Duff criticises education ping-pong

President Robin Duff opened PPTA’s annual conference saying the global protest action against financial systems highlighted the issues in the funding of NZ’s public secondary education.
Duff said education had not received the funding it deserved and money had been stripped out of secondary school operations grants in order to fuel tertiary sector marketing aimed at secondary school students.
“We want to see political forces combine to implement evidence-based policy that is shown to be suitable in NZ.”
Duff said PPTA had launched a paper calling for an end to the political ping-pong in education.
“Evidence-based decision making is a popular phrase but there are few signs the government ever applies it to our education system.”
“We have a regrettable tendency in NZ to treat education like a sports fixture. We pick the teams and line up for a good stoush and then assess the winners, losers and injuries: PPTA versus Trevor Mallard; Anne Tolley versus NZEI; tertiary providers versus secondary schools and so on,” he said.