Children know how to get straight to the guts of things. Around 20 primary students from two Wellington schools just showed how much they care about being enviroschools. They gathered on the steps of parliament to sign a card calling on Education Minister Anne Tolley to not cut funding to enviroschools. The card had already been signed by dozens of Dunedin school students. She was invited to attend and receive the card. But she never showed up. Surprised?
School children from Dunedin and Wellington signed the card. My colleagues Grant Robertson, Trevor Mallard and myself and Greens co-leader Metiria Turei (Catherine Delahunty from the Greens is pictured after she turned up late) met with the students from Thorndon and Karori West primary schools to draw attention to cuts to education for sustainability funding.
Afterwards, I tabled the card in the House.
“Enviroschools forever” was one of the comments written by the children. And it’s not rocket science to conclude that such a common sense, useful and forward thinking programme would be so successful in our schools acrosss the country and have become embedded in the curriculum.
Unless you’re the National Party.
In which case, a programme that teaches kids from low socio-economic backgrounds how to grow their own veges, minimise waste, be more energy efficient, how to landscape and the principles of eco-building is considered a waste of money.
$1.6 million and 27 Education for Sustainability positions have been axed by Anne Tolley and her government. I posted on this issue a few weeks ago and anger is steadily growing around the country.
These positions provide the academic rigour and research to the enviroschools programme. It will compromise the whole programme and its a travesty. Please speak up about this issue and tell Anne Tolley to admit her mistake. And Minister Tolley, try listening to the children.
26 union jobs gone.
1.6 million of indoctrination budget out of the window.
The faux outrage of Labour and the Greens can be well understood, another long term socialist strategy shot to pieces.
Time for much larger cuts into this sort of tosh programs, next step: privatize all schools, look at a nice Swedish example here:
http://www.kunskapsskolan.se/foretaget/inenglish.4.1d32e45f86b8ae04c7fff213.html
C’mon Clare, do the 20 or so kiddies care about enviroschools, or were they prompted to care by politically motivated teachers for a cheap political stunt?
@ Clare “and anger is steadily growing around the country.”
A TUI moment right there.
you guys are so far off the pulse of the public that its funny.
You can see how fuming the public are with Keys ratings in the polls. The public are so incensed with him just over 5% of the public want your leader (whats his name) to be running the country.
Still 23% went with the dont know / dont care option. labour are close to being written off.
I think you need to look at the bigger picture sweetd. The government has now gutted courses like environschools as well as night school courses.
In regard to night school courses these aren’t just so called hobby courses, but are excellent stepping stones for adult learners or others who struggled at school. The courses could have been used and were used to help people get back into the swing of education and possibly move onto tertiary study.
To do away with that stepping stone for people who would struggle to go straight into higher education is a disgrace and will destroy the education opportunities of thousands of New Zealanders in the future. If that’s the future you won’t sweetd then I don’t want to know you.
As was said earlier in the week, you can’t expect the public to admit that they were wrong yet. The govt will get a chance for the next two years and then when it comes to evaluate what NACT has done for the country, bye bye! (That is as long as Labour kindly points out all the flaws and comes up with ways that would’ve fixed them.)
Anyway, back to the topic of this post: Enviroschools.
I am a member of an Enviroschool Group and the amount of passion that everyone puts into improving the environment, such as protecting native trees from the ravages of both people and introduced species, making sure that chemicals don’t go into storm water drains, protecting wildlife, making buildings more energy efficient, campaigning to get people to be more conscious of the environment, by turning heating and lighting off.
No normal, middle NZer will deny that all those things are important. They keep up our Clean and Green image, the help prepare for any environmental disasters in the future (not necessarily climate related!), they change people’s views about littering. There are hundreds of things that each enviroschool does to contribute to making NZ a better place.
I think some of the comment-ers aren’t aware of the importance of the environment and stating that this is some political stunt by a teacher is sheer idiocy. Do NZ children not have brains? I bet you that those kids were deeply upset when they were told that their enviro group couldn’t continue functioning with the support of enviroschools. Many of the children want to be there and why would you cut a programme that could help NZ survive in the long run?
If there was a huge environmental disaster and our food supply was wiped out, what would we do? We would (in the mid term anyway) have to grow our own food. Each family would. So why would we want to stop today’s children from learning about this?
I know people are angry too. If you say that they aren’t, evidently you have lost touch with the public. Unfortunately, the media has not shown the loss that it is to NZ schools. If people really knew than there would be hell to pay.
But, in the long term this could be a good thing for the Labour party, because NACT have created a whole lot of Labour and Green voters!
great post Andy B
kiwibiker i acknowledge your right to your opinion, even if small minded..but really the enviro schools programme is great and benefits the whole community…oh no is that evil socialism?
My kids do horticulture at school. They also do social studies and science. And economics. They don’t need an enviro schools programme. Its already covered in the above subjects. It was also covered when I went to school.
When these children grow up and pay taxes they might care about how they are spent.
What child doesn’t believe in more spending?
“What child doesn’t believe in more spending?”
What’s that supposed to mean cactus kate?
Bea – yes, you may well cover those topics in the classroom, however an enviroschools programme actually does something about the problems. Social Studies, Economics and science don’t go and actually clean up the local stream or plant trees (mainly).
And anyway, lets think of the impact that this education will have in future generations. The fact is that the kids in enviroschools now WILL face an environmental disaster in the future. We’re well overdue for some cataclysmic event that will change the world. What enviroschools is doing is giving a support network to the school children who want to do something to try and prevent anything that is preventable and try and mitigate anything that they can’t prevent.
No form of education is a waste of tax dollars. Education gives people not only personal benefit, but economic benefit as well. The only way to survive in the future will be to innovate. NZ needs a highly educated, dynamic and flexible population that can think, make decisions in regards to anything from climate refugees to sustainable resources and innovate. The only way forward is by changing things.
The NZ public and NACT seem to have a complete block against Innovation and education. Like when NACT cut R&D tax credits. The only way forward is through education and innovation – why is it seen by so many as a waste of money? Someone answer me. Using the recession is no excuse, because if we had a more dynamic economy, because of more dynamic companies and workers, we may not have had many of the recessionary problems that we are faced with today.
To continue: Today’s children understand what it will mean to live in a world that is far different from today. As a high school student, I see many of my peers, fearing for what the not too distant future will hold. NACT’s environmental policy is disgustingly inconsiderate to us, the youth of today. How dare they think that they can play god. What good is money if there is no one left living on Earth. I am not one person saying this alone. You’ll find many of today’s children and teenagers support my view. I am constantly surprised how no one can see how decisions today will affect the future greatly. The environment should be our single most important focus as a country because without it, humanity will be dead.
There is only ONE way to protect and improve the environment and that is a viable economy that can pay for that luxury.
Taxing a faltering economy in order to pay for feel-good programs is only achieving exactly the opposite, and is providing false incentives. Kids should be learned to read, write and think for themselves, they should be taught the tools to investigate and the skills to interact with others, they should not be pre-programmed into little Labour/Green clones that can only repeat what big brother has been telling them. How basket weaving classes are getting adults into tertiary education is also beyond me.
LUXURY! LUXURY! Saving humanity from mass cataclysm (I like that word) is a luxury! Wow. Someone needs to sort their priorities out. Really, it comes down to what is more important. The place where we live, work, enjoy life, have children, meet people, fall in love, experience life, i.e. Earth or cold hard cash (which would be worthless without anyone on earth to trade with). I know which one I’d rather have.
It isn’t a matter of developing a strong economy and then dealing with environmental problems, NZ is developing at such a slow rate (even before the recession) that we will never develop a strong enough economy to deal with the death of humanity. Of course, why isn’t our economy strong? Oh yeah because we have a population and govt too scared to take risks and lead the world. To change and innovate. As I have already said, without making changes, nothing changes. Education is about making changes.
In regards to your comments on basket weaving, economics is not everything. The social cohesion that something like a basket weaving course can provide is worth far more than any money. It also provides networking opportunities and maybe business can come from that. If it provides a sense of community within the community, it must be good. “Community” also has spin offs into many other areas. If someone feels as if they are part of a group, i.e. community, they are less likely to commit crime (remember not all crime is committed by delinquent youths), more likely to feel more comfortable with themselves and be more productive members of society. I wish this blog had an underline feature so I could underline productive.
The loss of adult education also poses some risks to things like maritime saftey, which are frequently run through adult education centres. I got my Radio Operators certificate through an adult education course, where will other people wanting to get the same thing go now?
Andy B, it means what everyone knows it means.
Look at these schoolchildren above. They aren’t old enough to even have after school jobs. They’ve got no ability to know how hard it is to earn, save and budget. Would you give them your finances to control? No.
Enviroschools is another touchy feely brainwashing of young people who are not yet developed enough to know that everything has a financial cost and until they are old enough to contribute to paying that financial cost, they should have as much power and say as….well children.
You’re right Cactus, I wouldn’t give these school children my finances to handle. However, enviroschools is tax dollars well spent to making a world a better place.
I would hardly call enviroschools a happy, clappy, touchy feel organisation. They are dealing with and teaching kids about the environmental problems of the world. How is that a happy thing? Oh yeah, kids love how we’re all going to die, don’t they?
If you believe that enviroschools is brainwashing, you probably should never send your children to school, because that is closer to the government than enviroschools. Enviroschools, from what I understand, is a NGO foundation – i.e. the govt provides funding, but doesn’t control content of the course. Brainwashing? I think not. Enviroschools encourages children to think for themselves about environmental issues and think how this spins off into other educational areas.
Do you remember anyone in primary being against the environment? I remember 25 years ago every kid wanted to save the planet. We didn’t have classes telling us it needed to be done.
Every child is idealistic. They all want us to save the planet. The problem is we become jaded as we grow up. We are force to think of our own families and how to feed them today and how to keep a roof over their head tonight. There are surely better places to spend money on teh environment than telling kids something they already believe.
20 local primary students showing up on parlimentary steps is not really a huge event if we are all honest with ourselves. It makes for a good photo op and that is about it. Would a Labour government introduce policy based on the desires of less than 50 primary students? Would we have even seen an MP out there if it had been a collection of middle class white men with a card?
Makes a good photo I suppose.
Geek. It isn’t about tell children what to think about the environment. Enviroschools actually gives the children a way of actually doing something about environmental problems. And way more than 50 primary school children are behind this.
Why are we forced to think of other things? Because “New Zealanders are the passionless people” (don’t ask me who said that), we have no strong beliefs that we stand up for. Particularly on the left (and if we do, it never gains much traction). I was going to lament about the demise of activism – but, meh, I can’t be bothered.