New Zealand Education and the "Back to Basics" Campaign

There is a movement in educational circles these days which aims to get New Zealand schools "Back to the basics". It has not received much support from those actually working in the education system, but it does have backing further up the political scale. In fact, from those elements who display particularly marked tendencies towards bigotry and reaction it has received a great deal of praise.

Is this just a coincidence? Is the back to basics movement an attempt to safeguard education from wishy-washy liberalism, or is it part of a concerted drive to restrict people's educational potential; to restrict their abilities to think, gain knowledge, question, and widen their economic prospects?