/news/education/rss 九一星空无限 Keep up with the latest in primary, secondary, and tertiary education news with 九一星空无限talk ZB. Thu, 30 Jan 2025 23:21:41 Z en /news/education/kings-college-staffer-resigns-after-catfishing-incident-with-fake-minor/ /news/education/kings-college-staffer-resigns-after-catfishing-incident-with-fake-minor/ A King’s College staff member resigned after admitting to inappropriate online activity with a fake identity. Police found no criminal offences as the “victim” was not a real person. The staffer admitted to previous online sexual behaviour with minors, but no action was taken. By Melanie Earley of RNZ A staff member at one of the country’s most prestigious schools who resigned after admitting to “inappropriate online activity” with a minor was catfished by a fake identity. The staff member, who was involved with football and boarding, admitted to the activity, King’s College confirmed in October. The school’s principal notified police, who later found no criminal offences had been committed by the man. Documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act, have shown the staffer was talking to what he believed was a 15-year-old boy online, but the identity was fake, nullifying any possible charges. A heavily redacted letter sent to King’s College headmaster Simon Lamb from police, said online contact “of a sexual nature” was actively sought online by a person who created a fake identity claiming to be 15 years old. The staffer was “lured into this catfishing scam”, police said. The offence being investigated was indecent communication with a young person, but police said the victim needed to be a real person. “Therefore the fake identity nullified the offending. “Only constables can create covert underage identities to gather evidence that can be used lawfully against such offenders.” As a result, police told Lamb they could take no action in relation to the alleged sexual offences. In the police’s case summary report, it mentioned the staffer had admitted he had “dabbled” in online sexual behaviour with minors. Detective Sergeant Robert Kerr said the fake profile involved an adult pretending to be a 15-year-old online to “catch a sex offender”. - RNZ Sun, 15 Dec 2024 22:52:03 Z /news/education/politics-in-education-teachers-fear-debates-over-curriculum-rewrites-on-key-topics/ /news/education/politics-in-education-teachers-fear-debates-over-curriculum-rewrites-on-key-topics/ Teachers fear curriculum rewrites will spark debates over topics like Shakespeare, transgender identity, and mātauranga Māori. PPTA President Chris Abercrombie warns political involvement in curriculum development could lead to culture war issues. Concerns include the secretive process and potential for small groups to influence teaching content. By RNZ Teachers fear a series of curriculum rewrites will erupt into fierce debates over topics including Shakespeare, transgender identity and traditional Māori knowledge. A months-late advance draft of the secondary school English curriculum is only now circulating among select teachers after what they say was a cloak-and-dagger writing process. In November, the group rewriting the science curriculum was suddenly paused. Meanwhile, rewrites of the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum and health and physical education, which included relationships and sexuality curriculums, lay ahead. PPTA president Chris Abercrombie said curriculum rewrites were usually controversial only among teachers, but increasingly they were attracting public debate and some teachers were worried. “In certain subjects there’s quite a lot of anxiety. I know particularly in English we saw recent issues, the sort of secret writing group and how much they were involved. “The ministry to my understanding has really listened to the feedback on that issue and we haven’t seen that in other writing groups at this point.” Abercrombie said there were potential flashpoints in several rewrites including English, science, Aotearoa New Zealand histories, and relationships and sexuality. Abercrombie said the Ministry of Education had to listen to the associations that represented teachers of each subject. National’s coalition agreements with NZ First and Act included commitments to can the relationships and sexuality guidelines and review the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum. Abercrombie said that was unusual and a potential problem. “Traditionally politicians have stayed out of curriculum development,” he said. “It can, if you look at overseas jurisdictions and America, [lead to] banning books and you have to have the 10 commandments up on the classroom and that’s not great for education ... Once you open that door it’s very hard to close it.” Abercrombie said it could lead to curriculums becoming about culture war issues rather than about what was best to teach. “That’s a big concern for us and we saw that in the ERO report about the relationships and sexuality education curriculum and guidelines. Some community groups being really concerned, some parents being really concerned but often based on misinformation or a misunderstanding of what’s occurring. So we don’t want our education system to go pillar to post and that’s what we’re seeing at the moment, these big changes, big shifts,” he said. He said there was always a risk that small, vocal groups would exercise outsized control of what was taught. PPTA president Chris Abercrombie. Photo / RNZ / Angus Dreaver The Government wanted more prescriptive curriculums but it needed to value teachers’ professional judgment, he said. “Teachers are highly qualified, highly experienced professionals who know that text A might be better than text B in this situation because of the students we have in front of us and not ‘the Government said I have to teach this text, I have to use this resource’.” Some teachers’ fears had already played out with the secondary school English curriculum. Pip Tinning from the Association for Teachers of English said that rewrite was put in the hands of a select group in an unprecedented “cloak and dagger” process. “This one’s been very, very cloak and dagger, really under wraps, really hard to get comms out of anyone. We have never [sent an Official Information Act request to] the ministry about what’s happening before but that was literally the only way we could get information around what was occurring.” Tinning said details of the likely content, shared with RNZ by a member of the writing group earlier this year, deepened teachers’ fears about what would be in it. “Texts that actually were out of touch. There wasn’t a lot of modern texts in there. The cursory nod to Aotearoa New Zealand literature, to Māori writers, it was cursory. That was a major, major concern for us.” Tinning could not discuss what was in the advance draft she had received, but the ministry said a draft would be available for consultation from January 27. The science curriculum also ran into problems recently, with the ministry suddenly halting the rewrite after a single meeting. The ministry said it was now asking science subject associations to nominate people to join the contributing group. Associate Professor Chris Eames from the University of Waikato’s School of Education, said it was not clear what caused the sudden pause. Among science educators, there was some disagreement about the future direction of the subject, he said. Basically, some wanted science lessons that taught facts and prepared young people for a career in science, while others wanted more emphasis on ensuring all young people could understand science issues. Eames said the extent to which mātauranga Māori was included in the curriculum could also be a sticking point for some, though most teachers appeared happy to include it in some form. The health and physical education curriculum was also up for review in 2025. It included relationships and sexuality, recently the subject of an Education Review Office report that warned public consultation on the content of lessons exposed school staff to threats and bigotry. Leigh Morgan from the Health Education Association said there was not a lot of disagreement among teachers about what should be in the curriculum. A more prescriptive curriculum might help reduce controversy by removing the need for each school to consult its community about what it would teach, she said. Fri, 13 Dec 2024 01:44:17 Z /news/education/five-new-charter-schools-for-new-zealand-include-french-and-creative-arts-options/ /news/education/five-new-charter-schools-for-new-zealand-include-french-and-creative-arts-options/ By John Gerritsen of RNZ A French school, another Australian school and one sponsored by a group of state schools are among five new charter schools announced today. It brings the total number of charter schools opening next year to six. The schools include two aimed at disengaged students – Christchurch North College, a middle school for children in Y7-10, and in Auckland the Busy School, for students in Y11-13 and part of an Australian chain of schools. Auckland also gets the Ecole Francaise Internationale which would provide a curriculum approved by the French Government, and North West Creative Arts College, a secondary school with a focus on the creative arts. The fifth school announced today was Te Rito, Te Kura Taiao, providing immersion education in te reo Māori in Kaitāia. Christchurch North College was sponsored by the Christchurch Education Trust, run by a group of principals from schools in northwest Christchurch including Papanui College, Burnside High School, Casebrook Intermediate and Cobham Intermediate. “Our goal is to re-engage young people with learning through a combination of small class sizes, highly skilled teachers, and strong partnerships with families and whānau,” the trust said in a statement. It would provide its students with uniforms, stationery, access to technology and meals to reduce barriers to their learning, the trust said. The Ecole Francaise Internationale Auckland would enrol primary and secondary school students and offer an Agency for French Education Abroad-accredited education. “This school is ideal for French families who wish for their children to continue their education in French. It would also improve the recruitment powers of New Zealand companies for French workers and the ability for French companies to establish workforces in New Zealand by reducing disruptions to French education,” the school said. Burnside High School is one of four Christchurch schools backing a new charter school for the city. Photo / RNZ / Anna Sargent Also in Auckland would be the Busy School NZ, an outpost of an Australian chain of nine schools. The school said it would provide disengaged teenagers with the national curriculum and a vocational curriculum based on their chosen career path. North West Creative Arts College would enrol Auckland students in Years 7-13 and teach the New Zealand curriculum alongside a creative art of their choice. “The college will ensure there is a strong pastoral care programme for students. There will also be a strong focus on community outreach with students involved in community-based projects, helping them build connections,” it said. Te Rito, Te Kura Taiao would open in Kaitāia next year, providing immersion in reo Māori for primary school children. It would be run by Te Rito Limited, which already has three early childhood education centres in the area. The school would be on a 22ha property near the Taumarumaru reserve. The schools announced on Thursday join Mastery Schools New Zealand – Arapaki, a Christchurch partner of a group of Australian schools that will open next year. The Charter School Authorisation Board said there would be a further application round next year and those that were unsuccessful in the first round could be reconsidered. The Government is spending $153 million over four years to revive the charter school model despite mixed evidence of the schools' success. - RNZ Thu, 05 Dec 2024 02:11:26 Z /news/education/the-level-2-ncea-maths-question-that-knocked-the-confidence-of-our-top-students/ /news/education/the-level-2-ncea-maths-question-that-knocked-the-confidence-of-our-top-students/ Concerned teachers have shared the NCEA question that left top students in tears after their exam.  The maths question was sent to the Herald by a teacher concerned about its inappropriateness.  The question was included in the level 2 exam, sat by students on Tuesday - the first day of NCEA exams.  Can you solve it?  A maths question presented in a NCEA Level Two maths exam has been described as outside the scope of the curriculum. Image supplied.  The question has been criticised by numerous teachers including a head teacher at a top all-boys school, who said it was outside the scope of students’ learning.  The teacher said the question has a “curriculum level 8 Achievement Objective,” so it is outside of the NZ Curriculum Level 7 Achievement Objectives being assessed.  The teacher, who has lodged a formal complaint to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), said the question had not only thrown students but those who attempted to answer it had wasted valuable time and had their confidence knocked.  “NZQA can defend their processes as much as they like but this question is clearly beyond the scope of this standard and therefore it can not be asked,” the head teacher said.  “This is not a simple mistake. This is an example of their processes not working at all.”  The teacher said one of the checks undertaken was that an assessment meets the requirements and specifications of the standard at achieved, merit and excellence levels.  “Clearly this process has failed in this instance.”  A petition of complaint to NZQA after the maths exam and a problematic level 2 biology paper has received close to 2000 signatures.  In addition to the petition, Jann Marshall from NZQA said there had been seven formally registered complaints about the level 2 maths exam and two relating to the biology one.  NZQA stated about 38,000 students were entered for Level 2 Mathematics and Statistics, and around 17,000 students were entered for Level 2 Biology.  “Excellence level achievement for biology requires the demonstration of comprehensive understanding and for Maths extended abstract thinking.”  Marshall said questions at the Excellence level “may contain unfamiliar contexts to which students are expected to apply their foundational subject knowledge”.  So what was the issue with the question?  The specific achievement objective for this question is ‘M7-10′ which is to apply differentiation and anti-differentiation techniques to polynomials.  The problem with the question is that the highlighted line of working (highlighted in yellow below) must be differentiated in the next step - but it is not a “polynomial” as one of the exponents is negative.  The differentiation of functions with negative exponents is a curriculum level 8 Achievement Objective so it is outside the scope of the standard.  The teacher's workings highlighted above reveal the scope was outside the level 2 excellence student capabilities. Image supplied  The teacher said NZQA needed to go further than just mark the question correct.  “Students who attempted this question in the first 15 minutes of their exam would have been impacted for the rest of their three-hour exam,” the teacher said.  “Loss of confidence in maths is a really big deal. Students start second guessing themselves leading to more and more mistakes being made.”  The teacher called for NZQA to allow Level 2 Maths students to use their derived grade results if they were higher than their external result.  More than 1500 parents, students and teachers have signed a petition calling for consistency and clear questioning in NCEA exams.  But Jann Marshall from NZQA said derived grades were designed “to support students in situations such as illness, the bereavement of a close family member, or a natural disaster.”  “As we have previously noted, in the very rare instance that the design of a question disadvantages students, marking panels are instructed to calibrate their marking accordingly.”  The level 2 biology exam held on the same day also came under fire from students and teachers for similar reasons.  Bernard Potter, head of science at Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland, said teachers were “unhappy” with parts of the level 2 biology exam comparing the stability of the mRNA molecule to the tRNA molecule.  “Students were flummoxed,” he said. “Some attempted to answer the question, others left it blank. It caused anxiety amongst the students and frustration for the teachers.”  Other teachers agreed and students accused NZQA of being “abstruse” with students trying to decipher what was actually being asked rather than just answering a clear question.  A question about sex-linked genes in cats was described as confusing and poorly written, with students unsure of what was actually being asked.  “The hardest part of every exam is decoding what they really want from you,” one top student said.  “There is a complete lack of clarity with the language that NZQA uses.”  Kirsty Wynn is an Auckland-based journalist with more than 20 years’ experience in New Zealand newsrooms. She has covered everything from crime, social issues, and education, to the property market and consumer affairs.  Sat, 09 Nov 2024 01:04:42 Z /news/education/who-is-getting-into-medical-school-and-health-courses-study-shows-affirmative-action-s-successes-and-failures/ /news/education/who-is-getting-into-medical-school-and-health-courses-study-shows-affirmative-action-s-successes-and-failures/ Schemes designed to lift the University of Otago’s enrolment of under-served groups having some success with Māori, Pacific and rural students  However, they have failed to increase student numbers from poorer communities and schools  Government is reviewing the programmes, which the Act Party say are discriminatory  Affirmative action programmes at the University of Otago have significantly lifted Māori, Pacific and rural enrolments over the last 30 years but have failed to increase student numbers from poorer backgrounds.  Māori made up 20% of enrolments at the university’s medical school over the last four years, reaching parity with European and Asian enrolments for the first time.  However, the health profession courses at Otago were still dominated by students from wealthy backgrounds and top schools, despite growing efforts to recruit more people from disadvantaged communities.  The analysis of 30 years of the university’s enrolments by a group of researchers at Otago, published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal, comes as the Government reviews affirmative action programmes.  The University of Otago has had some form of affirmative action in place since the 1950s. Its current policy, Te Kauae Parāoa, covers eight health professional courses and aims to facilitate enrolments among Māori, indigenous Pacific, rural, refugee or students from lower socio-economic households.  Analysis of all enrolments between 1994 and 2023 found that Māori and Pacific rates in all health professional courses rose over this period, but were not yet in line with other ethnic groups. The exception was in the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery course where rates had risen to 20.1%.  Professor Peter Crampton, a public health specialist at Otago, said those were positive trends but there was still significant work to be done.  Māori representation in the workforce was still relatively low – around 4.7% of all doctors.  Women now made up nearly two-thirds of all enrolments in health professional programmes, up slightly from 1994.  “I think that the gender balance in tertiary education is worth thinking very carefully about,” said Crampton. “Because at what point do we as a society become concerned by the relative under-representation of young men in tertiary education?”  Over the last 30 years, there had been no shift in the rate of students from the lowest decile schools (8.5%) or the areas with the highest deprivation levels (1.8%).  “That also gives pause for reflection,” Crampton said. “Structures of opportunity are heavily stratified in our society and that, from my point of view, is alarming and a matter of concern.”  Crampton said there had been relatively little deliberate effort made to attract students from poorer backgrounds. It required engaging with students early in their schooling and supporting them through to the completion of their degree, he said.  The NZMJ study noted that recent policy changes had been made at Otago to target more disadvantaged students but it was too early to measure their impact.  Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Division of Health Sciences, Associate Professor Megan Gibbons, said significant progress had been made in increasing the diversity of the health professional student cohort.  “Success will be when the health workforce is representative of the population and we are just one part of the education system that is trying to ensure equity in outcomes,” she said.  Gibbons said it was challenging to increase the diversity of socio-economic backgrounds for a range of reasons, including that far fewer students from lower decile schools gained university entrance. She cited other barriers, including the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and economic conditions on school performance among people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.  The university had doubled the number of entrance scholarships for people in these groups, she said, and would increase the number and value of the scholarships again in 2025.  The coalition Government is “examining” programmes such as Te Kauae Parāoa and Auckland’s Māori and Pacific Admissions Scheme (MAPAS). Act Party leader David Seymour has said that he opposed them because they were racial discrimination.  Act Party leader David Seymour says the policies at Otago and Auckland were racial discrimination. Photo / Alyse Wright  The authors of the study reiterated the benefits of the affirmative action programmes.  Crampton said that the policies had been very effective at lifting participation of rural students, who faced similar structural barriers to Māori and Pacific students.  The study’s authors listed other benefits, including the correcting of historical injustices; having health professionals from similar backgrounds to the patient have been shown to help with their patient-doctor relationship; and doctors from underserved communities were more likely to return to serve those communities.  Isaac Davison is an Auckland-based reporter who covers health issues. He joined the Herald in 2008 and has previously covered the environment, politics, and social issues.  Thu, 07 Nov 2024 18:12:17 Z