What is Ann Tolley doing?

I thought Michael Cullen, Steve Maharey and Trevor Mallard were bad as the big three of the educations ministries but I think Ann Tolley has gone and topped the lot.

I've been watching her for the past few months and I think she has gone and made a number of questionable and in the long term, costly decisions. Not just financially but overall cost. Economists call it opportunity cost. Choosing the next best option...but in some cases not the best choices.

I do not agree with the blanket scrapping of the Adult Community Education programs across the country. Much like other tertiary education programs there are better ones than others. The better choice would have been to cull the less than successful programs and provide a similar supply system as other providers, preferred options...one can run this, the others cannot. There is no reason why that cannot work at the ACE level as well as the PTE, Waananga or tech/uni level.

I'm not convinced with these national standards that are being rushed in and how she seems to be shoving them down everyones throat without so much as a trial period. She's packing a sad that any board that resists the introduction of the national standards will be sacked. Her excuse is that its going to be against the law...reeks of play with my toys or else mentality.

There is no doubt that New Zealand's need for literacy and numeracy training at the grass roots is extreme and long overdue but this policy I think has also taken away from the adults who need this kind of attention. Millions of dollars used by private providers to give this support and training to adults was lost this year. A syndrome of the we need more people to read and write but we're going to restrict the amount of people who have access to it and where it can be done from.

I don't like the mentality shes adopting. Its childish...which one can say that at times that is a necessary trait in ministerial politicians. For once I find myself agreeing with Trevor Mallard and his comments in the Herald that she could take a small step back and trial it out.

I've seen the negative impact of untried and untested programmes getting national roll-outs long before their times. People who know me will know where and what I'm talking about. They became unprecedented disasters in their own rights and cost millions of dollars to fix and taking thousands of man hours to repair with reputations placed at risk to boot. Yet a little more time for preparation, review, discussion, the result could have been a lot different.

I am worried about the state of our education system. It is in a bad way and this may be the tipping point. There are elements of goodness in it as there are with other aspects of the existing system...but its not enough. I think we're afraid to test ourselves and the students, afraid to push them more than the requirement says too. Afraid of standing too high out of the crowd and celebrating extraordinary academic talent. Afraid of not being able to give everyone a certificate.

I'm going to say this...and it may be a polar opposite end analogy but I'll put it out there...CPL Willie Apiata got a VC for doing something extraordinary...his mates didn't get one too because they were there with him...