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Nau mai haere mai – welcome to your latest newsletter.
Declining scores by New Zealand school students in international tests for literacy, science and maths recently prompted the Principals’ Federation to call for more curriculum leadership from the Ministry of Education. It’s a big and complex issue, but Massey University educationalist Christine Braid suggests one area the ministry might make a noticeable difference would be better guidance on the teaching of handwriting and spelling. These seemingly simple skills, she writes, are actually the foundations on which so much higher learning is built, and declining ability could be a “canary in the education coal mine”.
There is plenty more to read here and on our homepage, including tourism expert Michael Lueck’s proposal for a genuinely fair green tax on visitors, and Alexander Gillespie’s comprehensive analysis of what has changed in New Zealand since the atrocity of March 15, 2019 – and, sadly, what hasn’t.
Until next time, mā te wā and all the best.
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Finlay Macdonald
New Zealand Senior Editor & NZ Editor: Politics, Business + Arts
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www.shutterstock.com
Christine Braid, Massey University
Kiwi school kids are not consistently taught letter formation or spelling the way they once were. But these simple skills are part of the foundations of higher learning.
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www.shutterstock.com
Michael Lueck, Auckland University of Technology
A departure tax based on length of stay, not distance travelled, would be a more effective sustainable tourism strategy.
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GettyImages
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato
As New Zealand marks the second anniversary of the March 15 atrocity, the general terror threat has increased and doubts persist about police and security agency preparedness.
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Shutterstock/Oleksiy Mark
Susan Krumdieck, University of Canterbury
Green hydrogen produced using New Zealand's mostly renewable electricity sounds like a great idea, but a high-tech smart rail and urban tram network is a more obvious and sustainable option.
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Where next for the WHO?
kcube - Baytur/Shutterstock
Gemma Ware, The Conversation; Daniel Merino, The Conversation
Plus a round-up of the coronavirus situation around the world marking one year since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Listen to Episode 6 of The Conversation Weekly.
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Shutterstock/Sunny studio
Catherine Knight, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Even a short walk in nature can relieve mental fatigue and anxiety. With most of us living in cities, we need urban parks more than ever to take care of our well-being during the pandemic.
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Shutterstock/The Conversation
Rayner Thwaites, University of Sydney
The alleged Islamic State 'terrorist' was deprived of her citizenship under a now-abandoned automatic process, without any Australian official evaluating her case.
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From our international editions
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Camilla Nelson, University of Notre Dame Australia
Ending Canberra’s toxic culture is the rallying point, but women are also taking to the streets because these failures are connected to a systemic culture of sexism in law, politics and policy-making.
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Brendan Clift, The University of Melbourne
Porter claims even though he wasn't named in the ABC article, he was easily identifiable to many Australians. For the ABC, the defences to defamation are notoriously difficult to establish.
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Will Cornwell, UNSW; Casey Kirchhoff, UNSW; Mark Ooi, UNSW
Community scientists have been photographing animals and plants in the months after the Black Summer fires. Each observation is a story of survival against the odds, or of tragedy.
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Matthew Valasik, Louisiana State University ; Shannon Reid, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
New members are joining and some are leaving – as right-wing groups reorganize, scholars of the movement foresee increased polarization, with a risk of more violence.
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Andrew Christ, University of Vermont; Paul Bierman, University of Vermont
This ancient ecosystem showed that the ice sheet had melted to the ground
in northern Greenland within the past million years.
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Ammar Azzouz, University of Oxford
After ten years of conflict and destruction, what is left of Syria and what hope is there for its people?
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Alexandra Langford, Australia-Indonesia Centre; Hasnawati Saleh, Australia-Indonesia Centre; Scott Waldron, The University of Queensland; Sulfahri, Australia-Indonesia Centre
Satellite data reveals increased seaweed production during the COVID-19 pandemic
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Nathalie Reid, University of Regina; Jerome Cranston, University of Regina
Provinces have struggled to mitigate the COVID-19 health concerns of full-time and substitute teachers. The need for substitutes has increased, but fewer are available.
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Ben Huang, University of British Columbia
Infectious dysentery, usually found in developing countries with poor living conditions, is turning up in Vancouver's most marginalized neighbourhood.
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Hakeem Onapajo, Nile University of Nigeria
In the past five years, the rise of banditry and terror attacks have had devastating effects on children in northern Nigeria.
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