NZQA would like help deciding what excellence means. The trouble is, too many students have been achieving it. Read more
Experimental psychology was a bit wild in the 1960s. Scientists would run experiments on beagles, giving them painful shocks. Read more
Sometimes, a debate over the school curriculum gets so heated, it is dubbed a ‘curriculum war’. A new draft science curriculum has been the subject of a national conversation over the past week or so. Read more
It’s a sad running gag that the best way for a Kiwi to get noticed at home is to be successful abroad. The keynote lecture at this year’s New Zealand Economics Association conference was downright depressing. Read more
In an increasingly tumultuous geopolitical landscape, New Zealand's role on the international stage is increasing in importance. New Zealand, along with many others, has been invited to attend next week’s 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Read more
Background Yesterday the Treasury hosted a seminar on New Zealand’s lagging productivity growth rate. It shared the slot with the New Zealand Productivity Commission (NZPC) and Motu, a Wellington-based research institute. Read more
The New Zealand Economics Association annual meetings are a great way of keeping abreast of what the country’s economists are working on. And sometimes they’re downright depressing. Read more
Seeking Ireland’s secrets Few countries feel so similar as New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland. We are both island nations with much larger neighbours. Read more
The Third Law of Demand Once you see it, you see it everywhere. Married couples who’ve left the kids home with a sitter go out to nicer restaurants than childless couples who have the same income. Read more
So, we are in a ‘technical recession’. Sounds bad. Read more
For most of the 2010s, if schools wanted funding for new classrooms, the Ministry of Education insisted that they build Modern Learning Environments (MLEs). These are large, open-plan classrooms, sometimes housing more than a hundred children and their teachers. Read more
Parliament’s Environment Committee released its reports on the Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Bills this week. The (Labour) majority recommends that modified Bills be enacted. Read more
Victoria University of WELLINGTON has announced a new $30-million research project to figure out how the university managed to dig itself a $30 million financial hole. ‘Some have suggested that spending more than you take in can have that effect over the long run,’ said Associate-Assistant Vice-Dean Barbara Boffin, ‘But it’s obviously something we need to investigate further.’ The losses were definitely not due to a new AI programme designed to find every instance of the university’s name anywhere in the world and capitalize every letter of the word WELLINGTON, said Super-Pro-Vice-Chancellor Tom Toady. Read more
New Zealand has produced some impressive scientists during its short history. Ernest Rutherford, dubbed ‘the father of nuclear physics’, must surely be foremost among them. Read more
At the start of National Blood Donor Week, the New Zealand Blood Service warned that it will need more donors. According to the Blood Service’s Asuke Burge, “If we can’t meet demand, it means we are going to be forced to compete in the global market, for particularly plasma products. Read more