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Speaker 1: From the old education file. Lot's going on exams that

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Speaker 1: aren't being passed in principles, wanting extra credits so kids

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Speaker 1: don't give up and leave school. Dare I mention the

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Speaker 1: lunches and now news on property post the mess uncovered

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Speaker 1: last October, we have seen as followers, a thirty five

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Speaker 1: percent increase of the number of prefab classrooms being delivered.

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Speaker 1: Average classroom costs have also fallen from one point two

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Speaker 1: million dollars down to eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: and school maintenance is also getting a thirty four percent

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Speaker 1: funding increase. The person in chargeable this is the Education

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Speaker 1: Ministry of course, Erica Stanford, who was with us, very

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Speaker 1: good morning to you, Good morning Matte. The one point

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Speaker 1: two down to eight hundred and seventy was that easy?

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Speaker 1: Was there so much bespoke designing going on? You could

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Speaker 1: slice with alacrity?

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Speaker 2: There was, you know, it didn't actually take a huge

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Speaker 2: amount of effort to really drive efficiencies through using these

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Speaker 2: offsite manufactured bills, and we went I've been to visit

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Speaker 2: a bunch of them. They do an amazing job. They're

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Speaker 2: walk them safe dry, I mean well into the girls

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Speaker 2: we built four two story blocks, fourteen classrooms, and twelve

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Speaker 2: weeks at a cost of five hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 2: dollars each. You know, when you put your shoulder to

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Speaker 2: the wheel, you know you get results.

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Speaker 1: Whose shoulder is at the wheel? Is it yours? We

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Speaker 1: sort of talked about this the other day. I mean,

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Speaker 1: how does this one point two million dollars bespoke stuff

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Speaker 1: go away? Do bureaucrats simply follow instructions? At no point

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Speaker 1: does anybody go this seems expensive?

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Speaker 2: Well, look, all I can say is that the Ministry

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Speaker 2: has been responding to the things that I've been asking

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Speaker 2: them to do. And when we did the report and

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Speaker 2: flushed it reading out and said, hey, we're going to

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Speaker 2: change our behavior. We're not going to overpromise and under

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Speaker 2: the lever, we're not going to have poor communication, and

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Speaker 2: we're going to drive efficient bees through using ombs and

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Speaker 2: repeatable designs when we can't. They did what I asked

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Speaker 2: and we're doing it. But I still got a long

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Speaker 2: way to go, don't get me wrong.

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Speaker 1: Well that was my next question, because it's classic government announcement,

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Speaker 1: thirty four percent funding increase. Does that solve a problem

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Speaker 1: or is it just a thirty four percent funding increase.

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Speaker 2: That was around the maintenance and that's the depreciation stuff

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Speaker 2: we're talking about, So that's the going into classrooms and

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Speaker 2: replacing mouldi walls and waves that are falling apart, and

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Speaker 2: that's really been neglected for the last six years. It's

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Speaker 2: really easy to defer that stuff and not put any

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Speaker 2: money in. So we've put think that's seven hundred million

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Speaker 2: dollars in last budget, which was well more than the

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Speaker 2: last six years combined, because we know that if you

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Speaker 2: don't want to have to keep building your classrooms, you

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Speaker 2: maintain the old ones. It's not a real no brainer.

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Speaker 1: No indeed, But does it solve a problem or does

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Speaker 1: it just scratch the surface.

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Speaker 2: It's gone a part of a way to solve a problem.

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Speaker 2: There's a big problem. We haven't maintained buildings properly for

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Speaker 2: a very long time, and we haven't been keeping up

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Speaker 2: with building enough classrooms because they've been we've been funneling

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Speaker 2: too much money into the spark stuff. So we are behind,

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Speaker 2: and that's why we're playing a massive catch up. But

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Speaker 2: I'm going to have some announcements over the next few

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Speaker 2: weeks that we're able to now do because of the

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Speaker 2: fact that we've been so efficient so we can build

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Speaker 2: all classroom.

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Speaker 1: So that's two point four billion in the budget, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: So you won't be tapping into that. This is just

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Speaker 1: money saving that you spend in better places elsewhere. Absolutely, Okay,

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Speaker 1: the credits argument, while I've got you this business that

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Speaker 1: goes from should go from twenty to sixty and these

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Speaker 1: kids leaving school and we need to go soft, is

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Speaker 1: there an argument for that at all or not?

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Speaker 2: Oh, there's no argument. And the reason there is no

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Speaker 2: argument is because I know every single one of those kids,

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Speaker 2: every single one. I'd asked the ministry to go out

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Speaker 2: and work out who were the children last year who

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Speaker 2: sat year eleven the corequisites, the literacy and numerous the

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Speaker 2: exams and pass them to come back to year twelve,

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Speaker 2: and we are targeting every single one of them. We've

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Speaker 2: put on millions of dollars of professional learning and development

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Speaker 2: and release time to help teachers work with these students

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Speaker 2: to get them across the line. Because all we do

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Speaker 2: if we lower the stands and lower the bar, if

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Speaker 2: we push the problem somewhere else, and we know the

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Speaker 2: life outcomes for those children, the longer we keep them

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Speaker 2: at school and the more we do to get them

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Speaker 2: across the line with basic literacy and numeracy. And by

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Speaker 2: the way, these assessments are set at the end of intermediate.

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Speaker 2: This is not like trigonometry and calculus. This is life,

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Speaker 2: live your life stuff. We have to get them across

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Speaker 2: the line, and I'm not prepared to lower the bar

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Speaker 2: and we will continue to work hard with you.

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Speaker 1: Do we have an attitude problem within the teaching community

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Speaker 1: without getting to aggressive about it, is there a problem

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Speaker 1: there that they like to talk about giving up as

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Speaker 1: opposed to being determined not to.

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Speaker 2: Look. I don't. It's tough for them. And the reason

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Speaker 2: it's tough is I've been a lumped to assist. The

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Speaker 2: previous government put this literacy numercy assessment in place and

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Speaker 2: kind of went the high school was good luck to you.

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Speaker 2: They didn't do anything else. There's no new curriculum, there

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Speaker 2: was no new materials, there was no new assessment plan,

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Speaker 2: there was no professional learning development that they stopped math,

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Speaker 2: professional learning development, they deprioritized it. So all of the things,

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Speaker 2: the ingredients you need to get these kids up to standard,

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Speaker 2: they didn't do. And so you can feel for the

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Speaker 2: high schools who are going well, thanks very much. We

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Speaker 2: now have these children who are failing, and it's up

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Speaker 2: to us. We've got years of learning to make up for.

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Speaker 2: So I understand that they're feeling really under pressure, and

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to support them the best I can.

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Speaker 1: Is there a relationship? Because I took personal lumbridge having

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Speaker 1: come from what you would loosely call a poor background myself,

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Speaker 1: Can you correlate economic circumstances directly with desire to pass

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Speaker 1: an exam or not?

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Speaker 2: No? It is Look, if you are from a poorer background,

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Speaker 2: your means certainly determine your destiny in this country. It

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Speaker 2: has done on trying to change that, and that you

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Speaker 2: know you don't have as many opportunities as well with

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Speaker 2: your kids. However, the real driver is that we haven't

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Speaker 2: been setting kids up to sit exams. You don't. Some

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Speaker 2: kids do not sit their first exam until they're in

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Speaker 2: year eleven or year twelve, and we expect them to pass.

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Speaker 2: There's no building of good habits and study habits and

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Speaker 2: how you sit an exam because we've been so illergic,

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Speaker 2: because we think that it's terrible for the mental health

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Speaker 2: sit a test for goodness sake, we're changing that. But

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Speaker 2: those kids from poorer background don't have parents who have

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Speaker 2: got the means or often the time to be able

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Speaker 2: to help them out to get ready. So that's why

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Speaker 2: you get this Matthew effect of the rich to getting richer,

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Speaker 2: in the poor getting poorer, and the education system right in.

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Speaker 1: Very simple terms, do not like David seymol No, we

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Speaker 1: get all very well a media pile on them.

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Speaker 2: Ah, it is absolutely a media pile on We think

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Speaker 2: regularly to go over the issues, the whole demanding answers

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Speaker 2: with an absolute media beat up. They've decided. Unlike you know,

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Speaker 2: they like the sensationalize stuff and create stories where there

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Speaker 2: is really nothing but there you go.

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Speaker 1: Nice to talk to you appreciate it. Erica Stanford, the

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Speaker 1: Education Minister. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio