Experts reveal Government's education agenda on wrong track

National's policies of charter schools and teacher performance pay don't work to lift achievement, according to education experts who spoke at a forum at Parliament today.

Green Party education spokesperson Catherine Delahunty co-hosted the forum which heard from educational experts Dr Pasi Sahlberg from Finland and Auckland University's Dean of Education Associate Professor Graeme Aitken.

"Dr Sahlberg spoke about how Finland had risen to the top of international educational rankings by focussing on what I'd describe as almost the polar opposite of the National/Act Government's education agenda," Ms Delahunty said.

"While this Government wants to invest in charter schools, Dr Sahlberg said none of the educationally top performing OECD nations encouraged such schools, or encouraged privatisation.

"Instead the Finns focussed on creating a truly equitable public schooling system where every school is given the opportunity to be as good as it can be, and even a government minister's child would want to go to their local school.

"Professor Aitken told how teacher performance pay was 'psychologically unsustainable' and undermined all the motivational drivers that teachers and any other professionals needed to perform well.

"He was also critical of publishing national standards data that were "not reliable" and spoke about the importance of schools communicating student progress to parents in an understandable way.

"The Green Party has called for the Ministry of Education website publishing national standards data to be pulled down, given widespread acknowledgement, from the Prime Minister down, that the data was unreliable and ropey.

"Today's forum was further proof that the Government needs to scrap its educational reform agenda, consult the experts about what really works and find out from parents what they want and need to know about their kids' education.

"We need to build a strengthened public education system based on equity, trust and the wellbeing of children. If the Finns can do it, New Zealand can too," Ms Delahunty said.