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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced moves to bring forward a change to maths teaching in his speech at the National Party conference today, saying the current low levels of student achievement showed “a total system failure”.

The new structured maths curriculum for primary and intermediate school children (years 0-8) would arrive a year early, kicking off at the start of 2025.

The “maths action plan” would also include extra professional development for teachers, interventions for children struggling with the topic, and twice-yearly assessments to ensure children were up to standard.

Luxon said newly released data showed that last year about 50,000 children in Year 8 did not meet the expected benchmark for maths.

“There’s no way to describe those results as anything other than a total system failure.”

The achievement data was from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study (CIPS) which Luxon said showed just 22% of Year 8 students in New Zealand reached the benchmark for mathematics.

Luxon said only 12% of Māori students were where they should be and 63% of the overall Year 8 cohort were more than a year behind.

“It is abhorrent to me that by failing to properly use assessment the true state of failure has been masked and the interventions that have been required, have not happened.

“These figures are appalling, but I suspect not a surprise for many parents who I know are frustrated and despondent about the progress of their children,” Luxon said.

It will mean the structured maths approach kicks in at the same time as the move to structured literacy.

Education Minister Erica Stanford would launch the first of three components of “Make It Count” - a maths action plan that will take effect from the start of next year.

Stanford said that would mean from term one next year, “children will be learning maths based on a new world-leading, knowledge-rich maths curriculum based on the best from across the OECD like Singapore and Australia, adapted for New Zealand”.

“The expectations for what children must learn each year will be clearly laid out, so parents know exactly what their kids will be learning from the start of next year.”

She said teachers would be supported with about $20 million put into professional development for maths, as well as teacher guides and student workbooks. She said she was pleased that the Teaching Council had now agreed that any prospective teacher had to have achieved at least NCEA Level 2 for maths.

There would also be steps for students who were falling significantly behind curriculum level. Those would be identified from the twice-yearly standardised assessments for maths in primary schools that the Government was requiring, which would also begin from the start of 2025.

The Government’s latest action plan has a number of education moves in it, including a second phase of steps on truancy, the draft of new English and maths sections of the curriculum, new structured literacy interventions for struggling readers, and making decisions in response to the findings of the Ministerial Inquiry into School Property.

Stanford formed that inquiry in March, pointing to delays and cost overruns in projects previous governments had announced.

Stanford spoke to the conference this morning, setting out the key priority areas to try to lift student achievement - including the curriculum, structured literacy, clearer reporting, assessment and data and evidence.

She ran through the changes already made, such as the cellphone ban, structured literacy, and the overhaul of the curriculum.

“We do not have time to waste. Student achievement has been in decline in New Zealand.”

In his speech, Luxon gave a personal pledge that he would turn New Zealand’s achievement levels around.

He claimed it was a result of a “distracted bureaucracy” in Wellington and a “vague curriculum”.

He said he did not blame teachers or schools, children or parents.

“And as politically gratifying as it would be to blame the other lot – and they definitely haven’t helped – this issue is bigger than politics.

“This is the product of years of drift and decay by a system that has become utterly distracted from the values we all care about in this room: achievement, opportunity, and success.

“This is the time to work together to turn these statistics around. I’m standing before you as Prime Minister and my promise to you today is that it’s time for change. The system must change. The results must change. And we will deliver that change.”

Unapologetic about law and order focus

Luxon’s speech also delivered an unapologetic defence of National’s moves on law and order.

He said he had no compunction about “ending the era of lawlessness ushered in by Labour and the Greens” and took aim at critics suggesting a tough approach on sentencing or boot camps might not have the impact desired.

“New Zealanders have a right to feel safe. And that right trumps any interest in giving violent and repeat offenders an early release just so they can continue to prey on our communities.

“I’m sick of being told that the real victims are the people who smash into a shop, or peddle meth, or brutally assault mums and dads working in the dead of night. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”

He said he understood that some people had a rough start, and National would push on with social investment to deal with that.

”But don’t tell me the guy brandishing a knife or smashing into a jewellery store is the real victim. And don’t tell me the answer is putting them back onto the streets to continue their campaign of violence, fear, and misery.”

Justice and police ministers on law and order

Earlier at the conference, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell held a panel on law and order at the conference - one of National’s main campaign areas.

Goldsmith said he hoped that changes to the three-strikes legislation would be enough to ensure it was not repealed again if there was a change in government.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith speaks to the National Party conference with Police Minister Mark Mitchell and National MP James Meager (left) at the Manukau Due Drop Events Centre. Photo / Claire Trevett

Goldsmith said the purpose of it was to deal with the most serious repeat offenders “and to keep them out of circulation for longer”. He said in the first iteration of the three strikes – which was repealed by Labour - the offences that qualified were very broad so the two-year prison term had been set as the criteria in the recent legislation.

He said he was hopeful that changing the criteria so that lower-level offences did not qualiy for it would be enough to ensure it was not repealed again every time there was a change in government and would be an enduring part of sentencing laws.

Mitchell kicked off his segment by playing a video of police crushing a Comancheros bike.

He told the party members that one of his priorities was trying to make the CBDs of big cities safer – the most recent move of which was getting more police on the beat in the Auckland CBD. He said efforts were still under way to try and get police a physical base downtown, but the increase in the visible presence of the police had helped ease issues.

“[There is] more presence, more reassurance, and we are starting to deal with a lot of the social problems that arise in the CBDs.”

He said he was having monthly meetings with Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, key retail groups, police, Oranga Tamariki and Kāinga Ora to try to resolve social issues in the Auckland CBD.

Mitchell said one of his other priorities was Corrections staff, saying he had suggested they change the marketing campaign and since then there had been 20,000 expressions of interest. He said the recruitment of new Corrections officers was now tracking at 350-400 above attrition.

Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007.