The New Zealand Herald – Kirsty Johnston
“A report to be launched by the Minister of Education today criticises the way pupils are taught maths and calls on parents to demand a return to basics. The paper, written by a researcher for the New Zealand Initiative (NZI) business group, criticises a $70 million Government maths project for failing to improve results and says teachers’ maths abilities are letting children down. “Too many children are not learning the basics off by heart at school. And, paradoxically, this is what is holding them back from developing a more complex understanding of maths,” the report said. Its release follows several recent local and international studies, including a Herald investigation from 2013, that found New Zealand children’s maths abilities are on a downward slide. The latest, released by the Ministry of Education on Friday, said scores drop dramatically between ages 8 to 12, with too many of the older children failing to grasp fundamentals such as fractions and decimals. The report criticised the introduction of changes to maths teaching with the Numeracy Project, introduced in 2000.”(more)