Turning the tide on maths proficiency

On 12 May, the Government announced that they would invest almost $100m over four years to improve student achievement in maths. Over half the investment will fund the equivalent of 143 new full-time maths intervention teachers to support children in years 0 to 6 who are not achieving at curriculum level. The rest will be spent on small-group maths tutoring for up to 34,000 year 7 to 8 students each year starting next year, and the development and implementation of a new Maths Check for lower primary students so that from next year every child will have their maths ability checked in their first two years of schooling to identify students who need additional support.

This Government has also instituted a ban on mobile phone use in state schools and has undertaken the most significant changes to the curricula and assessment system since 2007, including a change to the maths curriculum for years 0 to 8. Do school students need this extra maths teaching support, and will the broader changes make any difference?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial, global assessment that evaluates the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in mathematics, reading, and science. It measures how well students can apply their knowledge in real-world contexts and assesses skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. A random sample of schools and students within those schools is selected to ensure the results are representative of the student population in each country.

The data collected in PISA allows for international comparisons of educational outcomes and helps identify trends in student performance. New Zealand participated in PISA for the first time in 2000.

With a PISA score of 479, the 2022 PISA results show New Zealand 15-year-old students’ proficiency in mathematics was just below the OECD average of 480. However, New Zealand used to be well above the OECD average with a score of 523 in 2003 compared with the average of 502. This means that between 2003 and 2022, New Zealand students’ proficiency in mathematics declined both in absolute and in relative terms (see Chart 1).

Just as worrying is that New Zealand has seen a widening gap between high and low achievers. Between 2018 to 2022, almost all New Zealand students became less proficient in maths, but low-achievers declined more than high-achievers. New Zealand's results also showed the gap between students from the highest and lowest socioeconomic backgrounds had widened. Socio-economic status is a predictor of performance in mathematics in all PISA participating countries and economies

Even more concerning is that the Ministry of Education said the 2022 sample of students sitting PISA tests was skewed toward higher performers. New Zealand's results were likely about 10 points higher than they would have been with a truly representative sample.

However, the Secondary Principals' Association has called into question the validity of the PISA tests. Students, they said, are not motivated to do well in the PISA tests because there is no qualification associated with them.

2022 PISA results show that 71% of 15-year-old New Zealand students attained at least Level 2 proficiency in mathematics compared with the OECD average of 69%. New Zealand is well below the top-performing countries with over 85% of students in Singapore, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Estonia performing at this level or above.

Also in 2022, 10% of 15-year-old students in New Zealand were top performers in mathematics, meaning that they attained Level 5 or 6, which compares well to the OECD average of 9%. However, New Zealand compares poorly with 41% in Singapore, 32% in Taiwan, 29% in China, 27% in Hong Kong, 23% in Japan and 23% in South Korea.

The gap between New Zealand and the OECD average narrowed drastically between the 2009 and 2013 PISA tests. New Zealand’s decline has tracked alongside a decline in the OECD average ever since (see Chart 1). Education researcher Nina Hood from the University of Auckland said that several factors were likely to blame for New Zealand's declining results post-2009, including a curriculum change in 2007 that put more emphasis on skills and less on content knowledge, and a change in the way maths was taught in primary schools in the 2000s.

Dr Hood also pointed to the increasing use of technology by students both in and out of schools as a reason for declining scores. The 2022 survey found almost half of New Zealand students got distracted using digital devices in class. Maths scores were adversely affected by students who used digital devices for leisure such as social media, browsing the internet, or games. However, learning outcomes were often better for students who used digital devices for learning than for those who never used them, which suggests a blanket ban on mobile phones does not recognise the benefits that digital devices can bring to learning when used properly.

Between 2019 and 2022, maths scores dropped in many OECD countries, including New Zealand. The OECD attributed the drop in scores between 2019 and 2022 to disruptions to learning resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The PISA assessment included surveys of students and principals that gathered data about background factors in schools, which give insights into the reasons for declining scores.

In 2022, a quarter of New Zealand students were in schools where the principals said they had inadequate or poorly qualified teaching staff, up from 16% in the previous round of testing in 2018, and nearly half were in schools that struggled to hire teachers. The results also showed countries that maintained good results had fewer school closures due to COVID-19. During remote learning, some New Zealand students said they had problems understanding school assignments, finding someone who could help them with schoolwork, and finding the motivation to learn. Despite recent attention to poor attendance rates in New Zealand schools, the PISA results showed a weak relationship between attendance and maths scores.

We should see an improvement in PISA maths scores this year, given that much of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us. Changes the current Government is making to the curriculum and teacher numbers, will take longer to show in the results.

Increasing the number of maths teachers in primary schools by 143 full-time equivalents (FTEs) looks like a good way to address declining maths proficiency. Trying to improve the scores of 15-year-olds would be too little too late. The Government seems to recognise that you need to reach kids early. The Government has also said that the support will be targeted. Quite so. The 143 FTEs will be spread across more than 1,800 primary schools nationally. Effective targeting of this support on lower achieving students will hopefully result in more equality in PISA results in years to come. However, 143 maths teachers do not address the fundamental shortage of teachers in New Zealand. The Ministry of Education’s Teacher Demand and Supply 2024 Report projects there to be a national shortage of 1,250 teachers in 2025 (around 2% of the workforce), 750 of which will be in primary schools. By 2027, there is projected to be a surplus of primary school teachers but a continued shortage of secondary school teachers.

It remains to be seen whether longer-term issues such as curriculum content and design and mobile phone bans will have a positive impact on average scores. The 2007 changes to the curriculum seem to have had a significant effect, but not a positive one.