The National Party's Education spokesperson says children aren't being taught reading, writing and maths properly, which has led to high failure rates in new literacy and numeracy exams.
A pilot of new examinations which are set to be introduced next year had pass rates of 34 percent in writing, 56 percent in maths, and 64 percent in reading for the year 10 students who sat the test.
National's Erica Stanford says the Ministry is clearly worried about the failure rates, but she says NZQA is doing a good job, and the tests are appropriate.
Corin Dann spoke to Erica Stanford, and started by asking what she would do to improve literacy and numeracy standards at school.
