David Lillis: An English Curriculum for Education and Teaching - not for Ideology

Creating a New English Curriculum

During 2022 and 2023 we saw much debate on the previous Labour government’s Refreshed New Zealand Curriculum - "Te Mātaiaho" (Ministry of Education, 2022). Following public release, there were mounting concerns about the near-absence of academic subject content, the heavily Treaty-centric nature of the proposed curriculum, and the embedding of traditional knowledge as central to every subject or “learning area” (e.g. Lillis, 2022a and 2022b; Lillis, 2023). 

Dr David Lillis: New Zealand Must Fight the New Curriculum

 

New Zealand Must Fight the New Curriculum  

Preamble

This article is rather long but then we are talking about the education of future New Zealanders and there is much to be said. The refreshed national curriculum concerns the education of millions of students over future decades and will impose costs of several billion dollars to New Zealand taxpayers. Readers for whom this piece is excessively lengthy can use the headings to go directly to sections of particular interest.

Elizabeth Rata: The Curriculum, intelligence, and democracy

The intelligence of the New Zealand population increased during the 20th century. Nutrition played its part but so too did education. Young people were taught the abstract knowledge of academic subjects and in the process developed secondary intelligence. Since the 1990s, the emptying out of prescribed academic knowledge from the national curriculum is likely to reverse the trend. It’s a sobering thought that the population in the 21st century may be less intelligent than our 20th century predecessors.

Garrick Tremain: Curriculum

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the importance of Te Reo!