Deborah Coddington: Success at school is up to the parents
5:00AM Sunday February 18, 2007
What will it take for the Government to pull its head out of the sand and stop denying this country's rising tide of social problems? First it was the underclass, now Education Minister Steve Maharey denies there's a problem over Maori male students - more than half of whom are leaving school without level one of NCEA.
We can imagine what Professor Russell Bishop of Waikato University is hinting at when he says these results will come back to haunt us.
And three cheers for Hato Paora principal Tihirau Shepherd who said parents must play a greater role in their children's education. Shepherd's school of 230 students in Feilding apparently has a strong success rate, and Shepherd emphasised that although poverty was a hindrance for many of his students, it didn't automatically prevent them from achieving. However, he stressed the importance of parents in helping their children do better at school.
But how can parents do this when choice of schools is limited to the wealthy? When the Education Ministry won't name schools that cheat and lie over students' NCEA results?
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