Education Minister Erica Stanford responds to criticism of curriculum rewrite

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Education Minister Erica Stanford has responded to critics of her controversial curriculum rewrite with a mix of conciliation and defiance.

Stanford told RNZ changes would be made to six draft curriculums but indicated major revisions were off the table, suggesting some critics had not read the documents properly.

Her comments followed several subject associations sharing submissions calling for major changes and in some cases total rewrites of five of the six documents.

The submissions followed an open letter last month from organisations with a mandate to speak for thousands of teachers and principals urging the government to halt its curriculum changes.

Stanford told RNZ there would be changes as there were with the English and maths curriculums introduced last year.

“We took a huge amount of feedback in with English and maths and we made significant changes and we’ll do that again with all of these subject areas. That’s the point of consultation,” she said.

But Stanford ruled out complete rewrites of the documents as requested by Physical Education New Zealand in its submission on the Health and PE draft.

“The PE teachers especially seem to be wanting us to push back to a very vague curriculum that’s stripped of any sort of knowledge and those important skills that need to be taught,” she said.

“We have to be really clear that it’s got to be consistent and it’s got to be knowledge-rich and it has to be scaffolded over time and we’re not going to move away from that. But if we have got some things that we’re introducing too early or there’s too much or there’s stuff that we’ve not considered we’ll certainly take that into consideration.”

Stanford said the draft curriculum specified the skills and knowledge children should learn but it left room for teachers to instill the values and understanding of movement that she said Physical Education New Zealand wanted in the document.

Timeline still being decided

She said she would make announcements about the timeline for introducing the new curriculums – currently three next year and three in 2028 – but stressed she had been taking advice on that before the Principals Federation and NZEI published their open letter calling for a pause.

“I’ve already been working with many of the principal associations for a long time around pace,” she said.

“We already rephased the pace once, or rephased the roll-out, and we’ve been talking to them about how we can potentially look at doing that again. I’m going to be making announcements in the near future about that.”

Asked to what extent timeline changes were limited by the government’s plan to introduce a new secondary school qualification to replace NCEA from 2029, Stanford said there was room for flexibility.

“We’ve done English and maths and those were the two key. There are other areas that are important for obvious reasons like science, and social science has a huge amount of knowledge in it,” she said.

“So there are some subjects that are potentially more critical… than others. It’s not that I’m saying they’re more important because I love the Arts, they were my favourite subjects at school, but when we make compromise of course we have to prioritise some things over others.”

No organisation representing teachers or principals has spoken out in support of the government’s changes, but Stanford claimed most teachers backed her.

“Schools I’ve talked to are hugely on board,” she said.

“I was at a conference on the weekend… 500 teachers and principals from around New Zealand who are there to learn about the science of learning and implementing it in their schools – hugely on board. My view is that it is a quite vocal minority that are opposed to these changes.”

Stanford said the government would provide schools with the resources they needed to introduce the new curriculums successfully, adding that the English and maths curriculums were going well despite initial pushback from some schools.

‘It is a very big change from what people are used’

Curriculum coherence group member and New Zealand Initiative researcher Michael Johnston said the opposition was noisy, but he was not sure it represented the majority of teachers and principals.

“I do think that there’s quite a distribution for how prepared schools and teachers are for the changes that are afoot,” he said.

He said the proposed curriculums were very different to what most teachers were used to.

“It is a very big change from what people are used to and when people look at it they will see far more content than they did in the previous curriculum and they might wonder how are we going to teach all this,” he said.

“That is going to be a challenge but also the curriculum is designed to be taught in a way that our teachers are perhaps not used to and it is possible using really efficient teaching methods to get a lot more done. Having said that, it’s going to take a while and I don’t think anybody’s expecting perfection on day one and neither are these drafts necessarily perfect that’s why there’s a consultation.”

Asked if middle ground could be found, Johnston said: “The consultations will be taken seriously and where there are valid criticisms I think the drafts will be changed. But again, it is a big change and a big change takes some time to get people’s heads around and I think that just has to be understood.”

Opposition to the changes appeared to be strongest in primary schools and Johnston said the Curriculum Coherence Group was concerned that the sector might be over-burdened because its teachers were generalists who had to get grips with all of the new curriculums.

“One of things that we really need is to show teachers how they can integrate teaching across the different learning areas, that they don’t have to teach it all separately,” he said.

“Teachers can’t be expected to just know that, they need to be given the resources.”

Johnston said schools were not being expected to teach the curriculums perfectly as soon as they were introduced.

“The timeline is fast but it’s also necessary,” he said.

“She’s [Education Minister Erica Stanford] made the point that every year that goes by we have more kids sold short so there is a reason for the velocity as well.

“The process has been very rapid, nobody can deny that. When England revised its curriculum it took many years. They have the luxury of a five-year political cycle, we have a three-year political cycle and like it or not, that has an influence.”

The Education Ministry’s Curriculum Centre deputy secretary Pauline Cleaver said the ministry received about 3800 submissions on the six drafts.

“Consultation is designed to gather a wide range of views, including strong criticism, and we expected people to engage strongly with the draft. Hearing all feedback is an important part of the process,” she said.

“We are now carefully working through the feedback, which is helping to identify where the draft materials need greater clarity, and where educators are seeking reassurance about how the curriculum will work in everyday classroom practice.”

Cleaver said the ministry was on track to publish the updated curriculum in the middle of the year.

“Once the feedback has been fully considered, the minister will outline the next steps, including any implications for timing and implementation,” she said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand