David Seymour brands Parata ‘frenetic ... diva’
ACT leader highlights ‘barbarism’ of top school, in criticism of education system. Shani Williams reports.
ACT has attacked the education minister as a ‘‘frenetic grandiloquent diva’’, tearing at its own coalition partner’s jugular in the election campaign.
Leader David Seymour believes the education system is broken, remembering a friend who was bullied out of school when he was at the ‘‘barbaric’’ Auckland Grammar School.
It was in his sixth form at the prestigious Auckland Grammar School when he realised that education should not have a ‘‘one size fits all’’ approach.
‘‘Often a school and a student are simply not a good mix but because of school zoning there is not much of a choice.’’
He is hoping ACT’s distinctive education policy, pushing charter schools and parent choice, will win votes off National.
Seymour accused retiring Education Minister Hekia Parata as ‘‘singing her way through speeches’’, in a new book, Own Your Future, that he is publishing to launch Act’s election campaign today.
‘‘By this I mean she has an impressive facade but the question is, is the underlying policy there to back her up?’’.
Parata was Minister from 2011 to 2017. During that time the education system was plagued by problems relating to the $30 million Novopay payroll system she introduced, which left teachers overpaid, underpaid or sometimes not paid at all.
Seymour, 34, said targets Parata set under the Better Public Service programme had disguised New Zealand’s education problems by encouraging schools to ‘‘massage data’’.
The Government set teacher and student performance targets through the programme designed to lift education levels.
But Seymour believes the model was flawed saying, ‘‘the people tasked with reaching these targets are the same people tasked with marking the students. You do the math’’. Seymour said the book’s success would be measured by how angry it made politicians.
‘‘And you know should be angry.’’
‘‘It is a politician’s job to improve the lives of New Zealand citizens and we have failed miserably – even when the solutions are not that complicated.’’
Auckland Grammar head master Tim O’Connor yesterday defended his school, saying it was far from barbaric.
‘‘David has probably looked back at part of his time there and reflected on how tough it was.’’
"I guess it’s good that he was challenged. He’s come out better for it hasn’t he?’’ what? They