The ongoing work on education under Erica Stanford has come in for a great deal of criticism over the last few months especially. The new curriculum has received particular censure, and the compulsory inclusion of Shakespeare in the English curriculum seems to have presented issues for some parties (Lillis, 2025). Indeed, New Zealand needs a balanced curriculum that reflects the multicultural nature of our society and therefore of our primary and secondary students, and surely a Eurocentric curriculum for New Zealand would be ill-posed and therefore completely unacceptable.
Here we examine some of the critical aspects of the current curriculum documents for English, as they apply to the diverse communities across New Zealand schools.
English Learning Area Years 0 – 10
In the Ministry of Education curriculum document of 20 October 2025, we see no mention of Shakespeare at all, though a case could be made for inclusion in Years 9 and 10 of one or two of his shorter works, such as certain sonnets. It does state that in Phase 1 (Years 0 – 3) knowledge and practice statements have been added in the decoding sub-element for Years 2 – 3 to support accurate pronunciation of kupu Māori in year level texts and highlight differences in sound representation between te reo Māori and English. In Phase 2 (Years 4 – 6) content that addresses correct decoding and pronunciation of kupu Māori is included in the decoding practice statement and the fluency practice statements and teaching considerations. In Phase 3 (Years 7 – 8) and in Phase 4 (Years 9 – 10) authors who are representative of New Zealand’s bicultural and multicultural heritage are now included explicitly.
English Year 11
In the English Year 11 Draft for Consultation (15 May to June 2026), again we see no mention of Shakespeare, which many consider regrettable. It does state that through study of literary traditions and the bicultural and multicultural literary heritage of Aotearoa New Zealand, alongside texts from global contexts, they [students] develop increasing authority as readers, writers, and thinkers, using English to interrogate ideas, traditions, and perspectives, and to participate thoughtfully in academic, cultural, and public conversations. It says that students must experience texts by a range of authors who are representative of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rich bicultural (both Māori and Pākehā) and multicultural literary heritage.
We read that Aotearoa New Zealand literature draws on forms, language and concerns from a range of local and global traditions (e.g. Māori, Pacific, Western). Some authors blend these to create distinctive literary voices. Further - Māori authors draw on Māori worldviews and narrative traditions - such as tikanga Māori, oral storytelling, and enduring connections to whenua - to centre Māori perspectives and lived experiences that shape and extend literary thought within Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond.
Further, Māori oral traditions (e.g. mihi, pepeha, pātere, mōteatea, whaikōrero) are rich and dynamic and impact the way in which oral presentations are structured, presented, and received by establishing conventions unique to Aotearoa New Zealand. We are told that oral traditions are an important means through which cultures sustain histories, values, and shared understandings; for example, through storytelling, speeches, songs, and ceremony.
English Years 12 - 13
The Draft for Consultation (15 May to June 2026) states that students undertake close reading and analysis of written literature, including literary movements and traditions.
We are told that this reading and analysis occur through a carefully sequenced body of texts that encompasses Aotearoa New Zealand literature alongside seminal and historic works that exemplify the development of literary tradition across periods, including Shakespearean drama.
In Year 13, students must engage meaningfully with an extended written text (either novel, memoir, or drama), a Shakespearean drama, a selection of poetry, a selection of short texts (e.g. fiction, creative non-fiction, personal essay). These options must include texts by a range of authors who are representative of New Zealand’s rich bicultural (both Māori and Pākehā) and multicultural literary heritage, including at least one text by a Māori author that has shaped significantly Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary and cultural heritage (e.g. Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme), at least one additional text by an author drawn from the diverse cultural communities of Aotearoa, that has significantly shaped Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary heritage (e.g. Katherine Mansfield, Albert Wendt, Chris Tse).
The document states that the unique geographical, social, historical, and cultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand is reflected in specific literary movements (e.g. cultural nationalism of the 1930s and 40s, the Māori Renaissance of the 1970s) which shape the themes, settings, perspectives, and concerns of texts.
We read that Aotearoa New Zealand literature draws on oral and written forms, language, and concerns from a range of traditions (e.g. Māori, Pacific, Western). Some authors blend these to create distinctive literary voices. Further, we read that New Zealand’s literary voice is distinctive in the way it increasingly incorporates te reo Māori, Māori literary forms, and te ao Māori worldviews. Māori authors use literature as both an expression of Māori worldviews and a literary contribution, drawing on these perspectives to enrich Aotearoa New Zealand literature and shape how national stories, identities, and values are understood locally and globally. It says that in Aotearoa New Zealand, poets may draw on forms that come from a range of literary traditions. These forms include a range of Māori forms (e.g. tauparapara, mōteatea, haka).
Students must also engage meaningfully with academic literature relating to at least one critical lens or theory (e.g. Post-colonialist theory, Formalist theory, Feminist theory, Postmodernist theory, Structuralist theory, or a te ao Māori worldview). Sources may include journal articles, literary criticism, or kaupapa Māori scholarship.
Students are expected to evaluate and appraise features of text across a range of forms, including poetry, prose, and Shakespearean drama, with precision. We read that authorship in Aotearoa New Zealand literature is shaped by Pacific contexts, where relationships between writers, texts, cultures, and communities influence how literary voice, authority, and identity are constructed and understood.
A Balanced Curriculum?
It seems to me that we have an English curriculum that includes Māori worldviews and voices very prominently. However, my concerns are twofold. First, our Pacific People and other ethnic and cultural groups deserve greater presence and, as so often, they appear almost as an afterthought. Second, given the immense stature of William Shakespeare as an author, playwright and poet and also as a humanitarian, surely room could be created for more than one work of his during the entirety of the high school years.
Here in New Zealand Dr. Peter Winsley (2016) wrote that Shakespeare believed in individual uniqueness, in human rights and dignity, and in the universality of human consciousness. His works cannot be captured by any cultural, religious, political, ethnic or other identity group that divides people. Dr. Winsley regards Shakespeare as the supreme poet and dramatist of humanism; humanism as a belief system and as a guide to how to live. He says that Shakespeare judged people as individuals, but not on their race, ethnicity, wealth, status, family affiliation or gender. He understood that individuality is almost infinitely variable, even within the same family.
Shakespeare was popular in pre-Soviet Russia and subsequently in the Soviet Union, China and Japan. Germany, often militarily at odds with England, took him to heart, considered him in a sense their writer. In addition, many Hungarians have spent more time on Shakespeare than on any Hungarian writer in their high school years (Professor Brian Boyd, Pers comm). Sokolova and Valls-Russell (2022) tell of the popularity of Shakespeare in Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and other nations and surely there are good reasons as to why Shakespeare’s works have been translated into over one hundred languages (Estill and Johnson, 2015).
Te Mātaiaho: The New Zealand Curriculum
The current version of New Zealand’s overarching curriculum document - Te Mātaiaho: The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2026) - seems to present a balanced curriculum that meets the needs of students and schools. Very clearly, it states that as set out in section 127(2)(e) of the Act, schools must take all reasonable steps to provide for students to be taught, and to learn, in te reo Māori on request of their parents or immediate caregivers. It says that students are taught a curriculum that covers a common set of knowledge, practices, and capabilities, and reflects the Crown’s obligations under te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi, as set out in section 32 of the Education and Training Act 2020 – supporting every student to achieve their highest educational potential.
Some teaching of te reo Māori is integrated into the required learning areas (e.g. the teaching of specific kupu and concepts that are unique to te ao Māori). Schools are encouraged to provide further opportunities for their students to learn and use te reo Māori. This is supported by a teaching sequence for te reo Māori within the Learning Languages learning area and by the Years 11 – 13 Te Reo Māori subject. Schools may also choose to offer bilingual or immersion education through te reo Māori using Te Mātaiaho and Te Anga. Students who complete the Year 13 Te Reo Māori subject in The New Zealand Curriculum early can be supported to go on to study the Years 11 – 13 Te Reo Rangatira subject.
Positive Discussions on Education in New Zealand
We see considerable diversity of feedback on the current re-development of education, and we see a great deal of criticism. Such criticism, if offered constructively, is a necessary and healthy contribution to the mix of ideas that will shape a better future for education than we have experienced over the last twenty years. However, are all of the current criticisms of the curriculum fair and have they been articulated respectfully?
Only a few weeks from a national election, it is time to review the ongoing discourse on education, an area that is so vitally important to our young people and for the future of our country. What is so inspiring right now is the very constructive nature of some, though not all, of the ongoing discussions.
An article from Alwyn Poole exemplifies what is needed in our debates (Poole, 2026). Mr. Poole made a valuable contribution to the discussion on education in New Zealand and maintained a balanced, politically neutral tone throughout.
Contributions such as Mr. Poole’s article are essential as we head towards a national election because they circumvent party politics and the negativity that has emerged within the discourse on education in other countries over the last few years. Indeed, Mr. Poole provided a fine example of how the debate on education should be conducted – with balance and objectivity and with clear intent to add value to the mix of ideas.
Offering our Opinions with Respect
It is very reassuring that those who are working currently on the education reforms are doing so with great energy and are creating a new direction for education that hopefully will lead to significant improvements in teaching and learning. Of course, it is critical that they listen to all constructive criticism that is offered in good faith and that they take all necessary actions that emerge from those well-intended suggestions.
Here it is very important to recognize not only the excellent work of Erica Stanford and her team, but also the integrity, patience and goodwill that they have brought to the ongoing debate. It is also critically important to acknowledge the very positive contributions of others who oppose the current reforms from philosophical and professional perspectives, but who nevertheless have voiced their opinions with good intent. Among this community we recognize those who have argued for a central position of knowledge systems and ‘other ways of knowing’ within education in New Zealand, a position with which I agree in part, and who also argue for equality of status of traditional knowledge with modern global science, a view with which I can agree only as and when knowledge claims made within those systems have been tested through the methods of science.
Among the leading proponents of an education system in which traditional knowledge has a prominent place are certain young people, some of them students at New Zealand universities. Highly intelligent, fearless, articulate and deeply knowledgeable about education despite their youthful age, some of them are already making valuable contributions to policy, and on social media post regularly on issues relating to education and on other matters of public interest.
They, and sometimes hundreds of followers, advance their carefully considered and deeply informed perspectives with humor and satire, and all of it very good-natured. They comment on the critical issues in most positive fashion, always constructive and kind in their delivery and most generous when commenting publicly on other people.
Never do we see even the remotest hint of the invective, bad language and ad hominem attacks that are so corrosive to goodwill across communities and that we observe in other jurisdictions in other countries. Those of us who have worked in education for many years have much to learn from these young people and we should listen very carefully when they inform us of the best configuration of our national curriculum!
When these young people complete their tertiary qualifications and move into education as professionals and possibly even to Parliament as leaders of our country, the future of education in New Zealand could not be in better hands!
Dr David Lillis trained in physics and mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing and statistics.
References
Estill, L. and Johnson, E. (2015). Fun international facts about Shakespeare
https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/fun-international-facts-about-shakespeare#:~:text=Other%20popular%20plays%20in%20translation,into%20more%20than%20100%20languages.
Lillis, David (2025). Shakespeare in the English Curriculum?
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/04/david-lillis-shakespeare-in-english.html
Ministry of Education (2026). Te Mātaiaho: The New Zealand Curriculum
https://newzealandcurriculum.tahurangi.education.govt.nz/new-zealand-curriculum-online/the-new-zealand-curriculum-te-m-taiaho/5637303584.p
Poole, Alwyn (2026). I Know the Post is long but PISA is a Big Deal.
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2026/09/alwyn-poole-i-know-post-is-long-but.html
Sokolova, Boika and Janice Valls-Russell, Janice – Editors (2022). Shakespeare’s Others in 21st-century European Performance: The Merchant of Venice and Othello BLOOMSBURY, THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE.
Winsley, Peter (2016). Why Shakespeare is important for young people
https://winsleys.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/why-shakespeare-is-important-for-young-people/
14 comments:
The bottom line is that many or most kids don't study, have no homework--defined as work to take home--never do any school related work after 3pm (or 2pm or earlier, kids never seem to be in school), never do a minute of schoolwork or reading during ridiculous school holidays, never do a minute of schoolwork or reading during the summer.... Compare with other countries. Happy to be corrected.
This is all well and good, but how many school children know how to properly write a letter suitable for various occasions? How many can write a report? How many know how to be persuasive or to structure their thoughts? How many can spell and have developed the self discipline to do so? Regarding oral traditions, how many can give a speech or tell a story worth listening to? How many know what an adverb is? Maybe most importantly, how many can think for themselves rather than simply being brainwashed with all the rubbish taught under the NZ "English" curriculum?
Today's Sunday Read from AEC makes curious reading - "Sunday Read - Education: Bigger Than Politics". They call it their "Election Platform for Aotearoa" and they ask us to help them put Education above politics.
They offer you the chance to download their social media pack, presumably to lobby on their behalf. However, several of their community have been highly active on social media for some time already and the results are not pleasant at all for those on the receiving end.
Several of us have asked AEC, but also the Labour Party, to have certain very nasty Facebook posts taken down but we are ignored every time. Is this the best that New Zealand can come up with when we debate education this close to the election?
To Anonymous at 4.27 AM. I agree fully and I am confident that the new English curriculum will help our schoolchildren to develop those basic skills.
However, I fear that the push against Shakespeare last year was made on ideological grounds rather than on what is best for our kids. Development of the basic reading and writing skills is the most important outcome of an English curriculum, but there is a social, cultural and historic dimension too that deserves to be valued and retained.
William Shakespeare is a titanic figure in international culture and not only in the English-speaking world. It is very important that we state our case on retaining his works as well as promoting the works of Māori, Pacific and other authors.
Anon 427 raises a critically important issue: teenagers' lack of basic language skills that would prepare them for challenging literature. When I first had to read Shakespeare ("The Merchant of Venice") as a third-former in 1968, I was already proficient in basic English language use. I knew my grammar and spelling, and had an extensive vocab. I could write using formal and informal styles, and make sense of formal communications. Today's third-former can barely put a sentence of written English together without spelling or grammatical errors, and has a comparatively limited vocab.
I would rather see 19thC English literature than Shakespeare at high school level, except perhaps at Y13 level where specialised Lit courses including Shakespearian could be offered as electives. Writers such as Conan Doyle, Dickens, Hardy and the Bronte sisters are far more readable than the Bard and present young people today with 'perfect' English applied to themes that they can relate to.
Hi Barend. You make a fair point, though I support only a few works of Shakespeare, in addition to the works of others, including Māori and Pacific authors. Would two or three sonnets at Years 9 and 10 crowd out other critical material?
In any case, any objections that the new curriculum is Eurocentric do not convince.
I can certainly live with a couple of sonnets.
It's not a matter of 'crowding out' but of switching teenagers off with material they can't get on wavelength with. I think we probably agree on that.
Hello Barend.
I agree. Quite rightly there has been a significant push for inclusion of more modern authors and particularly New Zealand authors, including Māori and Pacific. However, some of those who have been in the vanguard of this perfectly reasonable initiative also assert that inclusion of Shakespeare derives from a desire for control.
For example, Jessica Rubin (2025) asserts that telling all English teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand that they must teach texts from 400 years ago and half a world away is about maintaining control rather than about celebrating literary merit. This may be her view and may be the accepted view within the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, but it is a very debatable view that cannot be proved and a view that, unfortunately, very few are prepared to contest. I am prepared.
Rubin says that Shakespeare has become emblematic of a type of elite and powerful knowledge that contributes to a very specific image of an educated person. She says that invoking Shakespeare primarily as a symbol reflects a connected set of beliefs, or ideology that has been appealing to certain populations for a long time. She states that by naming the knowledge they possess as the most important, the most powerful, the people in positions of power get to believe that’s where they belong and it is their right to make the rules. She wants to believe that English teachers, even the ones who love Shakespeare, can read between the lines here. What, exactly, are we to read?
However, very similar assertions could be made of the Labour Party's Refreshed Curriculum of three years ago and I, for one, objected to it because it read more like a political manifesto than a curriculum.
Many others have advanced similar ideas to Rubin's but suppose that it is not about power and control but is actually about literary merit? Our students will read a range of modern New Zealand authors and that expectation is to be supported fully. But who would assert that Sonnet 116, for example, is somehow beyond a fourteen-year-old's understanding or a throwback to an era of colonization?
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
REFERENCE.
Rubin, Jessica (2025). This conversation about compulsory Shakespeare is actually about something else
https://nzareblog.wordpress.com/2025/04/08/conversation-about-shakespeare/
I know a considerable amount about the teaching of reading and my experience recently is that it is just too much for beginner readers to have a very different language like Te Reo pushed onto them .
there are 20 Maori regular vowels and 20 different English vowels with up to 200 different spelling patterns , not including all the silent letters.
English is the most difficult European language to become literate in by far. One to three years to become literate in Italian and Spanish , three to five years to become literate in English.
If you want students to be able to even read Shakespeare , which requires a reading age of 14 years plus , you are going to have to concentrate on teaching English literacy considerably better than is happening now .
What is being omitted in all this is that at the 40 week phonic test only about 35% of students are passing . Little to no mention is made of this. This is a fail . I have observed beginner readers and despite being of normal intelligence they are failing to learn the structured literacy programme well. I agree with AEC that things are not going well. I listed why they are failing being more knowledgeable than most on this topic . This includes considerably more parental/ home involvement and availability of all reading materials to the wider community.
We are at present already bottom in reading achievement of English speaking countries .
On top of a failing English literacy rogramme of this most difficult language is the extra burden of te reo . It is all too much for a little kid .
What we need is not trying to decide what texts , but getting students to a level of being able to read any text, at all at secondary school . We have a much steeper gradient to climb than other countries, having been the home of Whole Language destructive nonsense for 40 plus years . Te Reo may have to become an extra ' like to have ' but taught , as an option out of school hours . Gaynor
I too have suffered attacks by the AEC. Just look at their manifesto . They are totally committed progressives . This means every bit of Marxism they can get their hands on to bolster their agenda of stopping any change away from their beloved ideology . .
It is difficult for me to take seriously the writings of anyone who cannot get the name of our country right. And when they start referring to "the obligations of the Crown under the Treaty" with reference to Shakespeare they have lost me. Some students may be lucky enough to have a teacher who can reveal the magic of the Bard to them but the majority who will miss that will still be exposed to educational experiences of equal worth.
Anonymous at 4.19 PM. You too? I have copped a heap of unpleasant stuff from them and so have others.
Anoymous 6:57PM . I keep writing counter but factual arguments against their nonsense and their fury is actually becoming amusing to me . You keep writing , too . There are some sensible un-indoctrinated teachers who read the AEC site, and they need support . Anonymous 4:19PM.
To Anon at 4.27am:
In the enlightened, treaty-led age in which we now live, none of the writing and analytical skills you listed are relevant, because they are all the product of evil colonisation. Students surely are better off without them.
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