KEY POINTS:
New Zealand children should eventually do better in their exams now there is more emphasis on teaching them how to learn, solve problems and innovate, says the Ministry of Education.
The new national curriculum - the first revision since 1993 - released yesterday introduces "key competencies" teachers will have to work into the way they teach.
They include managing self and relating to others.
The curriculum, cut down from the last massive seven-volume document, was widely welcomed, with the Council for Educational Research and Business NZ saying they supported it.
Endorsement also came from more unlikely sources - the Retirement Commission, which praised the focus on personal financial management, and the Electoral Commission, which liked the "strong focus on citizenship".
Lobby group Education Forum said the curriculum had good intentions but needed to be backed up by good teachers and enough resources.
"[It] needs teachers with high skill levels to guide and motivate students in a complex learning environment," said chairman Byron Bentley, also the principal of Macleans College.
New Education Minister Chris Carter launched the curriculum after extensive consultation which saw 10,000 submissions on the final draft.
It shifts the focus to using and applying knowledge rather than remembering facts and figures. It covers eight areas of knowledge: English, maths, languages, technology, science, the arts, social sciences, health and physical education.
"The curriculum also includes a range of key competencies young people need to acquire such as thinking, using language, symbols and texts, managing oneself, relating to others and participating and contributing," he said.
The new curriculum was clearer with more emphasis on statistics as part of maths and on learning asecond language, Mr Carter said.
There had been objections to a lack of focus on the Treaty of Waitangi but the new curriculum included it as something all students would have opportunities to learn about.
Mr Carter said schools would be supported to implement the new curriculum over three years until 2010 with workshops, online resources and other support. He said teachers would get a day free of classes to prepare.
National Certificate of Educational Achievement standards will be reviewed and aligned with the new curriculum by 2010.
Analysis of submissions to the draft curriculum showed 80 per cent said it reinforced the direction schools were heading in, while others said it was not detailed enough.
Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday defended the document's greater generalisation and said the school curriculum had never been prescriptive until the three final years of secondary schooling.
She dismissed criticisms that it was full of jargon and "buzz-words", saying she did not like jargon and had found it easily comprehensible.
The ministry's curriculum group manager, Mary Chamberlain, said a schedule of work to ensure schools understood the curriculum was planned.
She said sector leaders would hold workshops for principals by the end of the year and a teachers-only day within the next year would help teachers get up to speed.
"If we are actually going to bring about changes in the way students are taught, if we're really going to prepare them to be problem solvers and creators of new knowledge and innovators - that requires shifts in teaching practice that people have to grapple with and get support with. It's not going to happen overnight."
Ms Chamberlain said new NCEA standards would be needed for subjects with more importance, such as statistics, or in subjects where the emphasis would change. A two-year review of NCEA standards meant they would be aligned by 2010.
Ms Chamberlain said the supply of language teachers was being addressed and resources were being developed for teachers at primary schools who were not experts.
"They're video packages with workbooks that enable the teacher to work alongside their class as a learner."
Dr David Chapman of the Massey University College of Education's school of curriculum and pedagogy, who lectures in curriculum design, said the "deep conflict" between promoting a knowledge society and economic growth while simultaneously promoting economic sustainability was unresolved.
Education secretary Karen Sewell said she had been a teacher under the two previous curricula "but they were good for the 20th century, not the 21st century". The new one was flexible enough to adjust to future changes in society and education, so would stand the test of time.
Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly said the curriculum set the right goals for students and employers would welcome the focus on literacy and numeracy as well as thinking skills.
"We applaud the prominent place given to enterprise and entre-preneurship in the curriculum."
Te Reo Maori and New Zealand sign language have been added as official languages in the curriculum, which Maori MP Te Ururoa Flavell says should have been done years ago.
