1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,040
Speaker 1: Bit of good news around school leavers. I think sort

2
00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:04,200
Speaker 1: of seventy six point one percent left last year with

3
00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:07,440
Speaker 1: the NCEEA Level two. Now that's up from seventy five

4
00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:10,799
Speaker 1: point five, fifty five point five percent left with level three,

5
00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,600
Speaker 1: which is up from fifty two point eight, forty point

6
00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:15,480
Speaker 1: two percent left with the university the entrance up from

7
00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:17,319
Speaker 1: thirty eight point six. So is that good? I guess

8
00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:19,800
Speaker 1: Erica Stanford's Education minister, and is with us morning?

9
00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:21,040
Speaker 2: Good morning?

10
00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:25,360
Speaker 1: Are they material improvements that you can go I did that?

11
00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:27,520
Speaker 1: Or might you have just got a bunch of kids

12
00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:29,159
Speaker 1: born at the right time who happened to do just

13
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:31,640
Speaker 1: a smodge better than the ones born before them.

14
00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:34,680
Speaker 2: I think it's showing that that climb out of COVID

15
00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:37,640
Speaker 2: that we're saying, Look, I became the minister, and you

16
00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:40,400
Speaker 2: know December twenty twenty three, and these students started what

17
00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:44,000
Speaker 2: Februe twenty twenty four. So while we had an hour

18
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:45,840
Speaker 2: a day of reading, writing, a maths and a big

19
00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:48,440
Speaker 2: focus on on the basics. I think this is the

20
00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:52,800
Speaker 2: incline you were starting to say. But the decline, the

21
00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 2: bit at the bottom I'm really worried about. You should

22
00:00:55,320 --> 00:00:57,120
Speaker 2: is that is decades of decline.

23
00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wonder if you've got different groups, two

24
00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:02,520
Speaker 1: distinct groups. You've got the kids who will go to school,

25
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: some will do better than the others, obviously, then you've

26
00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:06,720
Speaker 1: got a group of kids who are destined to go

27
00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:08,080
Speaker 1: nowhere from day one.

28
00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:11,840
Speaker 2: I don't think they're destined to go nowhere. I think

29
00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:13,679
Speaker 2: we can change their destiny. That's what we're doing with

30
00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:16,680
Speaker 2: our huge reform program. The problem is when we knew

31
00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:20,000
Speaker 2: these kids last year who left without anything, ten thousand

32
00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:21,920
Speaker 2: of them. We knew who they were when they were

33
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:24,520
Speaker 2: in year five and twenty eighteen, when a quarter of

34
00:01:24,520 --> 00:01:28,440
Speaker 2: them were at curriculum for mathematics, and nothing happened. That's

35
00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:30,480
Speaker 2: why I'm looking at that data that's coming through from

36
00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,199
Speaker 2: primary school. That's lighting a fire. We've got this huge

37
00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,880
Speaker 2: reform program, structured literacy, structured maths, all the maths books,

38
00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:40,280
Speaker 2: the different way of teaching explicitly, and we're already starting

39
00:01:40,280 --> 00:01:43,360
Speaker 2: to see results in phonics, and we'll have some data

40
00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:45,800
Speaker 2: out in term three about that. We can see the

41
00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:47,600
Speaker 2: results happening. So I don't want to be sitting here

42
00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:49,440
Speaker 2: in ten years time or five years time when these

43
00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:52,280
Speaker 2: kids hit high school going or they've failed again. It

44
00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:53,760
Speaker 2: is a tale of two hearts.

45
00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:57,360
Speaker 1: Do we do exit interviews with kids who leave with nothing?

46
00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:01,760
Speaker 2: No, we don't, probably should, but we do track them

47
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:05,760
Speaker 2: like we can see those who turn up in tertiary

48
00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,400
Speaker 2: institutions and not many of them do. Many of them

49
00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:12,920
Speaker 2: become neats, many of them go on benefit. It's not

50
00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:14,959
Speaker 2: a good life outcome when you don't leave an n

51
00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:17,760
Speaker 2: CEA or a qualification. The longer you stay in school,

52
00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:19,320
Speaker 2: the more likely you are to get something, and the

53
00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:21,320
Speaker 2: better your life outcomes. And that's got to be our goal.

54
00:02:21,440 --> 00:02:23,440
Speaker 1: Okay, did you hear the Hipkins interview?

55
00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:26,760
Speaker 2: Look, I just missed it. I'm really sorry. I heard

56
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:28,200
Speaker 2: the very beginning when you started to have a go

57
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:32,280
Speaker 2: at him. But I think they My feeling is, look,

58
00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:35,120
Speaker 2: I know they've answered all the questions, but the public

59
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:39,919
Speaker 2: owed a level of transparency given what we all went

60
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:41,679
Speaker 2: through that I think they owe it to us to

61
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:43,520
Speaker 2: provide and we're not getting that. That's a shame.

62
00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:46,640
Speaker 1: Nice to talk to you, Erica Stamford, Education Minister. For

63
00:02:46,760 --> 00:02:49,840
Speaker 1: more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news

64
00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,800
Speaker 1: talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the

65
00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:54,280
Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio,