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The development of state education in New Zealand has been shaped by social and political interactions between Māori as tangata whenua of the land, missionaries, settlers, voluntary organisations and those charged with consolidating central state control. While the initiatives and systems were driven by colonial ambitions to protect and civilise the indigenous people through assimilation, and install a model of education based on European concepts of the purposes and delivery of learning, there have been times when Māori actively engaged with the process to retain their traditional knowledge and language. Examples of this were Māori participation in the early missions schools, contestation and resistance against many processes of Native schools and the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Māori. Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, New Zealand became a British Crown Colony, and by 1852 the state of New Zealand had assumed a full legislative role in education. A series of acts of parliament attempted to resolve differences between competing interests as the country faced social, cultural and economic challenges. This has continued, arguably, as a desire for democratic and progressive education and the creation and ongoing reform of an education system that aims to reduce inequalities and enable social mobility. As a response to criticism of the education system and the role of the state in managing and delivering equitable learning, there were radical reforms in the late 1980s. These changes resulted in the establishment of self-managing schools and a decentralisation of the system, with the Department of Education being replaced by the Ministry of Education whose role has been to implement government reforms. Some of these, in governance models for schools, assessment and reporting, class sizes, payroll, school closures and building maintenance, have been controversial.

Origins of primary schools

Traditional Māori education system

Before the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand, Māori had a system of knowledge sharing and application that was learned from elders. This ensured that there were enough people with the skills to fish, hunt, maintain communities and develop crafts such as weaving and basketry. Specific skills such as those for wood carving were taught by experts and tribal law was passed on in whare wananga or houses of learning. In Māori society at the time, understanding, respecting and appropriately applying the restrictions around tapu was seen as an essential aspect of education. Waiata, whakataukī (proverbs), pūrākau (stories) and whakapapa (genealogy) transmitted "history, values and models of behaviour." This educational system has been described as "sophisticated and functional...[with a]...strong knowledge base, and a dynamic ability to respond to changing needs and new challenges".

Mission schools

The case has been made that when Māori first made contact with a Western European education system, the relationship was characterised by tension as different world views, and at times, contradictory ways of teaching and learning needed to be negotiated. The first school along European lines for Māori in New Zealand was established in 1816 by the missionary Thomas Kendall of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, at Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands. The school had 33 students when it opened and the roll peaked at 70 within a year. The curriculum was described as "mainly rote learning of the alphabet and syllables, missionary-constructed Māori grammar, and catechisms". Due to issues with attendance and food supplies, the original school closed in 1818 but resumed a year later at Kerikeri. While the missionaries saw literacy as the way to teach the scriptures, Māori were said to have become "increasingly interested in learning to read and write...[and]... understanding the new European world with its tall sailing ships, firearms and iron tools".

Early state legislation

Constitution Act 1852

This divided New Zealand into provinces and provincial councils were given responsibility for education, with some financing denominational schools rather than establishing public schools. The six provinces, Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury and Otago determined funding for curriculum and enrolment matters. It has been said that provincial councils managed education differently because each had challenges in "developing a regional infrastructure to support settlement".

Education Ordinance 1847

In 1847, the governor of New Zealand, George Grey, took steps to support the existing network of mission schools through the Educational Ordinance 1847. This outlined the principles for education in New Zealand, including provision for government inspection and a requirement that "English language would become an integral part of the New Zealand education system for all, including Māori whose first language was Māori". It has been said that the intention of this was to assimilate Māori based on the prevailing belief at the time of the superiority of British civilisation with education seen as a means of "pacifying Māori...[and in]...providing a potential labouring class to help build the young colony". Another researcher described The Education Ordinance Act [as] a "way of disguising a policy, with aims of social control, assimilation and a means to further establish British rule in New Zealand...[and]...the first of several policies which would serve to see the Māori language being pushed out of schools in favour of English".

Native Schools Act 1858

This Act enabled income for the mission schools while stipulating that Māori students must attend as boarders. Numbers of Maori attending these schools were not high by 1850, and because the government struggled to find the funds, most of the mission schools were closed in the 1860s. In the 1850s about 25% of Pākehā could not read or write, and another 14% could only read. Some schools were set up by religious groups, and others by provincial governments. Nelson and Otago had more efficient and better funded education systems than northern provinces such as Auckland. However the Auckland Board of Education was set up 1857 under the Education Act of that year, and had 45 schools by 1863.

Native Schools Act 1867

Under this Act, a system of secular village primary schools, controlled by the Department of Native Affairs was established. Māori communities could request a school for their children and contribute land and pay toward building costs and teachers' salaries. In spite of this cost, many Māori communities saw the value of learning English and there were 57 Native schools in the country by 1979. In establishing secular, state-controlled schools, The Act took responsibility for Māori schooling away from the missionaries. To some, the lawmakers were seen as having good intentions to "civilise" Māori and teach them "Pākehā ways and knowledge", and the process could be seen as supporting Māori in "developing and rebuilding their language, beliefs and values and creating the initiatives to do that". Paul Moon said the Act was an "assimilationist measure" by the government in response to pressure from missionaries to replace te reo Māori in schools with English. Another researcher noted that "readings of the Māori Schools Bill in 1867 had received much debate in parliament but received acceptance as it appeared that some politicians had genuine concern for Māori interests, but the bill was accepted for purely economic reasons and as a further means of social control". Historian Alan Ward said that while the Act continued the "ideas of racial and cultural superiority", there was an element of altruism in it being an attempt by the government to "develop a system of integrated, rather than segregated schooling based on race".

Native Schools Code 1880

In 1879, Native schools came under control of the newly created Department of Education, rather than the Native Department, and effectively operated within a system separate from public schools. The Department of Education was briefed with focussing on curriculum issues and teaching quality, with the goal of assimilating Māori into a state education system that to some extent reflected an 1879 report to the Minister of Education which explicitly stated that te Reo Māori "ought to be very little, if at all", used in any schools. This along with concerns about the quality of teaching, led to the establishment of the Native Schools Code in 1880 by James Pope, the organising inspector of schools. Pope's vision for the future of Māori education in the country was for the establishment of state schools, requiring Maori communities to contribute land and money toward their maintenance. A curriculum was established that consisted of reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, but with a strong focus on the importance of English and publications that were disseminated [and] "designed to set expectations in the Native Schools and their surrounding Māori communities as to what the cultural, literary and social ideals were to which Māori should aspire". Teachers were expected to be "role models for the entire Māori community, therefore linking with the assimilation policy".

Education Act 1877

In 1876 the provinces were abolished, resulting in a move toward a "centralist education system", and the passing of the Education Act 1877 which established New Zealand's first secular, compulsory and free national system of primary education. Under the Act it became compulsory for Pākehā children from ages 7 to 13 to attend primary school and while the Act did not apply to Māori children, they had the option of attending these schools. The Act also sought to establish standards of quality of education as schools varied greatly in their resources and approaches. Before this time children attended schools governed by provincial governments or church or private schools. As with all legislation, the Act's effectiveness depended on its practicability and the resources to enforce it. Many children continued to face difficulties with attending school, especially those from rural areas where their manual labour was important to families. There was a standardised curriculum [that]..."consisted of reading, writing, arithmetic, history and geography, plus sewing and needlework for girls and military drill for boys". The School Attendance Act 1894 confirmed "every child between the age of seven years and the age of thirteen years is hereby required to attend some public school at least six times a week, morning attendances and afternoon attendances being separately counted".

The 1877 Act made some difference to Māori and women, enabling a small proportion to proceed to higher education. For example, over 500 Māori girls went to Hukarere Native School for Girls in the Hawke's Bay region between 1877 and 1900. Apirana Ngata went to Te Aute College at the age of 10 in 1884, won a scholarship and was the first Māori to graduate in a New Zealand university, later becoming a leading politician.

The Act effectively distinguished primary from secondary education: learning in the early years was a universal right, and access to secondary schools was strictly limited.

Early secondary schools

Secondary schooling was not covered by the 1877 Act, but at that time there were schools at this level established by the New Zealand Company, Provincial Councils, private funders and a small number of Māori denomination boarding schools which had originally been mission schools under the Education Ordinance of 1847. Some elementary schools that had added higher classes were also recognised as District High Schools under the 1877 Education Act.

Nelson College which opened on 7 April 1856, is regarded as the first state secondary school in New Zealand.

Around 1900, this level of education was generally for the wealthy elite who intended to go to university or enter professional careers, and it was not free. In 1901, less than 3 percent of those aged between 12 and 18 attended public secondary schools. An additional 5 percent attended district high schools (as they were known) or a Standard 7 class. Educational opportunities improved from around 1902 when secondary schools were given grants to admit more pupils.

Changes by the Secretary of Education, George Hogben, raised the leaving age to 14, and the Secondary Schools Act 1903 required secondary schools to offer free education to all those who "obtained a certificate of competency in the subjects of Standard V". The Education Act 1914 created a "national system for grading and appointing teachers...[and confirmed] secondary schools [were required] to offer free education to those who passed a proficiency examination, with grants paid to schools for these pupils". The Certificate of Proficiency became the major determinant of job and career opportunities. By 1921 nearly 13 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds attended a secondary institution (usually for at least two years) and five years later in 1926, and still in 1939, 25 percent did so.

Most schools continued to attempt to offer a curriculum with strong traditional and authoritarian elements. Schools attempted to balance a 'civilising' cultural and moral education with 'utilitarian', vocational training needs.

Introduction of technical high schools

An attempt to address workforce training needs was made early in the 20th century by introducing technical high schools. They offered practical, vocationally-orientated training. However, they were not a success. Traditional secondary schools were seen by parents as providing a pathway into high-status professions, and a better life. Technical schools were regarded as being for the less-able. The Manual and Technical Institutions Acts of 1900 and 1902 did, however, result in the establishment of technical high schools and "the provision of funding to all schools that introduced subjects such as cooking, woodwork and agriculture".

There was a trend for greater emphasis on vocational training during the 1920s and 1930s, which was part of a modern Western trend in the first half of the century away from spiritual, moral and cultural education to a focus on the education of the workforce.

Prior to the 1940s, students were receiving varying curricula within different types of secondary schools. In 1926 a quarter of secondary students went to technical schools, 2 percent to Māori schools (which emphasised manual skills), 12 percent went to district or agricultural high schools, 10 percent to private schools (including Catholic schools), and just over 50 percent went to state secondary schools.

The Thomas Report, 1944

The Atmore Report, 1930 was an important landmark document, and many of the measures recommended in this were finally supported by the Labour Prime Minister Peter Fraser who pushed through major reforms in the late 1930s and 1940s.

From 1944, as part of the post-Depression era Labour Government's 'Cradle to Grave' social reforms, secondary education was free and made compulsory up to the age of 15.

The Thomas Report of 1944 was the document which established a common, core and free secondary curriculum for all. This remained in place for fifty years. It introduced School Certificate - examinations sat at the end of Fifth Form, and abolished Matriculation, replacing it with University Entrance - a set of examinations sat at end of Sixth Form. The syllabus material was drawn from both practical and academic strands, with the added aim of catering for students of widely differing abilities, interests, and backgrounds. Despite the core curriculum including literacy, numeracy, science, social studies, physical education and arts and crafts, it was argued that the practices of gender differentiation and streaming ran counter to the rhetoric of equality. Teachers believed that students learned better when streamed into different ability classes as measured by a limited assessment of intelligence IQ. Streams were divided into academic, commercial, and domestic or trades, and students received different versions of the core curriculum.

A number of factors in the post-World War Two era challenged the goals of egalitarian educational opportunities and many students' experiences were still divided by class, race, gender, religion and geography. For example, in 1953, 40 percent of Maori continued to attend Maori primary schools and in 1969 a study of the private Auckland Grammar school demonstrated that only 1 percent came from working and lower-middle-class backgrounds.

Mid 20th century

The Currie Report

In 1960, a Commission on Education in New Zealand was set up by the government to report on a wide range of matters within the country's education system. The Commission, chaired by George Currie, vice-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand at the time, was asked to "examine primary, secondary and technical education in relation to the present needs of the country", and after hearing five hundred submissions, eight areas of concern were identified. These included training and conditions of service for teachers, possible re-structuring of school administration, acknowledging that education of Māori needed to reflect "equality of opportunity", monitoring of the quality of school work through assessment practices, reviewing the legal basis for religious education in schools and government aid to private schools.

In 1962 the Commission's produced its findings in the Currie Report. With over eight hundred pages and more than three hundred recommendations, the Report was noted by one writer as "a full-length study of the education system...the most comprehensive exercise in educational planning so far undertaken in New Zealand", and acknowledged as a key policy statement with recommendations for legislation, including the Education Act (1964) which later lowered the compulsory school starting age from 7 years to 6 years. Summarising progress in the implementation of the Commissions recommendations in 1972, John Ewing, a former lecturer in education at Victoria University of Wellington and Chief Inspector of Primary Schools, noted that at the time, 134 of the 328 recommendations had been fully implemented, 155 were being considered or implemented in part and 39 had failed to gain support. The writer suggested that changes were on a "broad front...[largely because]...the Commission recognised, supported, and encouraged the main trends and tendencies in the growth of the system [explaining why] a great many of the changes...were expansions of existing services". A study in 1978 claimed that the areas covered by the Commission were "too extensive...too numerous...and beyond all financial resources to be of much practical value", but noted that almost a quarter of the recommendation in the Report "related to the recruitment, training and working conditions of teachers". A recommendation for smaller class sizes was put on hold until the changes were made to teacher training and there was little support for suggested modifications to the administrative structure of the education system. The transfer of Māori schools to the education boards was speedily implemented, but some recommendations, such as the "extended use of standardised tests as an alternative to 'checkpoint' tests...were modified in action in ways the Commission could not have forseen". Ewing concluded:

On the whole, the Currie Commission endeavoured to build on to the living and growing system. It wisely avoided laying out a blueprint for the next half century, with all the difficulties, shortcomings, and imponderables that such a task [involved]. It planned very largely from what existed, and this [gave] strength to its findings. Most of its recommendations...led to action and change, and some of them...absorbed into the new machinery of educational planning.

Later commentators agreed the Report was generally uncritical and expressed and reinforced "what it took [at the time] to be a national consensus about the development, aims and the role of the education system". The Commission's findings were noted as unanimous and showed no disagreement with themes that underpinned New Zealand educational goals and beliefs at the time. These held that the key goal of schooling was to provide equality of educational equality, the system was moving toward this, changes were beneficial and the state should continue to "provide and control education in the system". This situated the Report within the context of a shared belief in the 1950s and 1960s in New Zealand that education was one of the state welfare reforms [that] "in the interests of social equality was widely regarded as a central and distinctive aspect of New Zealand's national identity...[reflecting]...a democratic and egalitarian aspiration". Postwar New Zealand was seen as stable with little criticism of the state, which "led many educational commentators and historians to celebrate the gradual progress and potential benefits of public education in New Zealand".

Education Conference 1974

During the 1970s there were increasing calls to review the nature and direction of the centralised education system. The two-year Educational Conference completed in 1974, convened by the then Minister of Education Phil Amos, was a consultation process [involving]..."50,000 parents, teachers, administrators and interested laypeople...debating many aspects of the education system". It encouraged more participation by parents and the wider community in educational decision-making and concluded that there were issues of alienation and frustration within the bureaucracy which they felt was "vast, ponderous and unresponsive, particularly to the special needs of women and girls, Maori and other minorities all of whom were gaining a new assertiveness in this period". The Conference also questioned whether there was equality of opportunity and suggested targeting funding to support the groups in society who were being disadvantaged. Emanating from the Conference was The Working Party on Organisation and Administration (1974) chaired by Arnold Nordmeyer. In their report, some of the key recommendations, which were effectively calls for devolution of the centralised system, suggested more involvement by parents in primary school committees and secondary boards of governors.

Further reports

Other reports raised concerns about education in New Zealand. Towards Partnership, known as the McComb Report (1976), said that flaws in the system included the lack of parental involvement and too much power concentrated in the Department of Education; and the Scott Report, An Inquiry into the Quality of Teaching (1986), noted that for teacher training to be effective, there needed to be research-based components that clearly identified the required theoretical and practical teaching skills.

Integration, 1975 to 1984

Main article: State-integrated school

Māori education 1960 to 1990

During the 1960s there was a growing awareness that the education system in New Zealand was not meeting the needs of Māori children. The report by Jack Hunn in 1961, known as the Hunn Report, presented data that showed under achievement of Māori in education. The Report recommended a change from assimilation to integration, but little changed because at the time there was a deficit explanation for this that said the problems were largely the result of Māori having "culturally deprived backgrounds". It was recommended that state intervention to address achievement issues should focus on enriching English programmes to overcome this deficit. The Hunn Report also suggested that due to urbanisation of Māori, the separate schools established under the Native Schools Act 1867 were no longer necessary and should be absorbed into the state school system. This concept was supported by the Currie Report in 1962, and by 1969 all Native schools had been "absorbed or closed". Politician Matiu Rata said he was surprised how smoothly the transition had happened without major criticism, but Hirini Mead who had taught in Native Schools said that the "wholesale transfer" to education board control "came as a shock and betrayal". Linda Tuhiwai Smith however, held that while the native schools did to some extent fulfill the goal "to Europeanise, and thereby civilise Māori", this was contested by Māori who engaged "in education as an intervention into the conditions that colonisation had provided for them...[in a way that was]...remarkable for its perseverance and optimism".

While the Currie Report did reinforce the idea current at the time that the New Zealand education system was making good progress in achieving its goal of equality of opportunity for all students, it also identified Māori as a group not being well served by the system, although no recommendations were made to address this. One reviewer noted the Commission of Enquiry that brought about the Currie Report was not asked specifically to examine Māori education, [but] "everywhere it looked...it saw that overhead, above the ordinary difficulties facing every child and every school, Māori children and Māori Schools had special difficulties...[with]...a very great effort needed now by all concerned for the education of...Māori children".

During the latter half of the 1960s, there was growing support for greater recognition of Māori language, led by groups such as Nga Tamatoa and a petition organised by Patu Hohepa in 1967 which stated that Māori language "forms part of our national heritage".

By the 1970s the state had moved toward recognition of diversity through establishing multicultural programmes and the introduction of taha Māori into some schools in an effort to "quieten Māori resistance based on their culture...[but]...did nothing to challenge the unequal power relations between Māori and non-Māori". The Educational Development Conference 1974 concluded that there were inequities in society that were being reflected in the education system, [which suggested] "the goal of equality of opportunity was not being realised". The Māori Organisation on Human Rights supported calls by New Zealand Māori Council that the NZ's education system [needed] "to put a positive evaluation on Maori identity", by making its own submissions to the 1974 Development Conference. Protest by Māori was increasing and the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1973 highlighted the fact that there was little knowledge of the Treaty in the school curriculum. As Māori questioned how the state could preserve their culture, the importance of the language became paramount and in 1982 the first Te Kohanga Reo immersion language pre-school was opened. The Waitangi Tribunal recognised that the language needed to be recognised and protected under the Treaty in 1985, and in that year the first Māori language school, Kura Kaupapa Māori, was established at Hoani Waititi Marae in Auckland. These schools were recognised under the Education Amendment Act 1989.

While the goals of Te Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Māori were initially about the survival of the language, they did become part of a wider movement encapsulated in the 2003 Ministry of Education's Māori strategic plan that positioned such initiatives as a means of self-determination for Māori to have full access to their culture, language, resources and tikanga. Graham Hingangaroa Smith saw this as a "shift in mindset of large numbers of Māori people...[to being proactive and motivated]...in a reawakening of the Māori imagination that had been stifled and diminished by colonisation processes".

1980s and 1990s reforms

Against the backdrop of issues raised in the 1970s, New Zealand education underwent major reforms in the 1980s. There was said to be a challenge, by both a "radical left-wing critique that highlighted the continuing inequalities of education" and a 'New Right' to the consensus of the time that the state was beneficent and efficient. The questioning of whether state mechanisms were "disinterested upholders of the public good" was said to have allowed a "common policy discourse centering on the need for radical structural reforms in education...by an ideologically disparate coalition of interests".

The 1984 - 1990 Labour government led by David Lange, introduced a range of free market, neoliberal economic reforms and some of the briefings and documents at the time indicated this approach was likely to be reflected in the education reforms. In 1987 New Zealand Treasury produced a brief to the Labour government, the second part of which dealt exclusively with education. The paper acknowledged that much of the state system was functioning, but raised concerns that some government interventions into education had resulted in inequitable institutional and financing structures which disadvantaged large numbers of students. For primary school education, government intervention was seen as necessary in the interests of equity of outcomes, equality of opportunity and "values clarification", with attention being drawn to the importance of a strong partnership between families and schools

The document also noted significantly that..."in the technical sense used by economists, education [was] not in fact a 'public good", [is] "never free...[and]...educational services are like other goods traded in the market place".

In April 1987 the Labour government released The Curriculum Review after two years of community consultation and debate. It proposed guidelines for a national curriculum to be "accessible to every student; non-racist and non-sexist; able to ensure significant success for all students; whole; balanced; of the highest quality for every student; planned; co-operatively designed; responsive, inclusive, enabling, enjoyable". While the document was viewed favourably within the education sector, the Treasury said that it did not deal with the relationship between education and the economy or have an approach to manage the issues of consumer choice. One commentator noted that this Review was not acknowledged in any way, in what was to become a major reform process beginning with the establishment of The Taskforce to Review Education Administration that produced Administering for Excellence, known as the Picot Report.

Administering for Excellence

Further information: Picot task force

A businessman Brian Picot was chair of the Taskforce and other members were Associate Professor Peter Ramsay a prominent educational researcher and critic of "bureaucratic conservatism"; Margaret Rosemergy a Wellington Teachers College lecturer and chair of the Onslow College Board of Governors; Whetumarama Wereta from the Department of Māori Affairs, a "social researcher of Ngāi Te Rangi-Ngāti Ranginui descent who had served on the Royal Commission on the Electoral System"; and Colin Wise, a Dunedin businessman with "educational experience as a University of Otago Council member and a past member of a secondary school board of governors".

The final report, Administering for excellence, was released in April 1988. The Report identified five main issues of concern in New Zealand's education system: "over-centralisation of decision-making; complexity; lack of information and choice; lack of effective management practices; and feeling of powerlessness among parents, communities and practitioners". The Taskforce recommended the replacement of the Department of Education by a Ministry of Education and the abolition of regional regional education boards. It further suggested that "all schools to become autonomous, self-managing learning institutions, controlled by locally elected boards of trustees, responsible for learning outcomes, budgeting, and the employment of teachers". The Report acknowledged the role of biculturalism in education and claimed "that the new structure it recommended would help achieve Māori aspirations".

Tomorrow's Schools

In August 1988 the newly re-elected Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand, with David Lange as Minister of Education, published Tomorrow's Schools which accepted most of the recommendations of the Picot Report.

The government replaced the Department of Education with new bodies. The Ministry of Education (MoE) was to provide policy advice to, the Minister of Education without becoming a direct provider of educational services. Other functions of the MoE included reviewing the curriculum, establishing national guidelines for education, approving charters and managing capital works in schools. The Education Review Office (ERO) was to be an independent review agency that ensured charter goals were achieved and the Boards of Trustees were to be responsible for establishing charters as a "contract between the community, the school and the state" with the goal of establishing more autonomy for schools. Other bodies that later came to be recognised included the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and The Tertiary Education Commission. The changes reflected concerns expressed in the Picot report about too much middle management in education and the new system was said to "enable greater community involvement" because Boards of Trustees, drawn from the community, would directly administer schools.

Legislation giving effect to the changes came with the passing of the Education Act 1989. Under this Act Regional Boards, which had been set up by Provincial Governments and split into 12 (reduced to 10 by 1966) Education Boards in 1877, were abolished. Schools became autonomous entities, managed by Boards of Trustees and as of 2023, this model continues. In 1989, the school leaving age was raised from 15 years to 16 years taking effect from 1 January 1993.

Reception and commentary on the reforms

The New Zealand Government commissioned Reforming education ; the New Zealand experience, 1984-1996, an independent history of the reforms in 1998. The authors acknowledged that while the changes were radical, they did reflect a debate about the role of the state in providing education.

The Picot Report of 1988 was seen by one commentator as a "high-level initiative" that acknowledged and responded to increasingly complex social political issues which had led to criticisms of the education system from a variety of interests, including those with a neoliberalism agenda to radical Marxist. The author concluded that the work of the Picot-led Taskforce to Review Education Administration, [was] "an important attempt to restore public confidence in the ability of the state education system to create social equality" in spite of some divergence from the "liberal-progressive assumptions" reflected in the Currie Report of 1962.

One school of thought held that the changes were driven by free market ideologies that had been imported into New Zealand following similar reforms in the United Kingdom and Australia and which aligned with the neoliberal reform programmes of the 1984 - 1990 Labour government. The paper claimed that, driven by the New Zealand Treasury, it was a battle between "New Right agencies" and the principles of "Welfare Labourism" that had originated with the first Labour Government of 1935–1949, "as part of its political commitment to the creation of a just and more equitable society...[with]...education at the centre of its plans for social, political, and economic transformation". This author continued that Treasury was by the 1980s "the ideological agency for the propagation of the principles and concepts of the New Right into areas of social and educational policy...[and their brief to the incoming government in 1987]...demonstrated an unprecedented attempt by Treasury officials to influence the direction and nature of future education policy in New Zealand". Supporting this position, another commentator maintained that New Zealand had an historical commitment to establishing an educational system based on fairness, equality of opportunity and choice, yet the reforms highlighted a paradox between the "apparent commitment to the social goals of both equity and choice in the pursuit of greater efficiencies" that created a dilemma for the government when designing and implementing such radical changes.

Although representatives from the New Zealand Treasury and the State Services Commission(SSC), two agencies that review and assist coordinating government policies, were only invited to participate in the Picot Taskforce from the second meeting and then without voting rights, the impact and influence of both organisations on the reforms of the New Zealand education system has been a source of debate. A paper by two academics maintained that while Treasury had an ongoing interest in education, the SSC had a "far more powerful and direct influence on the education system", a perspective that the authors said was "neglected in the face of the neo-liberal argument". The argument was that while the Treasury saw "responsiveness, choice and competition" as the key elements of educational reform, the brief of the SSC was for more accountability and effectiveness of the State education system, with little overlap between the two positions. In moving in the direction of reforming education by changing the machinery of government, the SSC took a strong position that the problem was one of "producer capture" in the sector and its brief was to advise on how this could be overseen by performance management of staff and other good employer provisions. This became relevant to education with the passing of the State Sector Act 1988 which effectively positioned schools as "government departments headed by CEOs who were to be engaged on 5-year contracts and to take full responsibility for appointments to and the performance, of their department", and the SSC as the de facto collective employer of teachers. This was a situation that was problematic for the authors of this paper because they saw that "the central importance of the SSC's intervention in education...[meant that]...the education reforms...[were]...much more marked by the reform of public administration than they [were] to do with direct changes to education". Another paper took the view that this changed the position of teachers within the system from being professionals to "just employees of individual schools" but without access to any "policy-making decisions...[in a role]...limited to operational matters". Geoffrey Leane, from the University of Canterbury School of Law, noted that under such a system the "professional context for teachers – including matters of discipline, classification, training and working hours – now lay in the hands of the new managers, the Board of Trustees". According to Leane this could led to a "low-trust model... arguably at the expense of more subtle qualities (such as commitment, loyalty, sense of public duty, collegiality) that imbued the professional model". The writer concluded that "accountability [was] now a formal, externally imposed thing reflecting low trust in the professional teacher".

There have been other challenges to the theory that the educational reforms of the late 1980s were only a reflection of imported neo-liberal ideology, with one commentary noting that this [ignored] "the cumulative impact of indigenous factors". Some of these factors resulted from challenges to a centralised bureaucracy, with claims from feminist groups that it was a "male-dominated, hierarchical structure". Māori activists said the system was failing Māori students and this led to the National Advisory Committee on Māori Education (NACME) advocating for the creation of a "bicultural society whereby much educational decision-making would be devolved from a largely Pākehā bureaucracy to Māori"...[which because of the rise of Te Kohanga reo]...further highlighted the case for educational reform along the lines of devolution and consumer choice". A paper was published in 2001 that examined how Tomorrow's Schools reforms had affected the development of Kura Kaupapa Māori. The author noted that key principles of the Picot Report were effectively aimed at devolving more decision making to schools in the interest of meeting community needs, but while this appeared to offer an opportunity for Māori, the philosophy of Picot did not offer "pluralism...[and]...was essentially a mainstream initiative geared to the needs and aspirations of Pakeha and arguably the middle class". The paper contended that while Kura Kaupapa Māori were acknowledged directly in the Tomorrow's Schools document, they were defined as 'special character schools' rather than an initiative reflecting a partnership under the obligations of the Treaty of Waitangi. Pita Sharples framed this as: "Kura Kaupapa Māori does not equate with any of the school types outlined in Tomorrows Schools and accordingly it is not catered for- in the proposed transition of schools in the current reform of education administration." Tuhiwai Smith saw it as "disappointing" that 'whanau' was one of few Māori words in the Tomorrow's School document because Kura Kaupapa Māori were "designed by Māori for Māori...and many of its key elements are situated in a different framework" from other special or mainstream schools. Significantly, in 2014, the Education Review Office (ERO) released a framework for reviewing Kura Kaupapa Māori with a methodology that:

• acknowledge[d] the diversity of Kura Kaupapa Māori;
• recognise[d] culturally specific features;
• value[d] observable behaviour and whānau practice; and
• aim[ed] to empower kura by strengthening their methods of internal evaluation.

In 1999 a group of New Zealand educationalists wrote a paper describing the process that resulted in Tomorrow's Schools as "an interaction between two agendas: one for more equity and the other for more choice...[and]...The Picot Report was released on 10 May 1988 with only 6-7 weeks allowed for public submissions", seen as insufficient time to process over 20,000 submissions that had been received. This paper also contended that there were no clear aims of the reforms and it was difficult to find data - other than that submitted by Treasury in their 1987 brief to the government which justified the position that the aim of equality had not been met and the system therefore needed reforming. The authors concluded this led to an inference the proposed new system, likely to be market driven, would improve educational equality, but the debate was clouded by a reluctance of those in favour the reforms to analyse them and those opposed, to criticising perceived underlying ideologies of the government.

Harvey McQueen, who had been a personal educational advisor to David Lange during the period of these reforms, claimed in a 1999 reflection that the authors of Reforming education ; the New Zealand experience, 1984-1996 , had been incorrect in concluding the Picot model had left the New Zealand education system in a "steady state", contending there remained a basic tension at the heart of the reforms as society endeavored "to balance two prospects of freedom: entrepreneurial capitalism, the capacity to maximise profit, and democracy based on concepts of equity and social responsibility".

The "marketising" of education in New Zealand as a result of the reforms was discussed by several commentators. One said that not only were parents' needs unmet, but they actually felt their children could be at risk in a "climate of intensived competition". A common strand in the discussion has been to challenge the idea that the market is the fairest way of distributing resources and competition ensures the provision of services that are sensitive to the needs of stakeholders as "consumers" in a process claimed to reflect "the neoliberal advocacy of economic efficiency over social need". Further comment noted that because neoliberalism supported individualism, and a belief that "all citizens were motivated mainly by self interest", any interference by the state would threaten individual freedom. The writer continued that after Tomorrow's Schools, education in New Zealand was a commodity that could be brought or sold and which operated in an environment of "market signals" to indicate levels of satisfaction by parents but which could only be truly contestable if all schools had "no zones, no special state protection, and the same level of state funding". Writers in the Journal of Economic Literature however, after reviewing an assessment of the reforms in New Zealand, agreed "that predicted benefits were overstated, that there were both losers and winners, and that educational nirvana did not result...[but]...the main impact was to make schools' problems more transparent, creating discomforting pressures and attempts to undermine this transparency".

Understanding how schools could be marketed in a country like New Zealand, with a history of state control of education, has been explored through the concept of quasi-market. This can be seen as a rationale for managing what one commentator called an "insoluble contradiction" for any state that used neo-liberal policies but wanted compulsory education. The quasi-market model legitimised continued state funding of education while allowing choice and competition. Following the educational reforms in New Zealand in the late 1980s, schools are funded on the basis of student numbers, so within a quasi-market environment, a focus priority of schools became to build and maintain high roll numbers. This lead to a variation of funding amongst schools. Those better able to promote themselves were in areas of the country that reflected the culture of middle-class European and wealthy immigrant families, while schools where the population was of a lower socio-economic status had less funding and often a transient student body. It has been claimed therefore, that the main driver of parent choice under a free market, was related to "the class and ethnic nature of the area in which the schools are located".

Two reports in 2009 assessed the impact of Tomorrow's Schools on New Zealand education twenty years after their implementation. Cathy Wylie, Chief Researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), positioned the education system as still coming to terms with the complexities of self-managing schools and looking to develop relationships to build capacity and efficiency through support that focussed more on teaching and learning than administration. Wylie described the beginning of a "coherent" developmental approach to professional development with ongoing evaluation or self-review that could shift schools "from thinking about accountability in terms of compliance...[and more]...in strategic terms of ongoing development - real self-management". Another publication collated essays that considered several issues that needed to be resolved before the goals of Tomorrow's Schools could be realised.

National standards

On 10 April 2007 the governing National Party released a policy for National Standards requiring all primary and intermediate schools in New Zealand to focus on clear standards in literacy and numeracy, effective assessment programmes and "plain language" reporting to parents. A stated rationale for National Standards was for shared expectations about achievement and identifying students who risked not gaining basic skills. The Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, introduced to the New Zealand Parliament on 13 December 2008, gave the Minister of Education, Anne Tolley the power to begin a consultation round with the education sector to set and design national standards in literacy and numeracy against which schools would be required to report parents after using "assessment programmes that compare the progress of their students with those standards". Schools would be able to choose from a range of assessment tools, [and]..."parents [would] have the right to see all assessment information and receive regular plain English reports about their child's progress towards national standards". In August 2009, Tolley, announced a timeline for the implementation of the Standards, noting it as an assessment and reporting initiative to "lift the levels of achievement in literacy and numeracy for New Zealand children in primary and intermediate schools". In a letter to Boards of Trustees, principals and teachers at New Zealand schools, Tolley said the Standards were addressing the fact that "nearly one in five of our young people leave school without the skills and qualifications they need to succeed...[and]...from 2012, school annual reports will include data that shows progress and achievement in relation to the standards, for all students, against targets set in 2011 charters".

Concerns were expressed early about the haste in introducing the Standards and that they had not been trialled. Jennifer Clarke, President of the Otago Primary Principals Association asked for a "robust trial of the National Standards to prove accuracy, credibility and positive impact on student achievement...[and that]...there is no school ranking lists". Possible league tables which could result in schools being ranked was also seen as problematic by John Hattie. The Principals' Association of Otaki-Kapiti sent a remit to Tolley in August 2010 recommending that schools in this area did not participate in National Standards until there was a working partnership between Tolley and the schools. Tolley said this group of schools represented a "vocal minority who were unhappy with National Standards", however New Zealand Principals' Federation President Ernie Buutveld said "there [was] a growing solidarity around the country to get a resolution the sector can live with." Other principals' associations from around New Zealand had concerns such as the possible assumption within the process that "all children can achieve at the same level at the same time each year", that the Standards could narrow the curriculum to a focus on just literacy and numeracy, and they [were] "not designed to reflect a Māori world view and will therefore once again, be an 'assessment tool' that marginalis[ed] Māori learners within our education system".

Academic critique of the rationale for the Standards included questioning why the Minister was focusing on literacy and numeracy when data suggested there were issues related to assessment in other areas of the curriculum. It was also suggested that there was an absence of proof the standards would work, they were complex and it would be difficult to moderate data that had been gathered from different sources. An open letter to Tolley from academics saw some merit in the concept of clearly identifying levels of student achievement but noted "flaws" in the system, including the possible labelling of students as "failures" and undermining of the curriculum. Anne Tolley was asked during questioning in the New Zealand Parliament on 10 December 2009 about her understanding of comments by John Hattie in the open letter. She said Hattie had stated that "standards were wonderful opportunities for refreshing and reinvigorating an already top of the world system...[and]...if implemented well, can make a huge difference". Introduced in an interview by the NZ Herald, as "the Government's favourite education advisor", Hattie said that he supported "standards-based learning" but was not consulted by the Government and challenged claims made of widespread failure in the New Zealand school system. He also noted that national standards had been "introduced in the US, Britain and Australia but none of these countries have been able to show any overall improvement in student achievement".

Between 25 May and 3 July 2009, the Ministry of Education received submissions on the proposed National Standards from parents, teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees. These submissions were analysed by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) and the findings submitted in a report to the Ministry of Education in August 2009. The report showed that parents were generally supportive of the concept of learning goals for their child and the different ways they could get information about achievement, with 49% saying that the most important way schools could help them support their child's learning was to "share information about child's progress in timely way with good access to teachers". However, 38% of parent did express concerns, compared to 14% who had a positive response when asked for further comments. Analysis of the submissions from the education sector showed there were issues about "labelling" of students, how the standards would work for students with special needs, a possible narrowing of the curriculum and teaching practice, and fear that data could be published in leagues tables comparing schools. However, the views of this group did emphasise "the usefulness of parents having clear, timely, honest, accurate and valid information about their child's progress, and a picture that covered ―the whole child as an individual, looking to the future through setting goals together, as well as reporting on current performance".

In a move that was generally seen as appropriate, the Government put its plans to implement the Standards in 2010 on hold after it had been "revealed that primary school league tables could be constructed out of the standards". Tolley confirmed that schools would not be required to report back to officials on pupils' performance against the standards until 2012. Frances Nelson the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) president said the implementation was "staged" and "logical" and Tolley had agreed with the sector's concerns and "been prepared to change the way that initially she thought it might work".

Initially some schools were not compliant with the assessment and reporting process and in 2012, Hekia Parata, the then Minister of Education, said in the media that non-compliance was "unacceptable" because schools were crown entities and information was public. In the same article, former prime minister John Key said schools should "get in line with the programme...everybody else is, and the reason they should be doing that is it's good for our kids".

Parata said on 11 June 2013 that National Standards data showed some "concerning trends" including achievement being "significantly lower for Māori and Pasifika learners than for others" and boys trailing girls. She felt overall there were some "small, incremental increase in reading, writing and mathematics results" and that there were good support programmes in place to "accelerate" progress in these areas. In the same article, it was announced that there was to be an advisory group of experts in the field set up by the Ministry of Education to look at the data and make recommendations for improvement. A press release from NZCER on 29 November 2013 summarised the findings of a survey into the impact of National Standards. The data showed only 7% of principals and 15% of teachers thought the standards themselves were robust, while trustees and some parents said they had a good understanding of the standards. The summary concluded that "there has been no marked difference in student achievement since the standards were introduced and no evidence that standards have spurred parents of low performing students to become more engaged in their children's learning". The data was discussed in more detail in a paper presented at the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (RARE) conference in Dunedin on 26–28 December 2013. A survey in 2016 concluded from the data that "National Standards have been incorporated into teaching and learning and used by school leaders as indicators of student need, experiences of using them continue to raise questions about their role in student learning and performance".

Educational reforms 2017-2023

Removal of National Standards

The Labour government on 12 December 2017 announced the abolishment of the national standards in reading, writing and maths. Education Minister Chris Hipkins said parents had lost confidence in the standards and from 2018 schools would no longer be required to report their students' results in the standards to the Ministry of Education. The announcement had been anticipated since the Labour-led government took power as all three parties involved in the government campaigned on promises of getting rid of the benchmarks for primary and intermediate school children. The decision was welcomed and widely supported.

Review of Tomorrow's Schools

Bali Haque Chair of the Tomorrow's Schools Independent Taskforce

While there were conservative curriculum reforms completed in the 1990s, followed by more comprehensive and contemporary reforms updating what was taught in schools for the 21st century, there were later calls to review the model put in place under Tomorrow's Schools. On 21 February 2018, the media reported that it was likely Chris Hipkins, as part of an "enduring 30 year approach to education", would announce a review of many aspects of the education system, including Tomorrows Schools. When the review was confirmed within the Government's Education Work Programme (EWP), one commentator said that success depended on the initiative reflecting a "genuine partnership model with the Government and the ongoing political tinkering needs to be kept to a minimum". The Terms of Reference for the review stated: "The primary purpose of the review of Tomorrow's Schools will be to consider if the governance, management and administration of the schooling system is fit for purpose to ensure that every learner achieves educational success", and the independent taskforce was appointed on 3 April 2018 with Bali Haque as Chair. Between 24 May and 18 October 2018, the Taskforce engaged with education stakeholders in more than two hundred meetings. A report was released for consultation in December 2018.

There were a range of responses to the document. One media item said there was cautious optimism from schools to the recommendations, while, in another piece, the principal of Albany Senior High School, Auckland said the Report was "as courageous as it is polarising...[and]...seeks to address the very real needs of many of our schools and communities, without causing too much to change for those already winning at the game of life…and at school". The New Zealand Administration and Leadership Society (NZEALS) acknowledged the significance of leadership being highlighted in the Report", and New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) noted its own recommendations were for wide public discussion to get consensus, Government transparency, consideration of pilot projects and for the proposed establishment group to remain independent of the Ministry of Education. The response by New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) agreed with the timing and relevance of the Report, thanked the Taskforce for its engagement with the community and noted that "secondary teachers will be watching closely to see whether any funding accompanying the proposed changes is used to enhance teaching and learning or whether, as in the case of the 1989 reforms, it is captured by managers, consultants and officials".

The New Zealand Secondary Principals' Council (NZSPC) appreciated the approach taken by the Taskforce and highlighted their support, in particular for the "proposed shift in the balance from totally self-managing schools to a system that gave greater focus on a supportive network of schools", with some questions about the formation and operation of the middle layer of the system described as 'hubs'. There had previously been public debate about the suggestion in the Report for education hubs. Nikki Kaye, National's spokesperson for education at the time, said the concept needed careful consideration to ensure it didn't transfer responsibilities from parents to bureaucrats, and a group of schools later launched a campaign urging parent not to support the concept, although much of their case was shown to have been based on misinformation. The Tomorrow's Schools taskforce chair Bali Haque, said the members of hubs would be appointed by the Minister of Education with half being experienced educators and the rest iwi representatives and people with business experience and skills in managing organisational change. Late in 2019, the government rejected the idea of hubs as being "too disruptive", with Chris Hipkins clarifying he thought [a] "lot of schools had interpreted the notion of hubs as taking away their autonomy...[but]...finalised proposals showed the taskforce had found a better way of addressing issues around governance burdens and a lack of support" without schools getting the impression they had been disempowered.

Martin Thrupp and Katrina McChesney from the University of Waikato wrote a four-part series on the report suggesting it could be read to identify issues and concerns that have "broad agreement nation-wide...[to]...establish a shared platform or rationale for change before tackling the more demanding discussions of the needs of different and unequal communities".

An editorial in the New Zealand Journal of Teachers' Work noted the Taskforce had aimed to promote "educational issues rather than the competitive commercial interests promoted by the Treasury in 1988", and while acknowledging there would be public resistance to some of the suggested roles for Boards of Trustees, concluded that key to the recommendations was the claim of the Taskforce that under the current self-governing school model there had been a significant increase in "unhealthy competition between schools".

In their submission to the review of Tomorrow's Schools, The New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) suggested that the Ministry of Education reassessed the budget allocated to schools to purchase books, and in particular those by New Zealand authors. The case was made that reading local stories was pedagogically sound because "local content draws in less-able readers, and students of all abilities engage more if they see themselves reflected on the page". The submission also stressed the importance of supporting all schools to have a qualified librarian and to address the scientific case that students do not retain as much information from online learning as they do from books.

The Taskforce's final report was submitted to the Government in July 2019 and released to the public in September 2019. One research paper noted:

The report highlighted the time and effort spent on matters many boards did not have the capacity and capability to address, such as managing school property and appointing the principal. The Taskforce also reported they had found no evidence to suggest the self-governing model had been successful in raising student achievement or improving equity...[and]...made a number of recommendations that, if implemented, would change the relationships between schools and the Ministry of Education.

Ngā Kura o Aotearoa New Zealand Schools (2018), a review of compulsory schools in New Zealand, published in September 2019, noted in the Foreword that "the Government's response to the independent taskforce's report on the review of Tomorrow's Schools" was one of the "staged and sustainable improvements" still to be initiated.

On 12 November 2019, the Government released Supporting all schools to succeed: Reform of the Tomorrow's Schools system, its response to the Taskforce's recommendations. Chris Hipkins explained in the media that the Government would set up a new Education Support Agency, create an "independent disputes panel for parents and students", simplify management of schools' property and establish a new leadership centre. In another press release, he said the Government was aiming for "better targeted and earlier support provided at many different levels, stronger leadership support structures, more collaboration between schools and a reset of the relationship between schools and the Ministry". Kelvin Davis said the responses acknowledged the calls from Māori for "more agency and authority over the education of Māori learners...to see their identity, language and culture in the daily practice of our education system...[within]... learning environments that are physically and emotionally safe".

Two commentators with experience as Advisory Officers for the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) claimed the Government's response did not address the issue within Tomorrow's Schools that, while the Government set requirements for schools, it did not control how these were to be met. The writers held that this 'policy gap' left individual schools under the influence of local factors and, without incentives to respond to Government policies, enabled some leadership teams to "ignore guidance from the central agencies, such as the Ministry of Education (and occasionally even the law)". The piece concluded that the suggested new support agency and leadership education by the Teaching Council would not stop some schools making mistakes.

The Education and Training Act (2020) was passed on 1 August 2020, repealing all existing education and training legislation.

On 10 August 2020 as New Zealand managed the Covid-19 pandemic, Chris Hipkins, in his capacity as Minister of Education, provided the Government with COVID-19: Update on the Reforms of Tomorrow's Schools System. The paper noted that the Education and Training Act would implement many of the recommendations of the Taskforce's recommendations and acknowledged that responding to the challenges of COVID-19 had required a collaborative approach from all stakeholders in the education sector that reflected "the intent of the Tomorrow's Schools reforms". It recorded that the workplan included progressing legislation, improving property management, working on dispute resolution, developing a mandatory code of conduct for Boards of Trustees [and] "strengthened links with the profession, including leaders of Māori medium education, to deepen their influence in improving overall system performance".

At the 2020 New Zealand general election the Labour Party won a landslide victory. During the election campaign Labour had presented an education policy that confirmed the proposed establishment of the Education Service Agency to provide support for schools and encourage collaboration rather than competition in the drive for equitable outcomes. In November 2020, the new government confirmed National Education Learning Priorities (NELP) and the Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) which laid out a set of priorities for the education sector that would meet the legal requirements of the Education and Training Act (2020). Supporting all schools to succeed: Reform of the Tomorrow's Schools system had established five objectives to meet the Taskforce's recommendations on the review of Tomorrow's schools: Learners at the Centre; Barrier free access; Quality teaching and leadership; future of learning and work; and World class inclusive public education. NELP and TES retained these objectives with actions relevant to the priorities.

In March 2021, the Cabinet of the New Zealand Government approved the Education Work Programme (EWP) 2021, with "Reform of the Tomorrow's Schools system" headlined under Objective 3: Quality teaching and leadership.

The 2022 Budget of the Government proposed $22.3 million over four years to develop the leadership advisor positions as part of the commitment to provide more front line support to schools as part of the response to recommendations of the Tomorrow's Schools Taskforce.

An article in the Victoria University-based journal, Policy Quarterly, in August 2023, suggested that when the government approached the Review from a position of resetting the current system, this was at odds with the recommendation by the Taskforce that there be more of a structural transformation. The author acknowledged that the government had made many changes, but concluded some commentators questioned whether these changes [would be] "able to move the system away from a prevailing neoliberal attitude and towards meaningfully addressing the ongoing challenges faced by the sector".

Curriculum review

By 2018, the focus on educational change by the government had moved toward a review of the curriculum with the establishment of the Curriculum, Progress, and Achievement programme. In 2019 a report from the Curriculum Progress, and Achievement Ministerial Advisory Group, provided advice on improving the curriculum, focussing on strengthening the design and embedding of a stronger focus of student progress in the document, and meeting information needs across the system for all students in years 1-10 in New Zealand schools.

In 2020, the Ministry of Education asked the New Zealand Council of Educational Research (NZCER), along with two universities, to provide supporting research for this project, and a range of reports were completed, including one on the suitability of the curriculum-levelling construct that underpinned the curriculum at the time.

A full refresh of the curriculum was confirmed on 11 February 2021. The associate Ministers of Education said the goal was make the curriculum "clearer, more relevant, easier to use, and more explicit about what learners need to understand, know and do...beginning with Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories in the Social Sciences learning area". A former politician Peter Dunne noted the announcement was low-key and suggested there should have been a more "immediate and active debate about what the refresh would entail". He also questioned whether the refresh would ensure "access to and learning about the latest and best knowledge" on what was being taught internationally and not just on national and local factors. He cited the relevance of mathematics and science in a world dealing with climate change and suggested that the study of New Zealand literature would be enriched by continuing to value "the art of poetry" developed by earlier overseas writer such as William Shakespeare. Dunne concluded that the curriculum refresh process: [needed] "to be broadly based and inclusive...[avoid being]...captured and driven by education sector vested interests...[and aim]...to ensure that every New Zealand student leaves school with the skills and experiences necessary to prosper, according to their abilities, in today's world".

History curriculum

Main article: Aotearoa New Zealand's histories

The report from the Curriculum Progress, and Achievement Ministerial Advisory Group (2019) had specifically identified "focus areas for Māori medium and English medium settings which shaped the recommendations to Cabinet, including addressing aspects of trust and equity", and in response, in September 2019, Chris Hipkins confirmed that "Aotearoa New Zealand's histories would be taught in all schools and kura from 2022...revised to 2023 to give schools and kura more time to engage with curriculum content". Pressure for this to be compulsory had come from petitions to the New Zealand parliament in 2015 and 2019, and ongoing academic and public debate. An extensive process of consultation began in 2020 when two Curriculum Writing Groups drafted content for Aotearoa New Zealand's histories in The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Takanga o Te Wā in Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, with the content being surveyed, trialled and reviewed in 2021

There was mixed reception to the draft documents. Some concerns were expressed about possible gaps in the history to be covered, there were questions raised about the focus on content rather than the process of how students learn, and a point raised by a politician that the emphasis on studying colonisation was likely to cause divisions amongst New Zealanders. Positive responses included comments from the New Zealand Historical Association and a review by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research that indicated feedback from the public that the content was timely and "overdue".

The final version of the documents were launched on 17 March 2022. Aotearoa New Zealand's histories, while a standalone document, was aligned with the English-medium New Zealand Curriculum. The structure and content focussed on "big ideas" in New Zealand history was challenged by Brooke van Velden who suggested the curriculum was over-focused on colonisation and promoted a narrative ignoring the multiethnic nature of New Zealand Society by just focussing on "two sets of people, Māori and Pākehā". James Shaw however, said it was important to deal honestly with the past; an academic noted the new approach as reflecting New Zealand had matured as a society; and the president of The Maori Principals' Association, saw the curriculum as potentially transformational. Te Takanga o Te Wā is a new strand in the Māori-medium curriculum, Te Matauranga o Aotearoa which recognised that students explore history by learning about themselves and connections to the world, "to understand their own identity as Māori in Aotearoa".

First draft of Te Mātaiaho

In March 2022, progress on the full refresh of the New Zealand curriculum was confirmed with a detailed timeline, and in March 2023, the draft document Te Mātaiaho, with reviewed purpose statements and overviews for the teaching of Social Sciences, English and mathematics, was released. The elements in these three curriculum areas retained the Understand, Know and Do approach of the reviewed History curriculum. A process for feedback on the English and Mathematics & Statistics learning areas was confirmed on 28 September 2023 and schools were provided with a Curriculum and Assessment Forward Planner.

Literacy & Communication and Maths Strategy, published by the government in March 2022, noted that key to the refresh was ensuring literacy and communication and numeracy demands were more explicit within the New Zealand curriculum. Two academics acknowledged this strategy document provided guidance on developing literacy skills, but claimed that Te Mātaiaho did not identify the strategies necessary to meet the requirements of the English curriculum, relying on them being explicit within indicators said to show progress, but likely to "[reinforce] a wait-to-fail ethos for ākonga [students]". The authors took the position that a strong emphasis in the refreshed curriculum on "text-types and critical literacies of interpreting messages...[ran the risk of favouring]...a specific type of literacy identity, based on Westernised notions of literary texts". The article concluded: "Overall, the refreshed curriculum is in danger of reinforcing the existing status quo and inequities in multiple groups of ākonga, both in becoming literate and in developing as users of texts."

In a letter sent to Chris Hipkins, the then Prime Minister and former Minister of Education, a group of academics called for the education reforms to be repealed. The authors raised concerns around a radicalized curriculum with "identity catergorisation" based on the racial classification of children, and the danger of 'culturally responsive pedagogies' leading to stereotypical views about how Māori and Pasifika students learn. The position was taken that the revised curriculum would reflect a "knowledge equivalence error...[where the]...interweaving of mātauranga Māori across the science curriculum forces a comparison between the two knowledge systems in ways that do justice to neither". Three of the academics who wrote this letter, Elizabeth Rata, Robert Nola and Garth Cooper, were part of a team, that in July 2021, had publicly challenged proposed changes by the New Zealand Government to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).

Educator Stuart Middleton welcomed the refresh as "a significant and long awaited development in New Zealand Education".

Political changes 2023

As New Zealand approached a general election in 2023, the country's education system and the policies of the competing political parties came under scrutiny in the media. One commentator identified differing opinions amongst education researchers about the degree that student achievement data was a measure of the system's strength, particularly when there were differences between data from international tests and that from domestic assessments. Nina Hood from the University of Auckland held that the data from the PISA test showed a widespread decline in achievement, and in spite of domestic assessment not indicating this, by the time students reached their final year before high school, "only 56 per cent at or above the curriculum level in reading, 45 per cent in maths and down to only 20 per cent in science". In the same article another academic claimed the number of New Zealand students achieving at the highest level was above the OECD average, but the issue was addressing inequities to lift the performance of students in the lowest 20 per cent. Charles Darr, Chief Researcher with the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) stated that a national study of student achievement he was involved in did not show a major decline, and cautioned against "jumping straight into crisis mode". The piece did, however, note that a summary from the Ministry of Education had concluded international data indicated: "New Zealand had one of the largest gaps between the highest and lowest-scoring students, who generally came from disadvantaged backgrounds, and this had not improved over time". Another journalist cited achievement data for New Zealand students from 2009 to make the case that generally there had been a downward trend in achievement, particularly for Māori and Pacific learners and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, raising the concern that, for these students, "the status quo [would] entrench inequitable outcomes". The same article drew on information from a government paper, Preparing All Young People for Satisfying and Rewarding Working Lives: Long-Term Insights Briefing, and provided an analysis of the positions and policies of each of the main political parties contesting the election.

Save our Schools: Solutions for New Zealand's Education Crisis, published in April 2021, was reviewed in the media as a report that suggested amending the Education Training Act, reviewing the curriculum and NCEA assessment strategies, and lessening the focus on "sociological aspects" for teacher training, toward an approach based on "the cognitive science behind learning". The reviewer noted the Report's argument for performance-based pay for teachers, and promotions made against standards with..."criteria [that] should include curriculum knowledge, knowledge of learning processes, the ability to design and administer courses of study, engagement with colleagues and school communities, and evidence that students are making appropriate progress". The Report also said schools should be accountable against student achievement data, and NZCER needed to produce "generalisable research on teaching and learning, as well as piloting and reviewing all new Ministry of Education initiatives".

Concerns were raised about the lack of financial and professional support for the alternative education (AE) system in New Zealand following a report by the Education Review Office. Described as initially a non-government community response to meet the needs of some vulnerable students in the highly competitive environment of Tomorrows' Schools, AE received legitimation and government funding in 2000. In July 2023 a senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology said that what had been shown to be a generally successful system, needed "a bigger workforce of qualified teachers to work alongside tutors...[requiring]...increased funding and support from the Teachers Council of New Zealand to register teachers in this setting".

Early in the election campaign, Christopher Luxon released an education policy for the New Zealand National Party based on a proposed review of the curriculum and an increased focus on basic literacy and numeracy skills. Luxton said it was about addressing underachievement and having a curriculum that showed teachers and parents what students would be expected to learn each year. He acknowledged the current government's Literacy and Communication and Maths Strategy did not advocate a narrowing of the curriculum by focusing on foundational skills, but explained that the point of difference with the party's policy was in "tightening up the year bands". The president of the Principals' Association claimed the policy was a return to National Standards and would fail to focus on inequities or supporting students with high needs, and Chris Hipkins suggested that National and Labour could work together and achieve a "bipartisan consensus" on a curriculum rewrite. Jan Tinetti questioned the lack of consultancy with the sector and whether the policy had been accurately funded, but National's education spokesperson, Erica Stanford responded that the policy was a response to feedback from curriculum experts, and while "maths, reading, writing and science...[would be priortised]...over everything else", it was not a return to National Standards. The president of New Zealand Educational Institute stated the union's position was to focus on addressing resourcing rather than increasing standards or curriculum changes, [creating] "more work for the teachers at the chalk face", and an academic said National's policy was built on a "manufactured crisis...[referred to]...dated international league tables...[blamed]...failing schools and failing teachers...[and]...undoes much of an informal pact between National and Labour to depoliticise education at a time of genuine struggle".

Controversies

From 2012 the Ministry came under fire over a number of different issues including staffing, the Novopay payroll system, the closure and merger of schools in Christchurch, the implementation of charter schools, and the management of school buildings.

Resignation of Lesley Longstone

In 2011 Lesley Longstone was appointed as chief executive for the Ministry of Education in New Zealand with a five-year contract and a salary of $660,000 a year. She was recruited from England - where her previous role was overseeing the introduction of a UK version of charter schools in Britain - and as one of several senior public servants employed from offshore, was eligible for a relocation payout from the State Services Commission of up to $50,000 which "[covered] flights, freight, up to eight weeks' accommodation and visa expenses".

Chief executives recruited from overseas only had to repay the grant if they left the job within a year. Longstone held the position for 13 months before she was asked to resign after her relationship with Education Minister Hekia Parata became 'strained'. She was paid $425,000 in severance pay.

Class sizes

In May 2012, Education Minister, Hekia Parata, announced changes to the education sector which would raise the level of qualification required by teachers - including a minimum requirement of postgraduate degrees for teacher trainees. Because of proposed budget cuts, she also announced there would be a loss of specialised teaching staff in intermediate schools and a corresponding increase in class sizes. However, it was Treasury rather than the Ministry of Education which was responsible for promoting this strategy "which essentially [rated] teacher quality as a more critical factor than class size".

As Education Minister, Parata was given the job of selling the policy to the sector. She claimed the changes would save $43 million a year and that: "About 90 per cent of schools will have a net loss of less than one full-time teacher equivalent as a result of the combined effect of the ratio changes and projected roll growth." Over the next few months, teachers and parents alike voiced their concerns about the proposed changes, especially when it was revealed that the new ratios would cause some schools to lose up to seven teachers. Because of this public backlash, in June 2012 Parata announced the Government would not go ahead with the policy and acknowledged it had caused "a disproportionate amount of anxiety for parents".

Novopay

Main article: Novopay

In 2012, the Ministry rolled out a new payroll system for teachers and other school staff called Novopay run by the Australian company Talent 2. From the outset, the system led to widespread problems with over 8,000 teachers receiving the wrong pay and in some cases no pay at all; within a few months, 90% of schools were affected.

The 'Novopay débâcle' as it was called received almost daily media attention, causing embarrassment for the new Minister of Education Hekia Parata, and leading to the resignation of newly recruited Education secretary Lesley Longstone. The Australian Financial Review said: "The débâcle [bore] similarities to the botched $500 million payroll implementation at Queensland Health by IBM which [was] expected to end up costing $1.25 billion."

Hekia Parata was relieved of her duties towards Novopay by the prime minister and replaced by Steven Joyce but problems continued and prior to the September 2014 election, Joyce admitted that Novopay would be taken over and run by the government as he saw no way it could be made into an efficient, viable organisation.

In 2014 the National Government announced that it was terminating the Novopay contract and would be forming a new government-run organisation to take over. This was implemented in October 2014.

School closures in Christchurch

In September 2012, newly appointed Education Minister, Hekia Parata, announced that 13 schools in Christchurch would be closed and 18 would be merged following the earthquakes the previous year. In an editorial, the New Zealand Herald said: "Of all the mishaps in education this year, the Christchurch school plan was the most telling. To read the plan was to see a Ministry utterly out of touch with the people its schools are supposed to serve. The earthquakes had left a number of schools damaged and some of their communities decimated. Some closures would be required. But not nearly as many as the ministry decided."

After further consultation, the Government backtracked. On 18 February, Ministry of Education staff visited the 31 schools under the Ministry's spotlight to tell teachers and principals in person which schools would be closed. Seven schools would close and twelve would merge creating another five closures. Another twelve schools originally proposed for closure or merger would now remain unaffected. In March 2013 the Ombudsman announced an investigation would be held into the way the Education Ministry conducted its consultation process on schools closures and mergers to see if they were done in "a manner that adequately ensures fair and meaningful participation by affected parties".

Charter schools

Main article: Charter schools in New Zealand

The National government agreed to the introduction of charter schools in 2011 as part of its arrangement with John Banks for the support of the ACT Party after the election. Catherine Isaac, a former Act president, said charter schools would not have to follow Ministry of Education requirements but would be free to set their own timetables, school terms and teacher working conditions.

The proposal for charter schools aroused considerable opposition, not just from teachers groups. Speaking to a parliamentary committee, New Zealand Principals' Federation president Philip Harding said: "There is no public mandate to pursue this policy." The New Zealand School Trustees Association expressed concerns about allowing people to teach who were not registered teachers. The Chief Ombudsman, Beverley Wakem, expressed concern that making charter schools exempt from public scrutiny was "unconstitutional" and would detract from public confidence. In February 2013, visiting American Karran Harper Royal told the education and science committee in Parliament that "charter schools [had] been a failed experiment in New Orleans" and the Government should not proceed with them.

John O'Neill, professor of teacher education at Massey University's Institute of Education said the Bill proposing the establishment of charter schools was "undemocratic and patronising". The Education Amendment Bill euphemistically referred to them as 'partnership' schools - but O'Neill said "the so-called partnership [would] only be between the Government and a private 'sponsor' which may be for-profit and have no prior connection with the local community". He said parents will have no right of representation on the school's governing body as they did in state schools, and the Minister of Education could set up a charter school without even consulting the local community.

Leaky schools

Main article: Leaky homes crisis

By March 2013, 305 schools were reported as having problems with cladding and weather-tightness issues which was expected to cost the Ministry up to $1.4 billion to repair. These schools were built or modified between 1995 and 2005, and were an extension of the leaky homes crisis which has affected many New Zealand homes of the same era. At Te Rapa school (near Hamilton) so many of the classrooms were affected that the entire school was "forced to play musical classrooms" for over a year while repairs were being done. Principal Vaughan Franklin described it as a 'massive disruption' which threatened the quality of teaching.

In 2013 the Ministry was involved in legal action over 87 schools to rectify damage caused by "poor design, workmanship, quality control, and materials failure" and held architects, designers and builders liable for the cost of repairs as contractors were liable for the cost if the building work was undertaken within the past 10 years.

Weathertightness issues had also been identified with several 1970s-built secondary schools constructed to the "S 68" design. These schools were designed with low-pitched roofs and protruding wooden clerestory windows in pre-1977 schools (schools built from 1977 have skylights), which in recent years had started to cause problems in areas with relatively high rainfall. The original prototype buildings at Porirua College (opened in 1968, hence "S 68"), had progressively been replaced with modern building since 2007, while extensive re-roofing projects took place at other schools, including Waiopehu College in Levin and Awatapu College in Palmerston North.