Students from the lowest income households are failing the basics of reading, writing and maths at a truly alarming rate under Labour, National’s Education spokesperson Erica Stanford says.

“The overall pass rates for the new NCEA literacy and numeracy standards are bad enough, with just 64 per cent of students passing for reading, 56 per cent for numeracy and a shocking 34 per cent for writing.

“But the true scale of Labour’s education disaster reveals itself when we look at the results for children from low decile schools.

“For decile 1, fewer than one in four students passed the reading standard, just 10 per cent passed the numeracy standard and, tragically, just 2 per cent were able to pass the basic writing standard.

“The fact just two out of every 100 students in decile 1 high schools could pass a basic writing test should be a national outrage.

“The results for decile 2 students aren’t much better, with pass rates of just 30 per cent for reading, 12 per cent for numeracy and 8.5 per cent for writing.

“A world-class education system should be judged by how well it lifts children from underprivileged backgrounds and provides them with the opportunity to succeed in life. On this measure, Labour is completely failing and has no plan to turn things around.

“The Government urgently needs to get back to basics to ensure that students begin their NCEA journey with the reading, writing and maths skills they need so they don’t continue to fall behind.

“This starts with students spending at least one hour every day on numeracy and literacy in primary school.

“We also need to make sure that children are actually in school. Currently, less than half our kids are attending school regularly, with over 100,000 chronically absent. Attendance is the most important indicator of student achievement and education, but under Labour, school attendance has fallen off a cliff.

“Without urgent change, our literacy and numeracy standards will continue to decline and our children will continue to fall behind the rest of the world. This is not just a social failure but a future economic crisis.

“Labour’s lack of delivery in education is failing an entire generation of children.”