John Key shared this. Which ties in nicely with the Sitech Science trolley coming online See below for details or leave a comment if your interested in finding out more or email me direct .
PROMOTING SCIENCE
New Zealand’s success rests on our ability to make the best use of our scientific expertise. Yet the achievements of our scientists often go unrecognised.
That’s why, today, I was pleased to launch the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science. The prizes were another election promise. The Government will provide $1 million a year across five prizes to help lift the prestige of science and attract more young people into science careers.
There will be five categories of prizes:
The Prime Minister’s Science Prize – $500,000
The Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year Prize – $150,000
The Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize – $50,000
The Prime Minister’s Science Teacher Prize – $50,000 to the teacher and $100,000 to their school
The Prime Minister’s Science Media Communications Prize – $150,000
I recieved the John Keynote today and education was mentioned quite a bit:
Firstly he says:
I had fun this morning meeting the children at Glen Taylor School in Auckland with Education Minister Anne Tolley. We were there to launch National Education Standards in reading, writing, and maths.
Introducing National Standards was one of our major election policies. They will lift achievement levels for children in primary and intermediate schools, and report children’s progress on literacy and numeracy to parents in plain English twice a year.
As many as one-in-five children are not getting the reading, writing, and maths skills they need to succeed. National Standards will help identify those children early so they get more help. The Government is providing $36 million over four years to support schools to introduce the new standards.
I’m really not sure where I stand on National Standards. The theory sounds great but it has huge potential for collateral damage. By which I mean misrepresentation of schools; there is no indication in results of the effort and skill or classroom practitioners. How much is genes and how much is solid education. There is potential for breeding eliteism (showever you spell it) If a school gets a reputation of high achieving then the motivated parents with the gifted and talented off spring will gravitate toward those institution, thus feeding the reputation by providing highly motivated, scholastically blessed, students.
I’ll let you decide which man ‘the man’ refers to.
Some further info hot off the press:
“BETTER BROADBAND FOR NEW ZEALAND
Last week, we released details of our $1.5 billion ultra-fast broadband investment initiative. Ultra-fast broadband is a breakthrough technology that will connect our communities and allow Kiwi businesses to reach customers around the globe. The Government is partnering with the private sector to roll out ultra-fast broadband to 75% of New Zealand homes over the next 10 years, with an initial focus on businesses, schools, and health centres. This complements our plan for a $300 million public-private investment in rural broadband over the next six years.
BOOSTING OPPORTUNITIES BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
The Government is providing the first 2000 places for our Youth Guarantee in 2010. The Youth Guarantee will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to study for school-level qualifications at polytechs, institutes of technology, wananga, or private training establishments. It will give students who are disengaged at school the chance to continue learning in a non-school setting and get the skills they need.”
John Key came to Owhata Primary (Rotorua) on Thursday 12 March 2009. He spent some time in classrooms seeing what the children are doing with Interactive Whiteboards.
In the brief time he was in classes, he learnt how to draw, write, freeform capture, record himself and insert a sound file into an interwrite document. This shows how easy the programme is to use and how many skills our 6-8 year olds have acquired in guiding him through these processes. He was impressed with the level of technology these children were using.
A fantastic experience for our children and staff.
John Key came to Owhata Primary (Rotorua) on Thursday 12 March 2009. He spent some time in classrooms seeing what the children are doing with Interactive Whiteboards.
In the brief time he was in classes, he learnt how to draw, write, freeform capture, record himself and insert a sound file into an interwrite document. This shows how easy the programme is to use and how many skills our 6-8 year olds have acquired in guiding him through these processes. He was impressed with the level of technology these children were using.
