Addressing these groups would both promote productivity and reduce inequality. Our education system is well regarded internationally. We rank 7th among 65 countries in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment that tests high schoolers’ performance across reading, mathematics, and science.
But, we have the greatest difference in reading performance between students from different socio-economic backgrounds out of all OECD countries, and the PISA scores for Maori and Pacific Island students are much lower than the average for students of European descent. Over the past 15 years, unemployment rates for Maori and Pacific Islanders have been three times that for the European population.