Charter Schools will remain a 'niche' option

National’s Education spokesperson Hekia Parata told TV1’s Q+A programme that Charter Schools would remain a “niche” option:

“It does remain a niche sort of thing but we are focussed on diversity. If you have a look at the NZ education system, we have faith based and secular, co ed and single sex, total immersion Maori and English, we are finding what works for kids”

She denies she doesn’t have the trust of the education sector:

“I know there are public views that is the case but in the cross sector forum that we’ve been meeting in for the last 2 years, it’s precisely so we can try to engage on the issues that absolutely make the difference. On National Standards we’re in the third year of reporting, we can see the difference occurring and we know teachers across the country are using these to have real discussions about the quality of the curriculum”

Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins told Q+A Labour would get rid of National Standards and Charter Schools.

“The National Standards data is absolutely nonsense. To suggest that student achievement is improving, there simply not the credible evidence base to make that claim. The Ministry of Education’s own research shows that the schools are interpreting the standards differently and what a child is assessed at one school they might be assessed completely differently at another school. There’s no consistency, the National Standards are not consistent nor are they standard.”

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz