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Dr Ian Hunter was so worried about his first year university students' poor writing skills, that he left academia and started a company to address it.
That was more than a decade ago.
Today, Dr Hunter is still critiquing the way the New Zealand education system fails to focus on the teaching of writing. As discussion continues around the so-called 'common practice model', to be used by all teachers in schools, Dr Hunter argues it the model has one glaring omission - the teaching of writing.
Ian Hunter was an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland in the late 1990s, when he became concerned about the writing ability of first year students.
In 2011, he left academia to found Writer's Toolbox - which now works with 600 schools around the world. Dr Hunter's company this month hosted an Australasian literacy summit of literacy experts also concerned at the teaching of writing in NZ.
