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Speaker 1: Now the Education Minister Erica Stanford has called on some

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Speaker 1: advice on her massive educational reforms former UK Minister of Schools.

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Speaker 1: The former UK Minister of Schools is a man called

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Speaker 1: Sir Nick Gibb. He led similar charges in the changes

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Speaker 1: in the twenty ten with huge impact on reading in

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Speaker 1: math skills, and just fifteen years ago the UK was

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Speaker 1: at the bottom of the OECD's PISA rankings. Fast forward

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Speaker 1: to today, they're now sitting fourth in the world for

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Speaker 1: reading an eleventh for mats. So let's have a chat

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Speaker 1: to Sir Nick Gibb NICKELLO, Hello, how did you turn

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Speaker 1: those rankings around.

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Speaker 2: By engaging in the sort of reforms that Erica Stamford

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Speaker 2: is implementing in New Zealand. So we introduced structural structured literacy,

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Speaker 2: which we call phonics in England. Massage. Your children are

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Speaker 2: taught the sounds of the alphabet and how to blend

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Speaker 2: them into words, as opposed to the previous method we

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Speaker 2: had in England, whole language and so on. That it

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Speaker 2: really wasn't working for too many children, so we implemented that.

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Speaker 2: We looked to East Asia see how math was taught

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Speaker 2: the people at the top of the League tables and

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Speaker 2: we basically copied and learned from those countries. We brought

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Speaker 2: that method into England. That's why we have risen in

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Speaker 2: terms of reading and in terms of maths as well.

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Speaker 1: Is it going to say it's going back to the

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Speaker 1: way that you or I might have learned to read

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Speaker 1: and do mets.

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Speaker 2: Yes, But on top of that, there's been some huge

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Speaker 2: advance advances in colative science, so we know a lot

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Speaker 2: more now about how children learn, and we've based a

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Speaker 2: lot of our reforms on that new science scientific research,

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Speaker 2: So the importance of knowledge now has been demonstrated to

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Speaker 2: show that by having a curriculum that's knowledge rich, children

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Speaker 2: acquire skills such as problem solving and creativity and critical

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Speaker 2: thinking in a much better way than previously educationists have thought.

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Speaker 2: And I've been visiting schools today with the Education Minister

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Speaker 2: and seen some of the effects of those reforms in school.

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Speaker 2: So children are learning to read here better than before,

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Speaker 2: and their approach to math is far more effective than

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Speaker 2: previous methods. And we've seen in our country how effective

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Speaker 2: first methods are.

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Speaker 1: Nick, what advice are you actually providing, Eerica, I mean

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Speaker 1: it seems to me she already kind of knows what

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Speaker 1: she needs to do, doesn't.

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Speaker 2: She She absolutely does. When I first saw her speak

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Speaker 2: in London and realized this is a minister that really

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Speaker 2: knows what she wants to do, which is essentially a

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Speaker 2: closed attainment gap between those children disadvanced backgrounds and to

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Speaker 2: make sure that New Zealand is rising in those international details.

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Speaker 2: And that was my worry in England that we were

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Speaker 2: falling before twenty ten in those league tables, and that's

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Speaker 2: where we engage in a very significant series of reforms

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Speaker 2: in England. And now, as you said in your introduction,

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Speaker 2: with how rising in those league tables, we're fourth in

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Speaker 2: reading and eleventh in maths in the world. Erica and

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Speaker 2: I have known each other for a couple of years

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Speaker 2: now and what I've been able to do is to

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Speaker 2: talk about what worked with our reforms, but also the

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Speaker 2: things that did not go well, so that you know,

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Speaker 2: Erica implementing her reforms in this country doesn't need to

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Speaker 2: make the same mistakes that we made, such as what

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Speaker 2: well the pace of reform, the compromises that you have

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Speaker 2: to make in introducing reforms. Those are the kind of mistakes,

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Speaker 2: if you could argue, that we made in England, and

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Speaker 2: there's no need for similar mistakes to be made when

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Speaker 2: reforming in this country. And now people are coming to

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Speaker 2: New Zealand to look at the reforms happening in this country.

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Speaker 2: So the reforms that are being implemented here are world

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Speaker 2: leading and I think you're going to have a very

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Speaker 2: successful education system in the years to come.

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Speaker 1: Do you feel that you did it too fast or

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Speaker 1: too slow?

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Speaker 2: We were learning? I was the minister for ten years

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Speaker 2: and we engage in a very expensive series of reforms,

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Speaker 2: not just a math and English, but the whole curriculum

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Speaker 2: to our qualifications. We changed the structure of our school

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Speaker 2: system as well. So there was a very very extensive

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Speaker 2: system of reform. But unless we had gone at pace,

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Speaker 2: and unless those reforms have been as extensive as they

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Speaker 2: had been, we would not have seen the huge improvements

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Speaker 2: in schools in our country. And you go to any

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Speaker 2: school now in England and you'll see very effective teaching

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Speaker 2: of reading using fonights. You'll see to really understanding the

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Speaker 2: mathematics that they are being taught, and you'll meet children

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Speaker 2: who really know a lot about the cultural and history

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Speaker 2: of our country and who are deeply immersed in science

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Speaker 2: and that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been introducing

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Speaker 2: those reforms at pace.

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Speaker 1: No, how on Earth? And this is a question I

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Speaker 1: have been asking on the show lately because we have

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Speaker 1: been basically, we're undoing a lot of the stupid stuff

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Speaker 1: that's been done by an education department in the last

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Speaker 1: fifty years or so. But how on earth did we

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Speaker 1: go down this path where we had a perfectly good

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Speaker 1: way of teaching reading, for example, and we just screwed

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Speaker 1: it up.

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Speaker 2: Well, lots of the reforms sound very compelling, and they

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Speaker 2: sound superficially attractive. Teaching a competence space Crickland sounds very

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Speaker 2: modern and scientific, but actually the evidence that it just

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Speaker 2: doesn't work. And I think people were taken in by

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Speaker 2: the attractiveness of those arguments. But what we now know,

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Speaker 2: we know a lot more about how children learn about

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Speaker 2: cognitive science, and we need to make sure that our curriculum,

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Speaker 2: that our teaching methods, our structure of assessment reflects the

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Speaker 2: latest scientific knowledge. And that's what we have introduced in

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Speaker 2: England and what Erica Stanford is introducing in New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: So some of it does sound very very traditional, but

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Speaker 2: actually it is based on a modern understanding of qualitive science.

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Speaker 1: Nick, it's been very very good to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time. That soon Ni Gibb, former

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Speaker 1: UK Minister of Schools. For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive,

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