Educating New Zealand’s children and young people lies at the heart of the Government’s vision for economic and social development in the 21st century.
As part of this vision, the Government is committed to building strong foundations for future learning by lifting literacy and numeracy skills, increasing the levels of educational attainment and maximising the value received from its education services.
The Education Review Office (ERO) contributes to this vision by assuring the Government of the quality of education provided for children and young people and, through its reviews and reports, improving the performance of schools and early childhood services.
Many aspects of our education system perform well, delivering a quality education to a large number of our students. However, the system does not deliver success for all – and addressing this is my key focus. Through the significant changes we have begun to put in place, including the implementation of National Standards and initiatives that will strengthen the capabilities of our schools and early childhood services, I expect to see improvements to the core literacy and numeracy skills of our children, and the attainment of workforce skills for our young adults.
Achieving the changes we expect to see will require greater targeting of resources, and greater scrutiny of expenditure to ensure that it is high quality, value for money and will deliver the results we seek.
ERO will play a significant role to drive performance improvements to our education agencies and help the government to promote debate about key educational issues that will influence system improvement.
I believe that ERO’s evaluation processes will be effective in delivering better education results for the benefit of all New Zealanders.
Hon Anne Tolley
Minister Responsible for the Education Review Office