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Labour has been busy announcing a series of election promises for education: helping parents provide digital devices for every child, covering school donations, and the latest – reducing class sizes. The first two attempt to address issues of inequality of opportunity for school students; wealthier families are more able to provide their children with modern learning tools, and school donations represent much less of a burden on the household budget than for less affluent parents. Read more

Over the last week, Labour have announced an impressive array of educational policies. While it is impossible to comment on every single proposal, two of their major initiatives – on digital devices and class sizes – are worth discussion. Read more

Education is a highly polarized and political area. But here’s one thing no one can deny the importance of in education: relationships. Read more

This month the primary school teachers' union, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), and the body representing principals, the New Zealand Principals' Federation (NZPF), gave a thumbs down to the $359m Investing in Educational Success (IES) policy announced by John Key in January. This represented a major system change and is designed to build collaboration among teachers. Read more

This week the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, released a report on the details of the government's $359 million policy to create a new career structure for teachers (Investing in Educational Success) following consultation with the education sector. The Beehive media release makes it sound as if everybody is happy as a result of the consultation, and most are, including the secondary teachers' union, the PPTA. Read more

The constant striving to improve one’s lot is human nature, and people naturally move to where the opportunities lie. But when moving house and moving jobs involve children, these moves become controversial. Read more

This week the primary teachers’ union NZEI released results from a poll intended to reveal people’s preferences for how public money is spent on education. According to the NZEI, “less than 6 per cent of people think the government’s plan to establish new leadership roles for some principals and teachers is a good use of increased education funding”. Read more

It’s tough for parties in the opposition benches. They have been stripped of a major rod with which to beat National in an election year. Read more

If we want to grow our businesses, whether by market share, profit, or offering customers better value, we need to grow our people - and growing people means growing big brains. Management guru Tom Peters, speaking at the New Zealand Initiative's annual retreat dinner recently, gave a resounding and impassioned speech on the importance to business of investing in people, first and foremost. Read more

This week the New Zealand Herald reported that Selwyn College has completely turned their figures around, lifting their NCEA Level 1 pass rate from 39 per cent in 2007, to 93 per cent in 2013. But could this relentless focus on figures – be it NCEA, National Standards, or Pisa – be ignoring what is most important? Read more