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Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been surprised, but one of the most

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Speaker 1: profound education announcements, as I mentioned earlier on the program

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Speaker 1: in a very long time, came yesterday afternoon. It was

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Speaker 1: largely ignored by the media as part of the government's

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Speaker 1: maths overhaul, and now a day of Maths has on

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Speaker 1: average delivered a full year's progress in just twelve weeks.

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Speaker 1: Now the specific trial group actually got towards two years advancement. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the new curriculum draws heavily from Estonia. They currently sit

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Speaker 1: seventh on these PIASA education rankings. They are the top

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Speaker 1: in Europe. And Christina Kellis is the Estonian education minister

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Speaker 1: who is in the country and is with us. Good

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Speaker 1: morning to you, Good morning now as far as you're

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Speaker 1: concerned versus what we have done, are we doing better

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Speaker 1: than you or you are still doing better than us

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Speaker 1: when it comes.

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Speaker 2: To METS well, comparing piece A results, which is an

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Speaker 2: international comparison of education systems globally, Estonia is doing really great.

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Speaker 3: New Zealand has had drops in mathematic results, especially not

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Speaker 3: so much in reading but in mathematic. So we do

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Speaker 3: learn from each other. I think that's the most important

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Speaker 3: part in the politics in general. We've also not only

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Speaker 3: learned from the good results, but also actually from the

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Speaker 3: things that other countries have done and which maybe have

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Speaker 3: been a mistake. Or learning from other mistakes I think

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Speaker 3: is also a thing to do. So I'm here in

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Speaker 3: New Zealand not to look, of course at the New

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Speaker 3: Zealand mistakes, but to look at the reforms that are

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Speaker 3: currently be done in education and to see whether those

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Speaker 3: reforms are actually going towards the direction that I have

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Speaker 3: to admit that many European countries are pondering and wondering

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Speaker 3: the same thing right now, because there is a significant

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Speaker 3: drop in performance and students, especially in mathematics, but also

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Speaker 3: in functional reading in many many European countries. We also

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Speaker 3: had a drop because of the pandemic, but not that significant.

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Speaker 3: But there's a big debate in Europe, including in Estonia,

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Speaker 3: about what do we need to change in education system

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Speaker 3: to bring the performance up again. And the Estonian case, yeah,

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Speaker 3: we have a very high results right now. We have

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Speaker 3: this kind of a knowledge rich focused on learning, memorizing

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Speaker 3: and repeating, applying, but also we need in Estonia a

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Speaker 3: lot to go to the other levels of knowledge, which

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Speaker 3: is and skills, which is more about critical thinking, and

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Speaker 3: I think New Zealand here has done that prior. So

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Speaker 3: I'm here to look at the New Zealand reforms, but

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Speaker 3: also about the things that have been gooded past and

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Speaker 3: where New Zealand has been doing very well in education system.

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Speaker 1: What's your observation of our reform so far.

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Speaker 3: I think that this is a right direction because in

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Speaker 3: order to actually develop critical thinking, analytical thinking, systematic thinking,

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Speaker 3: for example, ethical thinking, all those what we call twenty

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Speaker 3: first century skills, in order to develop those, you actually

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Speaker 3: need to get basic skills there first. And basic skills

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Speaker 3: are very fundamental functional reading skills, mathematical logical thinking skills,

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Speaker 3: and math skills. Like on a knowledge level, you need

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Speaker 3: to understand a lot of geographical and biology and science

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Speaker 3: subjects in order to actually develop any kind of what

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Speaker 3: we call higher order thinking skills. So if we don't

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Speaker 3: get the basic skills straight for the young kids before

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Speaker 3: the age of fifteen, then all other more complicated skill

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Speaker 3: developments are not going to be there. And that's what,

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Speaker 3: for example, in Europe we're really worried about because according

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Speaker 3: to the piece of results, thirty percent of European students

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Speaker 3: fail on basic skills in mathematics thirty percent. That's almost

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Speaker 3: every third, every fourth student, and we need to do

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Speaker 3: the changing curriculum for that as well.

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Speaker 1: The one hour. It struck me in watching it yesterday

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Speaker 1: when they made the announcement that one hour a day

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Speaker 1: of maths, which is our policy now one hour myths

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Speaker 1: to be able to gain a year in twelve weeks

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Speaker 1: is a remarkable thing. Do you see it as remarkable?

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Speaker 3: Well, we have five hours maths per week, so one

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Speaker 3: hour per day. We have six seven hours of language

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Speaker 3: Estonian language reading per week, so we have a very intensive,

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Speaker 3: quite ambitious curriculum and we have always had it. So

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Speaker 3: students do a lot of math, a lot of reading,

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Speaker 3: a lot of science every day and every week at

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Speaker 3: school and we do see that you know, that performs

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Speaker 3: and they perform as a result of this. So I

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Speaker 3: think that what New Zealand where is going doing one

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Speaker 3: hour math per day or one hour reading per day,

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Speaker 3: vocabulary and phonetics and grammar and text production and telling storytelling.

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Speaker 3: This is the right thing to do because that's how

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Speaker 3: the kids developmentally developed, that's how they acquire knowledge, and

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Speaker 3: based on knowledge they acquire skills and then then they

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Speaker 3: go much higher order skills as they proceed in education systems.

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Speaker 3: To our what New Zealand currently is doing in curriculum

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Speaker 3: is something that we have always had in education system.

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Speaker 3: We have always done that, a lot of math, a

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Speaker 3: lot of math at school.

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Speaker 1: Good on you, Christina listen, nice to talk with you.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate your time very much. Christina callous and enjoys

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Speaker 1: stay in the country education Estoni an education minister. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of like it's the weirdest thing to me, and

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Speaker 1: the way she explained that, so they're successful. They're indisputably successful.

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Speaker 1: We now clearly are on the right track, and yet

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Speaker 1: we're talking about something. There's no rocket science here. There

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Speaker 1: was no revelation there was there. We just do an

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Speaker 1: hour of maths a day, We do an hour of

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Speaker 1: reading a day, as though that somehow we woke up

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Speaker 1: one morning and went, now, what were we doing at

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Speaker 1: school previous to this. It's just unbelievable. I believe I

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Speaker 1: have to apologize to TV one because number of you

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Speaker 1: let me know that they by six thirty six, and

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Speaker 1: this is my fault. By six thirty six, they did,

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Speaker 1: in fact, for forty seconds briefly mention this story yesterday,

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Speaker 1: So then we get into the slightly separate argument, is

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Speaker 1: what I heard yesterday from the Education minister was a

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Speaker 1: lead story. I mean, you know, all day long. But

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Speaker 1: we can argue that till your blue in the face

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Speaker 1: counsels or your kid's future, which is your favorite story

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Speaker 1: of the AAA councils getting reformed, or your kid's future anyway,

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Speaker 1: be that as it may.

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Speaker 3: I mean, they did have to tell everybody that Jimmy

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Speaker 3: Clifford died as well.

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Speaker 2: Of course they had to get that on you.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, for forty seconds. TV one found in this, but

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Speaker 1: that doesn't excuse the rest of them that just astonishingly

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Speaker 1: stood there as journalists listen to those results, and I

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Speaker 1: think they ended up asking two questions about the results,

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Speaker 1: and then they moved on to all the other conspiratorial

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Speaker 1: crap that currently occupies their minds. I'm sure TV then

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Speaker 1: posted a longer thing on their website. Or did they

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Speaker 1: Apparently they didn't, according to according to the people next

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Speaker 1: to Euglenn they didn't do any of that. For more

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Speaker 1: from the mic asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks

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Speaker 1: it'd be from six am days or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio,