Politics Live Blog: 25/03/24
Government 'absolutely up for' a national classroom behaviour baseline standard
Education Minister Erica Stanford says the most important recommendation in a new ERO report on classroom behaviour is about setting a national baseline standard for expectations and consequences, so there was national consistency.
"We're absolutely up for that," she told AM on Thursday.
The ERO report, published on Thursday, said Kiwi classrooms had some of the worst student behaviour in the world, and it was getting worse.
Stanford said the report made some good recommendations. She was concerned that new teachers were unprepared to deal with behaviour.
"So we've got some work to do in initial teacher education."
Education Minister Erica Stanford. ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF
Student behaviour was known to be a big problem, although the scale of it highlighted in the ERO report was "somewhat surprising".
"So we've got some things to do. We're going to be looking at the recommendations and work out which ones we can implement quickly, and which ones we're going to start working on," Stanford said.
The Government was also looking at where it could shift "back-end resources to meet the front-end needs" in education.
That would be done with learning support. "We spend hundreds of millions of dollars in learning support, and I'm not confident that we get the outcomes for that spend," Stanford said.
"And so we will be looking at the data and the evidence to make sure we're investing in what works, and shifting more of that back-end resource to meet some of that front-end need, because as you saw in the report, our teachers are struggling."
"So we've got some things to do. We're going to be looking at the recommendations and work out which ones we can implement quickly, and which ones we're going to start working on," Stanford said.
The Government was also looking at where it could shift "back-end resources to meet the front-end needs" in education.
That would be done with learning support. "We spend hundreds of millions of dollars in learning support, and I'm not confident that we get the outcomes for that spend," Stanford said.
"And so we will be looking at the data and the evidence to make sure we're investing in what works, and shifting more of that back-end resource to meet some of that front-end need, because as you saw in the report, our teachers are struggling."