‘Disconnected’ schools blamed for education gap

NCEA results have improved but many issues facing Ma¯ ori, Pasifika and female students persist – or have worsened – over the past decade. Lee Kenny reports.

ACHIEVEMENT gaps between groups of students have persisted and in some cases worsened over the past decade despite an overall improvement in NCEA results, Sunday News can reveal today.

Data from the 16 education regions between 2010 and 2020 was provided to the School Report project, which re-launches today on Stuff – Sunday News’ parent company and website.

Although some areas showed improvements, and NCEA attainment rates rose overall, the data showed many longstanding problems were not resolved.

Among the findings, Ma¯ ori and Pasifika students remain behind those from other backgrounds and boys continue to outperform girls in science and maths at the highest level, scholarship – which carries monetary awards of between $500 and $30,000.

Perry Rush, national president of New Zealand Principals’ Federation, said the country has one of the ‘‘most decentralised schooling systems in the world’’, which has led to vastly differing learning experiences for students.

‘‘Every school reinvents the wheel, we are all disconnected from each other, we’re all governed by boards of trustees that are separate from each other,’’ he said.

‘‘The problem is, you don’t have national coherence. One school could articulate what they think the curriculum means, that could be quite different from the school down the road.’’

The curriculum was revised in 2007, shifting the emphasis from content to ‘‘competency-based learning’’, he said.

‘‘I think this has had a significant impact on what young people have been learning over the past 13 to 14 years. In such an environment we have a challenge to establish the role of knowledge and how that enables or disables learning for young people.’’

Since 2010, NCEA level achievement attainment had improved across all ethnicities. That included huge improvements for students with Ma¯ ori and Pasifika backgrounds.

In 2010, less than one student achieved NCEA levels for every student who did not achieve.

In 2020 that ratio had improved to 2.3 students with whakapapa

Ma¯ ori achieving for every student who did not achieve, and 2.9 Pasifika students achieving for every student who did not. However, although both student groups have improved, it was at a slower pace than others, particularly Pa¯ keha¯ .

Sunday News data showed NCEA achievement levels for a¯ konga Ma¯ ori (Ma¯ ori learners) were similar no matter whether students attended kura kaupapa Ma¯ ori (Ma¯ ori immersion schools) or mainstream classes. Endorsements (students gaining NCEA with merit or excellence) were slightly higher at kura kaupapa.

Rawiri Wright, co-chair of Te Ru¯ nanga Nui o Nga¯ Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ ori, said his experience was that students enrolled in kura kaupapa achieved at higher rates. ‘‘We attribute that to our methodology, our pedagogy and our whole ‘believe’ system that we teach within our schools, which encourages kids to do their best,’’ he said.

Wright, a former journalist and journalism tutor, said although there had been improvements in ‘‘majority culture’’ schools, there could be a cultural ‘‘gap’’ between Ma¯ ori students and teachers.

‘‘If there isn’t sufficient cultural connection then those teachers are not going to get the best from those students. The whole philosophy of those schools is based on a Euro-centric education model. Unless there are significant changes in what teachers do and how they do it, in terms of creating connections with those students, it’s going to be probably more difficult to get those kids across the line.’’

Other patterns that existed in 2010 also persisted. Education Minister Chris Hipkins said school-leaver and NCEA achievement data showed girls now outperformed boys in maths and science subjects. by Sunday News showed that this pattern was reversed at the highest level of achievement. For every 1000 female year 13 students, six gained scholarship endorsements in maths, compared to 16 male students.

In science subjects, the female students and 20 per 1000 male students.

Dr Mahsa Mohaghegh is director of Women in Technology at AUT and founder of She Sharp, which aims to bridge the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) Industries.

Although New Zealand boasts high-profile female scientists –

such as Dr Michelle Dickinson and Dr Siouxsie Wiles – female students needed more role models to inspire them to study STEM subjects, Mohaghegh said.

She was not surprised that young women were still trailing behind young men in those subjects at senior levels.

‘‘We need to change what society thinks a technology expert or a computer scientist looks like,’’ she said. ‘‘You can’t be what you can’t see. It is really important that young women see someone that they can aspire to be.’’

Studies had shown that STEM subjects were often perceived as male-dominated, so female students opted not to study them, she said.

‘‘This is why we don’t really see that many graduates coming from that pipeline and as a result the number of female students coming to university in STEM fields is very low. As a result of that, the industry cannot actually hire female engineers.’’

Work needed to be done to get more girls interested in technology from an early age, Mohaghegh said, citing a study which showed that only 3 per cent of 15-year-old female students in New Zealand considered technology as a career path. ‘‘Those who do pursue a career in tech or take science technology subjects, they are really successful.’’

‘Every school reinvents the wheel, we are all disconnected from each other.’ PERRY RUSH, LEFT ‘You can’t be what you can’t see. It is really important that young women see someone that they can aspire to be.’ DR MAHSA MOHAGHEGH

Chris Hipkins said the Government ‘‘knows there are areas where we need to improve the NCEA system, and is working on a programme of change’’.

The NCEA Review, launched in 2018 as part of Ko¯ rero

Ma¯ tauranga – a ‘‘national conversation’’ on education – consulted 20,000 people, Hipkins said.

‘‘It found there was broad support for NCEA, but that there were a number of challenges

which we are now working to address.’’

One of those was improving outcomes for Ma¯ ori and Pasifika students, he said.

To address this, the Government was making changes to ensure students had a ‘‘broader, more foundational learning programme at level 1’’.

It was also looking at introducing a swathe of new

academic context. I think in that way it’s hard to look at our NCEA results and say young females aren’t the future of STEM.

‘‘All these opportunities didn’t come out of me excelling in school… [They] definitely came from just a real place of wanting to make some change.’’

Getting more girls into STEM is important for closing the gender pay gap and diversifying workplaces, she said. But the pathway there has to be about showing girls what science can do outside the classroom rather than pushing them academically, she said.

University of Canterbury student E Wen Wong, 18, agrees.

She’s studying environmental science and geography alongside law and also uses poetry to communicate about environmental issues.

‘‘When I started to get into high school I kind of tore down this conception of science as a field in isolation,’’ she said.

At primary school, she was the only girl in her robotics class. Then she became a ‘‘meteorological nerd’’, before a fascination with geography set in and she realised the connections between the different disciplines.

Being involved with Future Problem Solving was instrumental to that. The competition programme inspired Wong to found P.S. Our Beaches (Plastic Solution for Our Beaches) at age 13, aimed at reducing plastics.

Since then she’s joined the Bow Seat’s Future Blue Youth Council – an international youth organisation

– and is coordinating

EnviroPAST, a by-youth sustainability conference.

‘‘If girls have more interaction with these academics... I think it would encourage them to view higher level science as a mechanism to solve problems and create positive change.’’

At the almost 2500-student Burnside High School, Wong said there were a good number of girls in most of her science classes.

Scholarship and higher level STEM classes could be quite male-dominated, she said.

At physics tournaments she was often one of the only girls.

‘‘It wasn’t something that bothered me, because I know it doesn’t matter if I’m a woman – I’m there because I have the skills that I do have. And I’m there for a reason.’’