Year 4 to 8 students will have one less classmate under Labour’s new education announcement which reduces the teacher/student ratio from 1:29 to 1:28 with the hope it will reverse declining achievement during those years.
The change, expected to cost $106 million over five years, would be initiated from 2025 and would lead to an extra 320 fulltime primary and intermediate school teachers in classrooms across the country.
Half of those teachers will be working by the middle of next year.
New Zealand’s largest education union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, is welcoming the move while Opposition parties claim the Government isn’t addressing the true problems in the sector.
Schools with smaller rolls that operate below the 1:28 ratio wouldn’t see any change to class sizes.
An equivalent package for Kaupapa Māori kura and other settings, where ratios of 1:18 are already in place for Years 2-8, would also be put in place following consultation conducted by the Ministry of Education.
A Ministerial Advisory Group will also be created to examine class sizes more generally and report back in three months.
Speaking to media from Auckland’s Remuera Intermediate School, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Year 4-8 students have the highest teacher-to-student ratio across the education system and there have been declining levels of achievement during that time period.
Under the Labour Government, teacher numbers had been increased by about 3000 and Hipkins was confident recruitment of the 320 extra teachers could be done.
Hipkins rebuffed National’s criticism of the policy and claimed that when National last spoke about class sizes the party was trying to increase them.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti talked about the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) that will look at class sizes more generally. She said she wanted to see advice reasonably quickly so any changes could be progressed smartly.
“Reducing the number of students in each class will take some pressure off our hard-working teachers and allow them to spend more one-on-one time with each student. It means they can focus on what they do best – teaching our young people the basics well so they can go on to succeed.”
Asked whether the reduction was enough, Hipkins said the way schools used their teachers was up to them but the extra 320 teachers nationally would be a helpful resource and schools could use them in the way that best suited them.
“I’m certainly not saying it’s the last step,” Hipkins said, indicating his support for further boosts to teaching resources.
Tinetti said the advice provided by the advisory group would inform any other changes to teacher/student ratios.
“I want this work to happen fast so I’ve asked for the terms of reference to look at the challenges our teachers and students currently face in the classroom, what our school leadership and management need, what any further decrease to class sizes will cost and whether it is achievable.”
When asked whether just one student less would make a difference, Tinetti said her experience as a principal meant she knew the difference would come from how schools could use further resources. She was confident parents and teachers would see a difference from this change.
The 2019 National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement found in writing, 63 per cent of students were achieving at the expected level in Year 4, dropping to only 35 per cent achieving as expected by Year 8. For reading, the corresponding numbers were 63 per cent at Year 4 dropping to 56 per cent by Year 8.
The 2018 NMSSA mathematics and statistics study had similar results, with 81 per cent of Year 4 achieving at the expected level, compared with 45 per cent by Year 8.
Union president Mark Potter said his members had been campaigning for smaller class sizes for many years and it was a key message in the recent teachers’ strike last month.
“We have the evidence to show that smaller classroom sizes will benefit all students in what is an increasingly complex learning environment,” he said, citing a 2000 ministerial review that recommended moving ratios for Years 4-8 to 1:25, but it was never implemented.
National education spokeswoman Erica Stanford wasn’t confident the change would make a discernable difference.
“Many parents will fail to see how Labour’s promise to reduce some classes by one student in two years’ time will make any difference to turn around our plummeting levels of achievement,” she said.
“Chris Hipkins promised to reduce class sizes during the 2014 election. It beggars belief that it has taken them six years to act on an old policy which fails to address the issues facing our students now.”
ACT education spokesman Chris Baillie said the reduction in class sizes was less important than addressing students not turning up to school.
“The Government needs to worry about getting kids in the classroom before it can lower class sizes.”
Ahead of the 2014 election, Labour focused on reducing class sizes to one teacher to 26 students at primary and a maximum average class size of 23 at secondary schools. Those specific goals were later dropped.
Hipkins, then the party’s education spokesman, told the Herald at the time the 2014 policy to cut class sizes would have been funded by scrapping National’s then flagship education policy, Investing in Educational Success (IES).
Last month, National unveiled its plan for education which included primary and intermediate schools being required to teach students for at least one hour a day on each of the topics of reading, writing and maths lessons – and children will be tested on them at least twice a year in a new version of the controversial National Standards.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon said National would target getting 80 per cent of Year 8 students at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing, maths and science – and to return New Zealand to the top 10 of the OECD’s PISA rankings by 2033.
He said the Royal Society had concluded an hour a day of maths lessons was required and the ERO had highlighted concerns about the decline in basic reading skills.
Tinetti, a former principal, told Newstalk ZB she was “disappointed” education had become a political football and urged the Opposition to co-operate on finding evidence-based solutions to address problems in the sector.
“This causes disruption every time we have a change in government.”
A Chinese cameraman brought a unique camera to film Luxon in Beijing.