Mike's Minute: We are moving forward into real-world education

I read that nearly a third of students who would have passed NCEA Level 2 under the current system will struggle under the new one.

BERL have done research that suggests 15,000 students have followed pathways that may be harder to replicate.

I'm not sure what the point of this research is.

Alwyn Poole: Another small, but positive, Education shift.

The latest IPSOS poll is anything but good reading for National with Labour favoured to better manage 9 of the top 11 issues – including Education. The respondents are wrong on Education as there is incremental progress at present. Much more should be being done in a range of ways but it is not the same level of disaster created by Hipkins and Tinetti.

Each year I do a data process that includes every high school in NZ across a range of measures based on their leavers data. I am about to get the raw data to do that work. Some full system data is now available and I am really happy to say that there have been improvements.

Dr Michael Johnston: Is university still worthwhile?

New Zealanders have long seen university as the best educational route to the good life. Trades and industry training is seen as a second-best option.

That attitude has always been based more on prejudice than reality. Skilled tradies are paid well and many go on to start lucrative businesses of their own.

It is time for a serious re-think of the way young people are prepared for the choices they face when they leave school.

Alwyn Poole: Two Good Indicators and Two VERY bad indicators for NZ Children and Young People

The Good

1. There has been a positive and statistically significant improvement in full school attendance for Term 2 2026 compared to the previous 10 years.

2. I was asked about Erica Standford’s engagement with schools. I therefore took the time to go through her Minister of Education diary for the last three years. I found that she has directly visited approximately 60 schools. Given that she is also Minister of Immigration I would think that this is a very good level of engagement. A case can be made that there is a low level of visits to highly challenged schools but the diary contains no information about where she has actually been invited to.

Erica Stanford: Calmer, quieter classrooms - as walls go up

Nearly 200 schools have begun the process of replacing open-plan classrooms with enclosed learning spaces to create quieter, calmer spaces more suited for learning, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced today.

“When I began visiting schools, teachers consistently told me how difficult it was to teach in open-plan classrooms, and parents also raised strong concerns.

Alwyn Poole: Gap grows in maths, writing.....

From NZH: “Gap grows in maths, writing: More than 90% of poor children fall behind by Year 3”

Derek Cheng writes:

“Almost all socio-economically disadvantaged children fell behind in maths last year by Year 3, with 95% below curriculum level and 70% more than a year behind.

Dr Michael Johnston: A good budget for education

Budget 2026 was not a typical election year budget. Instead of breaking out the pork barrel, Finance Minister Nicola Willis brought forward New Zealand’s projected return to surplus by a year, even if the projection rests on some bold assumptions.

Cast in that light, Vote Education did well. While the ‘fees-free’ year for tertiary students was cancelled and, like most government departments, education agencies will have to trim about 12% of their spending over four years, education as a whole came out ahead. In addition to reallocated savings, about $1 billion in new money will be spent on educational essentials over four years.

Dr Michael Johnston: Setting schools up to succeed in vocational education

Is it better to be a policy analyst or a plumber?

In the minds of many New Zealanders, university degrees carry greater status than industry qualifications. But many tradespeople earn as much, or more, than an average university graduate. Many tradies also go on to start highly successful businesses.

Alwyn Poole: The World’s Most Educated Countries

Versions of below have been in media around the world in the last two weeks.

“In its 2026 assessment, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development highlighted the world’s most educated countries, pointing to strong higher education access and sustained investment in learning.

Corey Smith: When Indoctrination Masquerades as Education

New Hampshire Republicans recently pushed a bill through the state House to prohibit public schools from teaching curricula such as critical race theory, LGBTQ, and gender ideology. The bill, titled the CHARLIE Act (Countering Hate and Revolutionary Leftist Indoctrination in Education), is named after the late conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk. It was partly inspired by the discovery of race-based training materials in handouts and in recommended reading found in three NH cities, including Manchester, the largest city north of Boston. The measure has predictably caused arguments between both parties in the Granite State.

Roger Partridge: In defence of educational caution

Education Minister Erica Stanford stands accused of compressing a generation of reform into two years. Her programme is “radical,” “ideological,” and risks turning children into guinea pigs.

Auckland University’s Professor Peter O’Connor calls it neoliberal “shock-and-awe.”

These are serious charges. History teaches us that haste in education leads to disaster.

Kerre Woodham: Back to the future with specialist schools for complex needs

I've always understood the theory behind mainstreaming. We're all different, we all have different abilities, different attitudes, and a classroom of individuals with diverse personalities and levels of learning prepares young people for the real world. You're not among your own kind once you leave school and enter the workplace, enter the community. Mainstreaming means that kids who are different physically, intellectually, socially, aren't siloed or separated or marginalised. They're part of the wider school community and if they need extra time or attention, well in an ideal classroom, the teacher gladly offers it and the other students make space, accepting that some people need more resources than others.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: From blueprints to building

After many difficult years, 2025 felt different. It was not easier. The economy remained stagnant and the reform agenda demanded hard choices. But attitudes shifted. New Zealand stopped merely diagnosing its problems and started taking practical steps to solve them.

Roger Partridge: The Open Mind and the Closed University

Last month, Dame Anne Salmond issued a public challenge to the very idea of reason – the commitment to shared standards of inquiry that has delivered unprecedented human flourishing over the past three centuries.

Salmond is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated public intellectuals. She was writing in Newsroom on 18 November – the same day legislation requiring universities to protect open debate and remain “institutionally neutral” received royal assent. Salmond opposes the reform. For her, neutrality is a fiction: there is no common ground – only competing worldviews.

Kevin: Another One Who Doesn’t Get Freedom of Speech

Anne Salmond.

Newsroom’s series of articles on the Free Speech Union has been illuminating.

Perhaps the most entertaining was David Williams’ account of their AGM in Christchurch, which featured the Wizard of Christchurch, Brian Tamaki and ‘prominent conspiracy influencer’ Chantelle Baker as well as Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers’ Union and Eric Crampton from the New Zealand Initiative.

Note the subtle put down of using the word entertaining.

Scott Kennedy: Refocusing Education On Education

In early November, the New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) released a media statement criticising the Government’s plan to remove Treaty of Waitangi responsibilities from school boards. The Federation described the move as “extreme” and “far right,” urging boards to continue giving effect to the Treaty in their governance.

It’s hard to overstate how disconnected this concern is from the real challenges facing education in New Zealand. It raises serious questions about whether the Federation is primarily interested in education itself or in promoting a programme of left-wing social engineering.

Roger Partridge: Heretics in the Temple of Educational Orthodoxy

A Moral Reckoning, Not a Culture War

When my colleague Dr Michael Johnston took the stage at a national education conference late last month, he didn’t expect applause. Johnston, a cognitive psychologist and Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, chaired Education Minister Erica Stanford’s Ministerial Advisory Group reviewing the primary-school English, maths and statistics curricula. He continues to serve on the Ministry’s Curriculum Coherence Group. He was speaking at UpliftEd, a conference organised by the Aotearoa Educators Collective.

David Farrar: Here’s some wasteful spending the Government could redirect

The Herald reports:

The Government’s fees-free policy reset is at risk of following its predecessor in failing to incentivise tertiary study and only benefiting the more advantaged.

The warning is included in a Ministry of Education-led analysis, which found the “deadweight” policy to be so poor that it recommended axing it and spending the money elsewhere.

Erica Stanford: Refreshed national curriculum to raise achievement

Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the release of the full draft of New Zealand’s new Year 1–10 curriculum, another significant step toward delivering a world-leading education system for every learner in New Zealand.

“This is a major milestone. It’s been almost 20 years since our New Zealand Curriculum was last fully updated, much has changed in our country and the world since then. Going forward, New Zealand will have a clear, knowledge-rich, year-by-year curriculum that sets out what every child should learn and when, ensuring consistency, coherence, and a fairer education system,” Ms Stanford says.

Mike's Minute: How miserable it is if you can't celebrate good news

Dr Hosking would diagnose a kind of "funk" as a result of observations this week.

There's been two very clear examples these past few days of good news, of uplifting events and of indisputable progress. Yet for too many it was not a reason to acknowledge, or accept, or congratulate, but rather moan a bit more or find a reason as to why it can't be so.