Briar Lipson's new book New Zealand’s Education Delusion: How bad ideas ruined a once world-leading school system explains why there is a rot at the core of schooling in New Zealand. The report found that educational standards have plummeted over the past two decades. Read more
Wellington, 6 October 2020 – New Zealand’s education system is a mess, riddled with unscientific ideas and seduced by child-centred orthodoxy, according to a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Falling from its height as the envy of the world just twenty years ago, the Ministry of Education has let New Zealand’s education system unravel by turning the focus away from teaching knowledge and on to 21st-century “competencies.” In a comprehensive new report, New Zealand’s Education Delusion: How bad ideas ruined a once world-leading school system, author Briar Lipson traces how the country’s schooling system lost its way and provides solutions for correcting the dangerous path. Read more
There is a rot at the core of schooling in New Zealand. The Ministry of Education follows unscientific advice and is in thrall to a flawed philosophy. Read more
Saturday marked the 30th anniversary of Germany’s (second) unification. The changes were dramatic for the country itself, perhaps most visibly symbolised when the seat of government shifted from Bonn to Berlin. Read more
If your main source of information on this year’s cannabis referendum were the Say Nope To Dope campaign, it would be pretty easy to imagine marijuana-leaf decorated cannabis shops on every corner. Contrary to that campaign’s full-page ads portraying classic Kiwi dairies turned into garish marijuana stores, the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill is rather restrictive. Read more
For political tragics, Wednesday was a feast day. First, the US Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Read more
“We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.” That is how the Ministry of Education describes its purpose. If only that lofty statement had anything to do with the on-the-ground experience of schooling in New Zealand. Read more
I had the misfortune recently to lunch with an economist. Economists are generally despondent about government stupidity, ineptitude and profligacy. Read more
Anybody who watches house prices in Wellington will realise there is a mismatch between demand for homes and supply. Wellington City’s Draft Spatial Plan attempts to address this and the fact that over the next 30 years an extra 80.000 will move to Wellington. Read more
Jacinda Ardern’s staff ran into a problem after she declared New Zealand free of the coronavirus in June. It was impossible to keep the prime minister on schedule, they griped, because she was constantly mobbed by supporters. Read more
In this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, Briar Lipson isolates how the idea of child centred orthodoxy is the key ideology responsible for New Zealand’s educational decline. It is not a Kiwi idea. Read more
Judging by the length of Labour’s manifesto proposals for workplace relations reform, you might think New Zealand’s labour markets were not working well for workers. If re-elected, Labour will persist with plans of former Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Ian Lees-Galloway to introduce compulsory industry-wide collective bargaining (dubbed ‘Fair Pay Agreements’). Read more
Wellington City’s Draft Spatial Plan, currently out for consultation, asks where the city might find room for another 50-80,000 people over the next thirty years. The challenge is bigger than that. Read more
Too much money is spent on education. New Zealand invests billions into schooling its children. Read more
Times are tough, I get it. All this talk of a “new normal” but only Coco’s Cantina in Auckland seems serious about getting us there. Read more