Yet another minister praises his own incompetence « The Standard

We have come to expect nothing less from this government, yet another minister is praising their lack of competence. In this case, David Seymour has been boasting about his attendance at school The third semester beginsand took the credit for it.

The problem is that it lags behind Second semester beginsAttendance at the school has fallen since David Seymour tried to improve it. His ability as a pastor is questionable.

Radio NZ has a great article about this “Despite the drop in attendance, Education Minister David Seymour is pleased with the school attendance figures.“. Well worth reading.

There are a few points to note. David Seymour announced an Attendance Action Plan in April Combating persistent truancy is a major part of the government’s second quarter action plan. Improving attendance is also a key part of ACT policy and was a direct result of Seymour’s appointment as deputy education minister.

However, the opposition’s policy at the time was almost typical of the opposition, sounding the alarm about low-hanging fruit. That’s why they cherry-picked statistics from the period when the country was just emerging from lockdown.

But Seymour still pushes these Outdated statistics on Checkpoint in April this year . this Job description::-

Seymour noted that New Zealand’s attendance rate had fallen from 69.5 per cent in the 2015 semester to 39.9 per cent in semester two of 2022.

Educators and policymakers have previously pointed out that the pandemic has had a long-term impact on school attendance, with illness one of the reasons for absence, but Seymour pointed out that absenteeism rates in England in 2022 were 75.1%, 70.3% in the United States and 49.9% in Australia.

Yes, you have to analyze it carefully. But it comes out like nitpicking and lying. This is not what a cabinet minister should do. It’s more like the behavior of a fool who is stirring up the public.

The second semester of 2022 falls right after the last lockdown in Auckland, home to a third of New Zealand’s population. Auckland’s “red” lockdown level wasn’t lifted until March 2022. At the time, the Omicron virus was raging through much of the country that had just reopened, and the vaccination program was still being rolled out across much of the population.

As far as I know, the UK, US and Australia did not impose any lockdowns in 2022. Their vaccination campaigns are more advanced. But there have been larger outbreaks before – which also increased population resistance and had higher associated deaths and hospitalizations. We are still in the throes of vaccination and the peak of COVID-19 infections was very low. So David Seymour (as is usual for him and Act) is just lying by cherry-picking incomparable data points.

Term 2 of 2022 was a terrible year for schools. By then, most teachers I knew in Auckland had had their first or second dose of the Omicron strain of Covid-19. The last major wave of infections peaked in March/April 2022 (see policy sharing)Any sensible and responsible teacher, parent or child with even the slightest sniffle would self-isolate. Yet this is the time David Seymour chose.

So this is just part of David Seymour’s habit of picking random numbers. If you’re a cynical politician, or just a complete fool, without considering the context, this is the most effective way to lie. Every hypocrite loves to use numbers to justify their judgment, even if they ignore all the reasons why the numbers are distorted, because it gives them reason to deny. This is one of the most annoying characteristics of lunatics and trolls.

This may be why RNZ’s Russell Palmer wrote scathingly: (Italics added by myself)

Although attendance was down compared to the same period last term, Associate Education Minister David Seymour was pleased with the strong attendance figures.

“Term three has started well, with attendance improving on the last two weeks of term two, with an overall attendance rate of 83.9 per cent. The best day was the first Tuesday of term, with an attendance rate of 86.2 per cent,” Seymour said in a news release on Monday.

He called it a “good start” for attendance in term three.

Attendance in the last two weeks of last semester was 80.8%. The overall average attendance for the second semester was 82.9%.

Seymour said it showed “when the Government takes education seriously, New Zealanders take it seriously”.

However, the data shows that the acceptance rate of 83.9% in the first two weeks of this semester has dropped by nearly 2 percentage points from 85.8% in the first two weeks of the second semester. The most comparable period.

Indeed, results in the first few weeks of term are usually good compared to the end of term. A 3.1% increase probably has to be seen as a pretty poor result in this particular comparison. A 1.9% drop from the start of the previous term probably points to an early failure of the government and David Seymour’s ability to actually improve school attendance.

In the long term, the actual results of the new policy after implementation are nothing special. In fact, it is easy to argue that the Attendance Action Plan has made attendance worse, not better, so far.

BTW: If you want to get an idea of ​​the long-term aggregate (and pick your own data points like David Seymour), check out Student Regular Attendance Series 2011-2024 (Excel) From Education Counts Attendance Page.

related articles