None So Blind

Defending Monopolistic Mediocrity and Failure

An old adage says that there are none so blind as those who will not see. Stephen Joyce recently declared that over one million adults in New Zealand are functionally illiterate--that is, they can neither read nor write sufficiently well to make their way in the world. The commentosphere erupted in indignation for a second or so.

Whilst we have known this for a long time, the fact that, once again, it has hit the headlines, albeit briefly, we want to reiterate some fundamental points. Firstly the problem is systemic, and the blame lies fairly, squarely and without dispute upon the state funded and controlled education system in New Zealand. The ills are with the government education system itself.

Secondly, and related to this, voting more money for this failed system does not work and will not work. Vote education has increased hugely, exponentially over the past thirty years. At the same time, illiteracy has worsened. More taxpayers money handed over to a system that is already incompetent just produces more incompetence--very expensive incompetence. Politicians on both sides of the House routinely congratulate themselves that they are committed to education and can demonstrate their commitment by voting more of your money to it; they are willing dupes, engaged in little more than self-congratulatory grandstanding.

Thirdly, the root problem is that the state educational system is a giant monopolistic bureaucracy. Teachers are fundamentally bureaucrats, carrying out government policy as stipulated by the Ministry of Education. The better teachers resent it; the inept and incompetent teachers find security therein. All monopolies are inefficient because they do not have to work for the loyalty of their customers or those who use their services. Monopolies serve themselves at the expense of their customers. They can afford to. Their self-interest is not checked by competitors. The customer or consumer has no alternative but to pay up, as it were. The bigger the monopoly, the greater the inefficiency and waste and ineffectiveness. The state education system in New Zealand is one of the most comprehensive monopolistic educational bureaucracies in the world.

Fourth--and consistent with the nature of all monopolistic bureaucracies--the system ends up being controlled by those that run its operations. They both control the flow of information to the government, thereby shaping policy that suits their own interests, whilst being in a position to standover any governmental policy initiatives they do not like. In a monopoly everyone becomes captive to the operational staff. It is inevitable.

All the operational staff in the state educational system are organised into unions--whether Ministry bureaucrats as part of the PSA, teachers as members of the various teacher unions, or professional educational academics who are part of tertiary teacher unions. All are dedicated to maintaining and extending the control of their organisations over the educational system. Their primary commitment is to the interest of their members, and not to the students, who serve as cannon fodder for the self-interest of the unions. They are even less concerned about the interests of parents. The educational unions mouth empty slogans about the interests of parents and pupils only when it is condign with the current propaganda campaign being run.

The comprehensive nature of monopoly control over education has been demonstrated repeatedly in New Zealand. No government has had the courage to confront and defeat the deeply entrenched educational monopolists. Every policy initiative attempted over the past thirty years to increase local accountability and decrease the monopoly control of the educational bureaucracy has been effectively squashed by the state educational bureaucracy: bulk funding of schools, the voucher system, and the relaxation of school zoning are prime examples. Each of these introduced greater autonomy to local schools and meant that local schools had to compete to a degree for parent, teacher, and student support.

That competitive element meant that some schools were able to compete so as to do better than others--which is a dread and horror to the monopolistic bureaucratic educational system.

We firmly believe the system will not produce better educational results until the state educational monopolistic system itself is seen as the problem. The monopoly needs to be broken. Education is a service, like any other economic service. It cannot justify its sacred cow status. Its persistent systemic failures place it in the same notorious category as the old Ministry of Works, the Electricity Department, New Zealand Rail, the Union Steamship Company, and the National Airways Corporation. All proved inefficient, dismal failures. Huge improvements were realised when the state monopolies in each of these areas were broken down. Education will not be any different.

We note with wry amusement how almost all involved in political discourse through the spectrum of belief and opinion regard education as being in a special category which makes it an essential and intrinsic component of modern government. But this dominant mantra cannot survive critical scrutiny. The fact that everyone may have a (freedom) right to education does not constitute an argument for education being delivered via a state monopolistic bureaucracy.

We propose the following plan to destroy the hidebound state education monopoly and to achieve genuine, enlightened reform:

1. Introduce an immediate universal educational voucher system for all pupils and all schools in the country. The Ministry of Education would provide annual vouchers to parents of every school child in the country to be redeemed at the schools of their choice, provided the schools consent to take the child. Voucher systems have now proved their worth wherever they have been applied around the world. They have been widely supported by parents. They have also been universally opposed by teacher unions wherever they have been introduced.

2. Abolish all national curriculum rules, standards and guidelines immediately, apart from stipulating that all schools must adopt the Cambridge testing systems--which deliver a truly international educational qualification. (Cambridge runs a narrow, focused curriculum on core subjects; schools would be free to augment with other subjects and activities as and where they wished. Each school would be required to register as a Cambridge Affiliated School on-line. All Cambridge waypoint and examination test results would be made available to parents; all aggregate school results would be published. All additional testing regimes would be at the discretion of each respective school.)

3. Abolish all school zoning.

4. Abolish all teacher registration. This currently serves to protect the monopoly bureaucracy. It contributes nothing--repeat, nothing--to the quality of teaching in this country.

With the introduction of these reforms within five years the educational sector in New Zealand would be world class. It is that easy and that simple. It would also be less expensive: the vast state educational bureaucracy could be largely dismantled. The educational vote could then largely go into what the current government likes to call "front line services". But this must be done quickly (like the life-line reforms of the 1984 Labour Government), otherwise the educational monopoly will mobilise and destroy the programme.

But our timid government will not go nearer than a bull's roar to such enlightened educational reform. It lacks the courage and fibre to man up for the inevitable stoush. It prefers its own comfort and sinecures to doing something really constructive for the future of our children. Thus, systemic failure of state education in New Zealand will continue unchecked and unaltered indefinitely. A high quality educational monopoly is, and will remain, an oxymoron.