Election 2023: National leader Christopher Luxon on campaign trail in Tauranga
Christopher Luxon stopped to cycle on a static Zespri Aims Games bike in Tauranga today. Photo / Alex Cairns
National Party leader Christopher Luxon has announced an education policy promising minimum literacy standards and visited the Aims Games on the campaign trail in Tauranga.
Speaking at Taumata School in Pyes Pa, he said schools needed minimum standards for what is taught in reading, writing, maths and science.
“The problem in New Zealand is our literacy rates have been steadily declining in recent years,” Luxon said.
Schools in low-decile schools are two years behind high-decile counterparts.
Luxon said structured literacy would be mandatory.
Read more: Christopher Luxon and Erica Stanford at the ‘transformational’ structured literacy announcement
Earlier, Luxon dropped in for the last day of the Zespri Aims Games in Tauranga on the campaign trail today.
He was accompanied by Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell and National’s Bay of Plenty candidate, Tom Rutherford.
Tauranga’s biggest annual event, the sporting event kicked off last weekend with more than 22000 intermediate-aged competitors, officials and supporters from 373 schools descending on the city.
In Mount Maunganui, Luxon was welcomed by Aims Games Trust chairman Henk Popping and tournament director Kelly Schiscka.
The man gunning to be the next Prime Minister spoke to competitors, shaking their hands, asking what they were competing in, how much practise they had done for their sports, and how far they had travelled for the games.
He asked the students if they would be watching the All Blacks game tomorrow morning against France and what they thought the score would be.
He also spent time at the netball courts at Blake Park and the rugby fields where he spoke to rugby players from John Paul College in Rotorua, asking if they’d enjoyed the tournament.
Joining a competitor, Luxon had a go at cycling on a static Zespri Aims Games bike that was connected to a blender to make the “perfect smoothie”.
Later he took a seat in the rugby stands to watch a match.
More to come.