National yesterday announced a $379 million package that included money for primary school pupils to learn a second language.
At least 10 priority languages would be in the programme, following consultation with communities.
Mandarin, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean are likely to be included, along with te reo and New Zealand Sign Language.
Prime Minister Bill English announced the policy during the launch of National’s campaign in Auckland yesterday.
Mr English said National had confirmed last month it would replace decile ratings with better targeted funding for children at the greatest risk of not achieving.
Pupils from a decile 1 school had recently told him what they thought of the ratings.
‘‘They said they were tired of having to explain why they aren’t useless. No young New Zealander’s aspiration should be limited by a decile rating and we will remove them.’’
National had introduced national standards, allowing parents and teachers to share valuable insights about every child’s learning.
Labour wanted to abolish national standards and prevent parents from getting that information, he said.
‘‘I know from personal experience — quite a lot of it, actually — just how valuable it was to get feedback about how my [six] kids did at school. All of these changes are improving achievement by our students.’’
But New Zealand could do more to help its young people embrace new technology, find new ideas, create new ways of working and build stronger global connections, he said.
Nothing could replace the thousands of motivated, professional teachers who cared for and educated the children.But the tools they used could be improved.
Mr English said a four-point education plan would provide digital learning for senior pupils, more resources for maths and a guarantee all primary school pupils would be able to learn a second language if they chose to.
National would invest $48 million to introduce new digital learning for years 12 and 13 pupils.
Each year, new digital academies would offer 1000 pupils specialised, IT-focused learning, similar to the trade academies, and they would be just as successful, he said.
New digital internships would provide mentoring and tailored learning from businesses for 500 years 12 and 13 pupils, a pathway between skills gained in the classroom and IT careers.
The second part was a $126 million investment to raise maths achievement for primary school pupils.
About 1200 teachers a year would complete extra university papers targeted at teaching maths to primary pupils.
Intensive classroom support would be provided for pupils, where schools had identified the need to improve their maths.
The third part was a $160 million investment for primary school pupils to learn a second language.
And National would update National Standards so families had more comprehensive and more timely information about their children’s achievements in the classroom, Mr English said.
National Standards Plus would provide a snapshot of how a child performed across the year by allowing parents and their children to track progress in detail, online.
‘‘We will show you your child’s progress on your mobile phone.
‘‘I’ve met these children. It was amazing meeting a little 10-year-old who sat me down and showed me how much he’d achieved in the last month and what he would learn next.
‘‘I want to see that for every child in every school.’’
By moving the reporting online, the new system would help hardworking teachers by streamlining their paperwork and allowing them to focus more of their time on teaching, he added.
