Kate Hawkesby: Problems across the board mean we are losing our mojo as a country

Well it’s been a tough week hasn't it? I mean many of us are still in the post-Covid malaise anyway but bad news makes it worse doesn't it?   We've had principals this week saying they’re worried about families who’ve just vanished due to truancy. So you’ve got large swathes of kids just not showing up for school for a variety of reasons, some of them so random, like they just don't trust the school system anymore. You’ve got farmers infuriated by the emissions scheme being foisted upon them, which they say is going to kill farming and the communities they exist in. You’ve got power and gas prices about to soar even further making it even tougher for our cost of living crisis. Young people don’t seem bothered to work. We had Hospitality NZ CEO Julie White on the show this week and she said for all the advertising and wage hikes and flexibility on offer, they still can’t get Kiwis into hospitality roles. They need 30,000 people and she said whichever way you slice it, it just seems Kiwis don’t want to work. And with school, it seems many parents don’t seem bothered to get their kids back into school. Many who moved to working from home during Covid now want life to stay that way too. So we’ve had this gradual, but really impactful, disconnect in terms of the way we function. We saw it on display this past weekend with the woeful local body election turnout too – literally no one cares. A worse turnout than last time which is hard to believe, but maybe we just need to start believing it. But when it comes to schooling, I’m not sure it’s all truancy because home-schooling, post the pandemic is up 80 percent. That’s huge.  “Northland and Southland have seen the biggest rises, with 91% and 86% increases, respectively,” one report said and then went on to question whether or not these students are actually getting a good enough education. The standard of their education seems in doubt.  Which is a worry; given how low the education standards are right now for the students who do still turn up for classroom teachers. I’m not sure home schooling should be isolated out as potentially any worse. All education standards across the board seem to have slipped these days. But you see it in the general shift in mood in shops, cafes, restaurants and many of the service industries. There seems a lackadaisical approach across the board.  Attitudes are different. The one thing I hear from friends and colleagues who’re travelling overseas is that the rest of the world seems more upbeat, is getting on with it more, is less bogged down in the daily running of life. The bounce back, I’m not talking necessarily economically, I just mean the bounce back in terms of attitude, has happened faster than it has here. So I just don’t know if the future of the workforce and schooling here is now forever changed, and it just is what it is. Or whether we do get our mojo back at some stage. I’m hoping it's the latter. And I’m hoping it starts happening soon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.