Education Minister Anne Tolley does not believe opposition against national standards in reading, writing and maths is getting any stronger, despite a vote of no confidence in the policy by the Principals Federation.
About 700 principals from the federation, which represents about 2300 principals, voted almost unanimously as having no confidence in the standards at a conference in Wellington on Saturday.
Mrs Tolley says the Ministry of Education is half way through a three-year period to implement the standards and expects very few schools are refusing to take them up.
She says the federation, which was involved in designing the standards, is the only group that continues to argue against them.
