the existence of a mole on the 9th Floor leaking the speech to National.
Perhaps they need to look no further than a couple of floors down.
If I were them I would be very, very, very, very afraid.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I should reveal that I have been involved in teaching tertiary students, where many productive teaching hours are wasted by having to teach basic reading and writing skills. It is fair to say that even 7th form graduates (or whatever they are now) need coaching at this level, such is the standard of secondary schooling…
January 30th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Phillip John/Roger Nome:
It’s a good idea not to distort pertinent facts and figures – otherwise you’ll be accused of intellectual dishonesty.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Ironically a political historian tells me that a lot of the Clark proposal is taken from National’s 1993 Education for the 21st century proposal. I thought she was nicking policies from Downing Street, and here’s the
response of sucbn policies from a UK think tank”
Raising the school leaving age to 18 in favour of giving young people “worthless” qualifications will destroy their job opportunities
January 30th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Damn tags… the think tank paper is here
January 30th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I should reveal that I have been involved in teaching tertiary students, where many productive teaching hours are wasted by having to teach basic reading and writing skills. It is fair to say that even 7th form graduates (or whatever they are now) need coaching at this level, such is the standard of secondary schooling…
I am utterly horrified that kids in high schools get away with using text language. Argh.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
“It’s a good idea not to distort pertinent facts and figures – otherwise you’ll be accused of intellectual dishonesty.”
POC – I’ve supplied the links for that information, so people can make up their own minds as to the meaning of the stats, which is more than I can say for most of the right-wing commentators around here.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Phillip John/Roger Nome:
I agree it’s helpful to provide the original data. My concern, as stated, was your commentary (which was a beat-up on National and wasn’t qualified in any way to reflect Labour’s share of responsibility). After reading that comment, I was sufficiently concerned to point out the inherent bias. That’s all I’m saying.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
POC
It’s Labour good – national bad again from roger.
Pay to ignore him, it’s just feeding the troll to even engage with him. Sometimes I ignore my own advice on this and engage but I always regret it. I could easily just type “Labour good” – “National Bad” 100 times and it would have the same effect as reading his daily rants.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Burt:
You’re right.
The only reason I’m bothering to engage Phillip John/Roger Nome on this issue is he claims academic superiority over others. He also claims to quote “pertinent facts and figures’. In other words he claims to post to a higher standard than many others here. That being the case, I’m holding him to that same higher standard – even if it bursts his ego-bubble at times.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
The education equation is a simple matter.
Everyone in preschool (including health checks and family support).
Specialist dyslexia teachers and classes – years 1-6.
Anti-truancy programmes especially years 7-10 and if necessary special educational centres for the school system misfits.
Community services and resourcing in at risk neighbourhhods etc.
As for the age 16 to 18 area – my preference is in school, or in other training, or work for work experience and work training. But the usefulness of the age 18 level is the ability to intervene (which can still involve permission to work – for work experience if there is some work training upskilling programme plan).
We lack specialist trades teachers – so most schools will have to share such staff at concentrated sites. This might mean people in part-time work or part-time in school while also doing work training at these places.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Has anybody considered this?
According to dear leader kids must stay in school until they are 18, does that mean woman on the DPB can now expect 18 years of tax payer handouts?
January 30th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Of course if one is serious about the “knowledge economy” we should all stay in education until we have Ph. D’s. That will really kick the economy into hyperdrive . . . unless . . . the link between successful economies and high levels of education attainment merely indicates that wealthy economies cause high levels of education and not the other way around. Gee, if that were so then the emphasis on higher education as a way to drive the economy would be a bit of a joke woulnd’t it. This is just another biproduct of credential inflation and heres the kicker. The people in their 50’s nowadays – a lot of them didn’t have to get higher education to get where they are but now a degree is mandatory for a lot of jobs that it never would have been necessary for before. Good one government.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Consider Ireland – education works. But yes “credential inflation” exists. The problem with specialised vocation paths, is of course that sound thinking needs oxygen not often found in certain in bred climates. For example the financial market herd pushed Greenspan’s cash bounty into the increasingly complex derivatives and reinsurance arena which complicated transparency to the point that markets will have to be re-regulated. Awake accountants in these institutions must have been aware of this when trying to accurately represent the status quo in the books each year, yet they went to the bad debts cliff like swine without any reason or reflection.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:19 am
More compulsion, more reluctance: more crime. Gang numbers will rise. Folly knows no bounds.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:50 am
Each year you have to pass to get to the next year – problem solved.