Go figure(s)
Earlier this month, Metiria asked Education Minister Trevor Mallard a series of questions in the House about the funding for special education. One of the exchanges was as follows:
Metiria Turei: What is the Minister’s response to the 97 percent of schools reported in the Quality Public Education Coalition report on special education that stated last year that the bulk-funded special-education grant is inadequate to meet the needs of their children, in light of today’s failed announcement there would be no increase in the said grant?
Trevor Mallard: I would treat the Quality Public Education Coalition report with the respect it deserves and put it in the rubbish bin.
The Dominion Post reports today that Mr Mallard may have once been (or may still be) a member of the aforementioned Quality Public Education Coalition, though given the paper didn’t put the claim to him it’s hard to assess its validity.
However, much more interesting than which groups Mr Mallard may or may not belong to is the Government’s repeated practice of dismissing out of hand any research which undermines its claim to provide free education for primary and secondary students and affordable education for tertiary students.
Mallard’s “rubbish bin” remark above was just the latest of a series of such statements. Earlier this month, Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope derided North American research that showed tertiary education in New Zealand to be less affordable than in almost all other developed countries as “seriously flawed”. And when NZUSA released a survey in January which revealed that, under Labour, the average student loan had increased by 46 percent (from $11,145 to $16,292) and average tuition fees had increased by 61 percent (from $3,499 to $5,644), Mallard denied the figures and said they didn’t yet reflect the great work that the Government has done to make the lot of students better.
It’s starting to seem that this government’s theme has become “under Labour, all problems have been solved”. And, to forward that argument when it comes to education, they’ll happily ignore any evidence that runs counter to it. As the Economist noted about the Blair Government’s reliance on statistics to prove that it’s doing well: “The government is keen on figures. That does the figures no good”.
