David Seymour describing himself as an ‘old-fashioned lefty’ caused a flurry in the commentariat. The responses were not always informed. One thought he was saying he was a Marxist. In fact it is relatively recent when Marxism became an important strain on New Zealand’s left. Our Communist Party formed only in 1921, after the rise…
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The report of the Productivity Commission on the Tertiary Education Sector “New Models of Tertiary Education” is complacent. The report observes that in the decade from 2001 to 2011, the ratio of non-academic and academic staff in the public tertiary educational system rose from about equal to six non-academics to five academics. In fact the number…
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How do New Zealand’s university departments rank internationally? Once a year the QS World University Rankings on individual subject areas are published. This reports on the 2017 rankings for 46 subjects. Each of the subject rankings is compiled using four sources. The first two are QS’s global surveys of academics and employers, which are used to assess…
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International comparisons suggest that New Zealand secondary students are not doing well. It may even be that recent policy measures have worsened their performance. The 2015 results for the triennial OECD PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) evaluation were reported just before Christmas so they did not get much coverage. We need to think about…
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A Professor of Education challenges universities about their purpose. What are universities really for? was the topic of a recent lecture by Hugh Lauder, professor of Education and Political Economy at the University of Bath (previously on the Canterbury and VUW faculties). His answer may not be what you think; this is an economist’s response. New Zealand…
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A Professor of Education challenges universities about their purpose. What are universities really for? was the topic of a recent lecture by Hugh Lauder, professor of Education and Political Economy at the University of Bath (previously on the Canterbury and VUW faculties). His answer may not be what you think; this is an economist’s response. New Zealand…
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This is a condensed version of a paper given to a WEA Conference on 14 May, 2016, The initial invitation suggested I talk about the future economy and its relevance to adult education. I explained that the best advice I ever came across is ‘don’t make predictions, especially about the future’. You get a sense…
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WEA Conference, 14 May, 2016, Wellington. The initial invitation suggested I talk about the future economy and its relevance to adult education. I explained that the best advice I ever came across is ‘don’t make predictions, especially about the future’. You get a sense of the difficulties if you go back thirty years ago, say,…
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Research Report Funded by PPTA. Completed in April 2103 and Launched 9 July, 2013. A short summary is at http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/2013/07/how-good-is-our-schooling/ This column was rejected by The Listener. It was published in Pundit on 8 September, 2014. Keywords: Education; Maori Executive Summary (Conclusion) The average PISA scores on the three dimensions of reading,…
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Jack Shallcrass died on the 13 August, 2014 at the age of 91. Many years earlier in 1965 – he was 42 and I 21 – he spoke at the University of Curious Cove. His lecture, ‘The Right to Dissent’ greatly influenced my thinking. Its themes of the central role of dissent in a civilised…
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Keywords: Education; Statistics; The PBRF (Performance Based Research Fund) score card has modified university behaviour substantially. This is not a paper about how that internal behaviour has changed. Rather it suggests that the scores may be used in different ways to draw quite different conclusions. Gilling’s law states that the way you…
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Presentation at Launch of ‘Ethnicity, Gender, Socioeconomic Status and Educational Achievement: An Exploration”, 9 July, 2013. The full report is here. Keywords: Education; Maori While there is much grumbling about our education system, the evidence suggests it is doing very well. Every three years the OECD surveys a sample of 15 year old students. The…
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Sunday Star Times: 24 June, 2012 Keywords: Education; I was shown over a model Berlin dairy farm is 1990 when it was still in a Communist regime. They proudly displayed a cow which produced twice as much milk as the New Zealand average. Our farmers were unimpressed. Shoveling enough grain down the throat could get…
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Listener: 23 June, 2012 Keywords: Education; Macroeconomics & Money; Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine opens with a description of the American neo-liberals using Cyclone Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans as a chance to replace the city’s public school system with charter schools. This is but one of the book’s examples of their seizing opportunities following…
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If it weren’t for good old chemistry, where would New Zealand be? Listener: 24 January, 2009 A background to this column is ‘My (Almost) Chemical Career’ at http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1541 Keywords: Education; Growth & Innovation; I almost became a chemist. In the upper forms at Christchurch Boys’ High School I had an inspiring chemistry teacher, Alan Wooff….
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In September 2008 (16-18) I attended a Wellcome Trust sponsored conference in York England on the value of science education. We were invited to submit comments. Below is mine. Keywords: Education; Growth & Innovation; Dear Conference Delegates, You invited comments coming out of the conference. The following is a short one. …
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I was invited to write about a favourite poem by students from Auckland Girls Grammar. It was to be part of a collection “Dear to Me” published in July 2007 by Random House, the royalties going to Amnesty International (New Zealand). I wrote two essays – to give the students a choice. They chose this…
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Keywords: Education; Governance; Growth & Innovation; The judges of a singing contest, dissatisfied with the first diva, awarded the prize to the second without having heard her. The favouring of commercialisation in the late 1980s and early 1990s had a similar empirical base. We have now heard the second diva, and while she has…
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Letter to an expatriate: 2031 . Listener: 4 November, 2006 . Keywords: Education; Dear Gerry, You’ve asked me what’s happened to New Zealand universities since we graduated all those years ago in 2006. Actually, the critical issue was finally identified that year. Even today it is remembered in the line “You can’t have the job…
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This was submitted to http://norightturn.blogspot.com/, posted 3 August, 2006. Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy; Statistics; The New Zealand Living Standards 2004 report depends entirely upon its “Economic Living Standards Index” (ELSI), first used in the previous (2000) report. At that time I expressed reservations about the index. Many have not been addressed. What I do…
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