ROGER PARTRIDGE: In defence of educational caution

The Occasional Saturday Satire

Education Minister Erica Stanford stands accused of compressing a generation of reform into two years. Her programme is “radical,” “ideological,” and risks turning children into guinea pigs.

Auckland University’s Professor Peter O’Connor calls it neoliberal “shock-and-awe.”

These are serious charges. History teaches us that haste in education leads to disaster.

Consider the cautionary tale of Charlemagne. In the ninth century, he rashly insisted that monks learn to read and write properly. The result? Mass literacy, the preservation of classical texts, and eventually the Renaissance. Europe is still recovering.

Or take Prussia’s reckless decision in 1763 to mandate compulsory schooling. Within a century, German children could read, calculate, and think systematically. The consequences were far-reaching and not all of them pleasant.

New Zealand, by contrast, has pursued a more measured path. For roughly two decades, we conducted our own educational experiment. Participation was compulsory. There was no control group. Withdrawal was not permitted. Results were studiously ignored.

When international assessments showed sustained decline, they were sensibly dismissed as culturally biased. When domestic data revealed troubling gaps, this was contextualised appropriately. Achievement fell, but intentions remained impeccable.

Against this backdrop, Stanford’s insistence on structured literacy and explicit teaching appears reckless. Why require children to decode words when they might infer meaning from pictures? Why insist on times tables when fingers remain perfectly serviceable? Why sequence knowledge when learning is a journey best undertaken without maps?

Most troubling is the lack of consultation. Education systems work best when those who built them decide whether they are working. That such figures now counsel patience should not be read cynically. It is merely prudent.

Better to proceed carefully. Perhaps pilot reading in selected schools. Monitor results for another decade. Convene a working group. Refresh the framework. Embed it in draft guidance. Then, if results remain concerning, consider consulting on a roadmap toward implementation.

Some argue that delay costs another cohort their futures. This is emotive – and dangerously impatient. After all, the system has been failing children steadily for years. Interrupting that trajectory so abruptly risks confusion.

Besides, if teaching children to read and do mathematics turns out to be a mistake, we can always reverse course.

New Zealand has long experience retreating from standards. It is one of our few remaining areas of genuine expertise.

This column was first published in The New Zealand Initiative’s Insights newsletter on 5 February. Roger Partridge writes at Plain Thinking