Undercurrents

Undercurrents Ep. #7: What’s the government’s real education agenda?

Education minister Erica Stanford (right) has pushed for a more “knowledge-rich” curriculum but has faced criticism from teachers for the speed and direction of reform.

**Watch the latest episode of Public Interest's fortnightly current affairs show, Undercurrents.**

Since it was elected in 2023, the coalition government has unleashed a whirlwind of change on New Zealand’s education system.

It has scrapped NCEA, overhauled the primary and secondary curricula, re-established charter schools, banned phones in schools, and much more.

Driving at least some of this is a widespread sense that something has been going wrong in our schools, as New Zealand has witnessed a sharp decline in students’ reading and maths over the past two decades.

But amid the rush to remake the education system, critics warn that the government’s programme is not just about lifting achievement, but is also driven by a broader ideological agenda. So what really is going on?

In the latest episode of Undercurrents, Ollie Neas speaks with secondary school teacher and PPTA national executive member Clare Preston and Dr Shannon Walsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Auckland and former NZEI researcher, about what is driving the reforms and what is at stake for New Zealand’s schools.

They discuss whether New Zealand’s education system is really in crisis, the shift towards a more centralised and prescriptive curriculum, the return of charter schools, and much more.

Watch the conversation below and subscribe to Public Interest for more discussions making sense of politics and power in Aotearoa.

Additional research by Mackenzie Valgre and Hannah Patterson.

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How the media reached crisis point

Is this privatisation by another name?

Fifteen years after Pike River, New Zealand is dismantling the reforms it inspired

What the government's conservation U-turn really means

**Watch the latest episode of Public Interest's fortnightly current affairs show, Undercurrents.**