It is well known that our education system is performing at a level that is anything but consistent with the Ministry of Education’s motto: "We work to shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes". 

The latest attendance data, for Term 3 last year, had full attendance - nine days in 10 - at 50 per cent. For Māori and Pasifika, it was 38 per cent. Add to that 10,000 children enrolled nowhere. 

Achievement is so stratified that, even though we have a very manageable number of high schools - approximately 450 - we have extremes where the top 30 schools have their leavers with University Entrance (UE) at an average of 87 per cent and the bottom 30 schools are at 3 per cent. And 15 per cent of school leavers do not even have Level 1 NCEA. For Māori the figure is 27 per cent. 

Many other statistics are available to leave no doubt our system is in crisis. 

This is an opportunity for great leadership right out of the blocks for a new Government and a new minister. Their start has been slow, ill-informed and poorly implemented. Problems are already occurring through the cell-phone ban and the negative effects will be most pronounced on children with anxiety and a range of learning difficulties. 

In opposition, Erica Stanford (now the minister) was passionate, challenging and appeared determined to bring genuine change. She was largely responsible for driving the importance of education as a priority upwards in the polls to make it top priority for 7 per cent of voters. The latest Curia poll had education as the lead priority now for only 1 per cent of voters. It is almost the forgotten issue. 

Given Stanford’s performance in opposition I was stunned and dismayed by this answer she gave in the House to former Minister Jan Tinetti.  

"As schools start back for 2024, there will be a relentless focus on lifting student achievement. This Government's ambitious target of getting 80 per cent of our tamariki to curriculum by the time they finish intermediate by 2030 is our North Star."

At first it sounds like a reasonable answer, but a moment’s analysis creates huge concern for every family and society as a whole – including our future economic outlook. 

What the minister has clearly stated is that she and the new National government only believe they are capable of improving education in New Zealand over six years to still have one in five Year 8 students failing at basic literacy and numeracy. That is despite each New Zealand child receiving 9600 hours of funded education in eight years of schooling. Her answer is dripping with pessimism and lack of ambition. The consequences for the 20 per cent of "failures" will be huge as will the flow on effects to society. As economist Cameron Bagrie has frequently noted: the education system of today determines the economy over the next 30 years. 

If we are truly aiming at a "world class" teaching profession and education system, why do we have a self-imposed limit that we can only get 80 per cent of students even to a moderate level of ability and achievement? Who are the 20 per cent that the minister is predestining to failure? Is she basing her lack of aspiration on poverty, ethnicity, neurodiversity or some trait that I am not aware of after 30 years in education creating much greater outcomes for students that she can envisage? Many of those students have come from difficult backgrounds but given the right opportunities, expert teaching and true ambition they thrive. 

National has announced its initial policies with some fanfare – even if it has used high-decile schools as launch pads. But it clearly believes that despite banning cell phones (but not smart-watches, I-Pads, laptops), setting up a curriculum reform advisory group and ensuring an hour of reading, writing and maths each day, one in five New Zealand children will fail at Year 8. 

There has been little outreach to parents except the Prime Minister blaming them, and not school quality, for the attendance crisis. The minister uses terms such as pedagogy and the "science of learning" in ways that simply baffle parents - if they are tuned in at all. Parents need to be seen and encouraged as the first and most important educators throughout their child’s life.  

The priority for transforming our education system into the very high-quality mechanism that children, families (and indeed taxpayers) deserve is genuine, aspirational, inspirational, innovative and challenging leadership from the very top.