Education Minister addresses STA conference

&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;" alignright size-full wp-image-954" style&equals;"margin&colon; 5px&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" alt&equals;"SN25-EDUCATION-Summit-Hekia Parata 300x225" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;schoolnewsnz&period;fastrackdev&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;SN25-EDUCATION-Summit-Hekia&lowbar;Parata&lowbar;300x225&period;jpg" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"225" &sol;>New Zealand still has a way to go in providing every student with the quality of education they need and deserve&comma; the Minister of Education Hekia Parata told school trustees at their conference held at the weekend&comma; &&num;8220&semi;but we are closing in on it&&num;8221&semi;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p> <&excl;--more--> <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Addressing almost 900 people at the NZSTA 25th anniversary conference in Auckland&comma; the Minister said the biggest challenge for school boards and principals in trying to meet the Government&&num;8217&semi;s target of five out of five students achieving was to take the step from talking about collaboration to actually practising it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Practising collaboration means not just collaborating with the people you already get on with&comma; but with those you don&&num;8217&semi;t&comma;&&num;8221&semi; the Minister said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Statistics show that students are already starting education earlier&comma; staying longer&comma; and leaving better qualified than they used to&comma; and boards of trustees are critical in making that happen&period; At the same time&comma; more work is needed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Schools are funded for an average of one teacher for every 21 students and teacher numbers have increased significantly faster than student numbers over recent years&period; The most valuable thing we can do now is to invest more in the teachers we already have&comma;&&num;8221&semi; the Minister said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;At the same time&comma; the Government has recognised the need to also provide more resources to support boards of trustees and trustees are already seeing better access to professional development and employment advice as a result&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Tools like National Standards and six-monthly plain language reporting to parents still need more work&comma; but we are now producing real-time information for parents and boards of trustees so they know what is happening in their local community and for their children&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;