SOLO-Youth Press Release: Straitjacketing Students?

Callum McPetrie
October 24, 2009

Although the National Government's introduction of new, across-the-board national standards may have some positive short-term benefits, little good can come of further straitjacketing of New Zealand's educational system.

The new national standards are merely the latest in a long line of governmental reforms aimed at curbing the deteriorating quality of education in New Zealand. It was governments who caused the deterioration in the first place, aided and abetted by the principals who boycotted the launch of the new standards, knowing themselves to be too illiterate to implement them. It's unlikely these principals know the difference between themselves and principles, or where to place the apostrophe if one talks about the principals' lack of principles.

Be that as it may, however well-intentioned the latest reforms might be, the government needs to wake up and realise that the true problem lies with the continual packing of pupils into schools which exist purely for the sake of bureaucratic convenience.

The children and teenagers of New Zealand, as of any nation, are an incredibly diverse group of people, with many different talents and abilities, who usually don't reach their full potential. The only way to get pupils to shine is to treat education as a genuine value.

Education has its greatest value at the individual level, which then rubs off on the rest of society later. How can we expect the youths of the nation to thrive if they themselves are not taught to see it as that themselves?

The only way to do this is to get education to be a task of parents and teachers, not of bureaucrats in Wellington. In short: the government needs to butt out of educational arrangements.
Education, fundamentally, is a value. Until the government treats it as such, and gets its head out of bureaucrat-run doll houses known as public schools, continue to expect educational standards to fall into the abyss.

Callum McPetrie: callummcpetrie@yahoo.co.nz

SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists): SOLOPassion.com