A Tauranga principal says politicians should be looking at how to improve education rather than tossing national standards policy around like a football.

Otumoetai Primary School principal Geoff Opie says national standards is not the way to improve education and the focus should be on reducing poverty and increasing school resources.

Otumoetai Primary School Principal Geoff Opie says national standards will not create a better education for children.

'The goal of national standards is to raise achievement, but national standards cannot raise achievement.

'To get better education you need good quality teaching and resources and for children to come from a safe and secure environment.”

National standards is used in primary and intermediate schools to rank children aged 5-12 at ‘above', ‘below' or ‘well below' benchmarks in reading, writing and arithmetic.

They were introduced in 2010 by the National-led government after it was promised in the 2008 election.

'These standards were introduced as a way to help identify children who are underperforming when in fact teachers already know who those children are.

'It is, in effect, a way of labeling,” says Geoff.

He says 14 per cent of children are underachieving and the majority of these are from low socio-economic backgrounds.

'Children coming from a deprived background, who come to school in the morning without breakfast, these are the children that are underachieving.

'We need to give children a better start, but there are some parents that are not able to facilitate this.”

National candidate for Tauranga Simon Bridges says one in five children leave school without basic literacy and numeracy skills, and national standards is crucial in ensuring children learn these.

'National standards are signposts that show what children in Years 1- 8 should be able to achieve in reading, writing, and maths, and by when.

'We want to be able to identify children falling behind, and get them the support they need.”

Geoff says national standards fail to recognise the progress made by students within a year group.

'It does not acknowledge the value added factor.

'A child may start the year reading at an eight-year-old level and by the end of the year they may be reading at a 10-year-old level, but they still may not reach the required national standard, and therefore fail.”

Simon says the government is undertaking ongoing evaluation of national standards by ERO and the establishment of a National Standards Sector Advisory Group.

'You still need to know where students are at to be able to bring them up to that level.

'If we don't, before we know it they are at high school and they don't have the required skills.”

He also says the government is investing $36 million to develop programmes for children needing extra support and placing 50 experts in schools to provide specialised help. Green candidate for Tauranga Ian McLean says the Greens are completely against national standards and will scrap them.

'National standards is setting students up for failure by setting one school against another – we want to go back to a system of in-school assessment.”

Labour will ditch the national standards, but will look to keep some form of nationalised progress reporting.

This will include the use of assessment tools to determine where a child is at in relation to the curriculum.

Labour candidate for Tauranga Deborah Mahuta-Coyle says Labour will not make national standards compulsory.

'Having national standards on a whole is something that Labour supports, but we recognise that it cannot work for all schools, especially in lower decile schools.

'We will talk to teachers about changing the national standards framework and give schools the choice.”

New Zealand First candidate for Tauranga Brendan Horan says NZ First will look to change the current national standards through an urgent review.

'Teachers are the experts and we are prepared to listen to them.

'Teachers need to be given the tools to teach to student's needs.

'Parents are the first educators, some parents embrace education and teach their children before they enter school, but it is more difficult for others.”

With national standards, Geoff says parents are provided with more comprehensive and easier to follow progress reports with national standards.

'We are now using graphs that track a child's progress – this includes graphs that track the full six years of their schooling.”

Simon says the lack of plain language reporting to parents is one of the reasons for bringing in national standards.

'As local MP I can tell you that parents I meet with regularly are universally in favour of national standards.

'They greatly appreciate learning in plain language how their children are doing.

'The message from parents very clearly is that they like national standards.”