Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis says national standards were a failure and he’s glad to see the back of them.
New Minister Chris Hipkins has signalled that National’s signature policy of regular testing for improvement in reading, writing and arithmetic is over.
Mr Davis, a former intermediate school principal who now has associate responsibility for the Maori side of the portfolio, says judging schools based on how well kids read and write makes for boring classes.
He says there was little room for art, sport, kapa haka, and all the other things that engage young people.
"I always said school should be the best adventure in town. National Standards made it a pretty boring place where the emphasis was on reading, writing, testing, testing, testing. As the old saying goes, you don’t fatten the pig by weighing it all, the time. I hope teachers can use this new found freedom just to weave their magic," Mr Davis says.
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