Kieran Madden –
New Zealand got a glowing report card from the OECD recently for economic performance and the policies set in place to bolster it.
Yet, the same report showed up areas of our nation that need some work, education in particular. The report said that income inequality and poverty have increased, rising housing costs have hit the poor hardest, and the rate of improvement in many health outcomes has been slower for disadvantaged groups than for others.
“Gaps in education attainment have narrowed, but the influence of socio-economic background on education achievement has increased,” it said.
New Zealand’s PISA (Programme for International Students Assessment) scores representing Reading, Mathematics and Science achievement across the board are just above average compared to other OECD nations, have been falling in recent years.
The data here is not new, but the trend is troubling.
Possibly even more troubling is the growing opportunity gap for those struggling.
Great Equaliser
The potential for a well-grasped education to transform the lives of children born on the wrong side of the tracks is broadly acknowledged.
As Horace Mann, architect of the public school system in America said, “Education is the great equaliser of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”
But sadly, this potential to rise above is less likely to be realised in New Zealand than in most other OECD countries.
The OECD highlight New Zealand schools’ inability to push up against socio-economic barriers, where “socio-economic background explains 18.4% of the variance in student performance in mathematics in New Zealand, compared with an OECD average of 14.8%.”
Norway is around 7%, Finland, Canada and Japan around 10%.
We are also near the bottom of the OECD heap when it comes to ‘resilient students’ in the bottom quarter of socio-economic status but top quarter of educational success.
The proportion of resilient students fell from 8% in 2003 to 5% in 2012.
Huge concern
This is a huge concern, particularly because education has a profound impact on life chances, both within and between generations.
Last year, the Department of Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom found that “poor child educational outcomes” is the main factor “making some poor children more likely to become poor adults.”
A better education tends to lead to a better job in the future, leading to a higher income and the benefits that flow from this security.
In New Zealand, 25-34 year-olds, who have been tertiary-educated are over twice as likely to avoid unemployment as those without NCEA level qualifications.
Families with parents who have low qualifications are also more likely to be in poverty, and thus spirals the appalling cycle of disadvantage.
According to OECD, it begins before school even starts, with educational inequality already apparent by the time five-year olds start school.”
Fair Go
We as a nation believe in a fair go for those who put in the hard yards. If education is not the great equaliser it once was, we have some hard yards to do ourselves on this issue.
Kieran Madden is a Researcher at Maxim Institute based in Auckland
