Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andy England: Darfield High School Principal on Labour's plan to pause educational reforms, set up independent council

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Andy England: Darfield High School Principal on Labour's plan to pause educational reforms, set up independent council · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: More politicking over education. We've just been talking about this.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Lots of you have opinions on it. Labour's hitting the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: brakes on the curriculum overhaul.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: We've seen unprecedented change over the last couple of years.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: And what we've heard back from schools and from parents
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: is that they're tired with the whole curriculum changing when
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: the government changes.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: So NCEA changes paused until 2029. Keep the English and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: maths reforms. They also want a new independent body, and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I use inverted commas of the independent body, to review
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: what comes next. Andy England, Darfield High School principal with
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: us this morning. Andy, good morning.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Morning to you, Ryan.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's funny, isn't it? Because Jenny's saying, oh, we don't
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: want governments to come in and change things. And I mean,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much what they're doing, changing what was going
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to be happening.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is. Although... Yeah, there is a bit of
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: a change in there, isn't there? But actually the change
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: that I can see to what we're doing is not
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: all that much, a bit of a delay. And I
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: think most of us would just like some clarity from
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: both sides of the house as to what we are
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: going to be doing next year and the year after.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: But I think all of us are pretty excited about
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: the main point in there, about an independent organisation to
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: oversee it. And I think most parties are getting behind
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: that now. I actually, it's funny because I think the
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: press released something about whether governments are left or right,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: decisions should be guided by evidence, etc. Well, it'll be
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: interesting to see if that does happen.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: And who's evidence and who's on the independent commission? I mean,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'm very sceptical. I'm very sceptical about this because parties
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of both stripes just load independent commissions with non-independent people
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Absolutely right. Nobody wants to see another sort of government
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: organization that sits there and gets dusty. You do need
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: to move. And I think Erica Stanford has done well
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: to give education. And I say this about myself here.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: We all need a bit of a kick up the
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: bum and things are moving well. But we need to
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: slow things down. There's no way that we can continue
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: to waste time redeveloping materials and changing constantly. Things don't
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: get done well when they're under the same time pressure
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: that the political cycle puts on things. And I know
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: that we've all been calling for something like this, this
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: independent group. for quite some time and so it's great
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: to see that coming through.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: What about parents listening to this who go, for goodness sake,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I want my kid to be smarter today, and now
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have to wait till 2029. We're pausing
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: what we were doing till 2029, then we're setting up
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: some kind of group, then we're appointing members, and then
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: maybe by the time my child's 21, we'll have sorted
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: something out.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, well, sorry, I might have missed something,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: but the only bit I can see is that the
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: NCA system remains changed until 2029. It's currently 2028, so
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: this There's a one-year delay there with NCEA. Most of us,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I think, have got to head around the changes to
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: NCEA and would not want to start mucking around and
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: refreshing things. To be fair, we wasted a lot of
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: time three or four years ago on retweaking parts of
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: NCEA and then ditching parts of that as well. So
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: the main thing for me is we're just sick of
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: wasting time as a whole sector. And we want clarity
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: and good quality change management. And I think it would
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: be smart to recognize that education has got political elements
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: to it. There's no point in saying you can be
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: completely independent from government. But you need to ensure that
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: the political cycle changes every three years. We get different
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: parties coming in and they might last for six years.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: if you were to lock in a longer term of
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: well-planned change, you could actually capture both sides and get
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: something in the middle that we could all work with.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: And interestingly enough, I was talking to a farmer friend
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: the other day, and he was saying, we want the
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: same thing too. We're just exhausted from bouncing from one
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: side to the other. We just want some clarity that
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: sits near the middle.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Andy England, who is Darfield High School principal.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: to News Talk ZB from 5 a.m. weekdays or follow
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: the podcast on iHeartRadio.