Values to be part of new curriculum

Values will be taught as part of the school curriculum to fill a void left by those parents not instilling them in their children at home.

As part of an Education Ministry review, a comprehensive list of values to be taught in schools has been put together, the Dominion Post newspaper reported today.

This will bring the 10-year-old curriculum in line with what is already being taught in many schools.

The list of proposed values was in a draft report issued yesterday. They are diversity, community, respect and care, equity, integrity, environmental sustainability, inquiry and curiosity, and excellence.

The list will be distributed to schools next year for consultation and a final version will become part of the national curriculum in 2007.

Principals Federation president Pat Newman supports values education as many children do not get this at home, he told the Dominion Post. He said it was frustrating that schools had to spend so much time on it.

"Unless we can get society to also reflect those values it is often like hitting your head against a brick wall. Why is it that schools have to do it?" he said.

Mr Newman believed if schools did not teach values, society would deteriorate.

Cannons Creek School principal Ruth O'Neill told the newspaper the school introduced a values programme about three years ago to improve the "school culture".

A survey of parents revealed the values most sought were respect, honesty, truthfulness and responsibility. The programme had been successful, she said.

Ministry senior curriculum manager Mary Chamberlain said while many schools already taught values it was important to provide a focus for schools as teachers wanted more direction on which values to teach. She said it was expected values would be included in day-to-day teaching rather than as separate topics.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said parents should be "gravely concerned" about the introduction of values into the school curriculum.

"We welcome our children being taught values of respect and honesty, but can we trust Labour to do the job? I think not," he said.

"A third term of unfettered Labour rule will have long-lasting and dangerous consequences for the social fabric of New Zealand where we will continue to see Labour insidiously building its left-wing gender bending politically correct agenda into our school curriculum."

Act MP Deborah Coddington said the ministry's proposal was "politically correct claptrap".

"This is clearly a pathetic attempt by Labour during an election campaign to try and show it's doing something about children behaving badly in the classroom."

- NZPA