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Leader's LetterJune 2003
Major Achievements in EducationWhen New Zealand First was born I had never belonged to a political party. Nor indeed had I ever attended a political meeting. Not that I had much time to be involved. I was principal of a school which frankly had a lot of work to be done. I was also part time tutoring university papers at the Auckland College of Education outpost in Whangarei. At the time I wasn’t very happy with what Labour had done to education and what National was continuing to do. Education was being treated as a commodity, no different from a hamburger, rather than as an investment. But the Education Review Office insisted that schools could demonstrate that they had made a difference to their students’ learning. The trouble was that we had few decent measurement tools. I spent hundreds of hours making up mathematics tests aligned with the new curriculum for teachers within our schools. All over New Zealand, teachers were devising their own programmes and assessment measures because of the lack of any central support. In the school at which I was principal, the technicraft teachers, because they were classified as secondary teachers, were paid considerably more than the general classroom teachers who had to teach larger classes of the same students the full range of the curriculum. It was a situation which caused considerable dissatisfaction. At my school there were a number of extremely gifted students but no policy or resourcing existed for them. The school had to make do. Ten years on and how have things changed and, more importantly, what contribution to those changes has been made by New Zealand First. Firstly, education is no longer being seen as a commodity item and New Zealand First played a major role - publicly recognised by the present Minister - in changing the ideology. Moreover, there is a huge amount of support from the Ministry of Education in the way of materials and advice to help schools deliver the curriculum. New Zealand First was the first political party to make a commitment to pay parity for teachers in the compulsory schooling sector. It did so in its 1993 manifesto and it was therefore fitting that New Zealand First was in government when that policy became a reality. In the coalition talks in 1996, New Zealand First secured the money to be able to make this happen and carefully worked through the negotiations. (When New Zealand First was in government not one day of students learning was lost as a result of industrial action over pay claims. The present government’s record is horrendous in this regard). No longer across the country are there teachers in intermediate schools treated separately simply because of the union to which they belong. A policy for dealing with gifted children was commenced during the New Zealand First - National period of government and has been further developed since then. There can be no doubt that New Zealand First has had a significant impact on education since came into being ten years ago. What’s more, not only have I joined a political party, I have become a Minister and then resigned my ministerial warrant in order to remain loyal to that party. Oh, and I’ve been to a few political meetings since New Zealand First was born 10 years ago too! Hon Brian Donnelly MP
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