The Ministry of Education has enlisted a team of experts to tackle New Zealand children s poor performance in maths.
The ministry says it will make the maths curriculum clearer and give teachers more help (File image).
Photo: 123RF
It has commissioned the country s top science body, the Royal Society, to investigate the maths curriculum and the best ways of teaching the subject.
The ministry said it would also make the maths curriculum clearer and give teachers more help to teach it.
It announced the moves after the Principals Federation said there appeared to be no leadership, despite years of falling national and international test scores in maths and science.
Photo: 123RF
The Principals Federation says achievement in maths and science in particular should be ringing alarm bells and schools need more direction on what they should be teaching and the best ways to teach it.
In a letter to the secretary for education, Iona Holsted, the federation s president, Perry Rush, said New Zealand s falling scores had not provoked an urgent response and the lack of thought leadership was a serious weakness.
Holsted responded with a letter that said the Ministry of Education (MOE) was already working on the problems the federation raised and schools already had the ability, and the funding for teacher training, to change how they taught.