The Government's excuses for the appalling literacy and numeracy results simply don’t add up, National's Education spokesperson Erica Stanford says.

“This week the Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti tried to defend the abysmal results of a literacy and numeracy pilot by saying that a survey of teachers thought the test questions were not culturally appropriate.

“The problem with this is that teachers didn’t actually see the tests they were asked to evaluate.

“In fact, the Ministry of Education’s report on the appalling results of the pilot even stated, ‘It is important to note that the survey respondents had not seen the content of the assessment’.

“National has obtained a letter from a principal to Chris Hipkins which says, ‘We have not seen the tests that our students sat, yet we were still asked to comment on the equity and suitability of these?’

“The Associate Minister is trying to shirk the blame for the appalling results that her Government has overseen by saying that questions – unseen by teachers – were not culturally appropriate.

“This is a desperate attempt from Labour to deny that their failings in education have led to just 2 per cent of decile one students passing a foundational literacy assessment.

"Overall, just one-third of students would have attained the minimum grade to pass NCEA, showing that Kiwi kids can't do the basics after five years of Labour.

"Labour is failing a generation of children."