JOHN RAINE: Don’t Back Down on the Education Reforms, Erica Stanford

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) has circled its wagons and is mounting a noisy counterattack on Education Minister Erica Stanford’s much-needed Education Reforms [1].   Last year it was loud objection (still ongoing) to the new literacy and numeracy curricula, solid science learning, and a lessening in the focus on the Treaty of Waitangi required of School boards. Now it is the pushback on the new NZCE Year 12-13 schools’ qualification which will have compulsory exams in every subject.   

Make no mistake, the New Zealand education system has been in steep decline for well over 20 years since the introduction of the NCEA schools qualification system driven by the postmodernists. With its constructivist approach to knowledge acquisition, it lost rigour in the delivery of core knowledge and skills, and markedly in mathematics and the sciences [2]. Teachers used to a more structured and disciplined learning environment were highly critical at the time of the introduction of the NCEA, but to no avail. Over the same period there has been a parallel softening of the academic rigour in primary school education.  The latter was evident in State primary schools even in the early 1990’s based on the experience of my own family.

Examples are too numerous to list. An often-criticised case in mathematics was an NCEA Level 1 problem – the “rectangle question”, which asked students to “draw a rectangle with an area of 12 square centimetres”. This question, used over multiple years, was absurdly trivial for Year 11 students and failed to test mathematical reasoning - a  student could draw any rectangle and label the sides with two numbers that multiplied to 12. It also failed to test conceptual understanding or require students to generalise the problem algebraically. Students at this level should be doing reasonably testing problems in geometry and algebra.

More notable, but for a different reason, was the Year 9 student who, about three years ago, reported to their parent that the class had just had a science lesson where they were taught the cultural belief that water had a spirit and a memory rather than the fact that it is composed of countless trillions of molecules  of  two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen.

As noted by Schwerdtfeger, Raine and Lillis [2] (after Hartwich [3]), “In 2000, New Zealand was one of the top performers in the world. Our results were above the average of the world’s most developed countries, and we placed third in mathematics and fourth for reading in a group of 41 countries. When the latest PISA results were published in 2018, the decline had progressed so much that in science and reading New Zealand was only marginally above the OECD average. In mathematics we are now below average. Of the larger group of 78 participating countries, New Zealand ranked low, at 27^th. Reading is similarly in trouble. For example, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) shows that the reading skills of New Zealand students continue to decline. In 2021, New Zealand recorded its lowest score since the inception of PIRLS in 2001”

Sure, it will be a challenge for many teachers to deal with a more demanding curriculum that requires students to be competent in arithmetic, to learn English grammar and read some demanding literature texts.  More than a few of these teachers themselves came through the dumbed-down system that enabled students to leave secondary school without integrated bodies of knowledge in core subjects. Understandable, therefore, that these changes might be threatening.

But look at one of the consequences of the NCEA. Those of us in university education witnessed an erosion in standards and grade inflation as we dealt with numerous students who were starting degrees with NCEA Level 3 qualifications, but who struggled to write a coherent sentence, let alone a short essay.  At the last university where I worked, we had to introduce remedial mathematics and physics courses to bring university-entrance qualified students up to a standard where they could tackle Stage 1 Engineering entry courses.  There were commonly students who could not perform basic arithmetic operations let alone basic algebra or calculus.

The PPTA, like the Tertiary Education Union, have been open about their critical social justice and decolonisation agenda.  The Teachers’ Union supports an education system that is highly Treaty-centric and oriented more strongly towards Māori culture, with less focus on the hard basic knowledge called for in the new literacy and numeracy curriculum. 

It is right that New Zealand children should be educated in Māori culture, so long as this involves an accurate portrayal of New Zealand history and is free of indoctrination. But what must be non-negotiable is the acquisition of a solid knowledge-based learning in core subjects. This provides a foundation for ongoing education that enables students to move into post-secondary school learning in universities, polytechnics or into immediate employment, and many more to subsequently move into effective professional or trades roles rather than struggling to find work in the crowded low-skills market. 

Only two months ago, the no-NCEA but barista-qualified son of a family acquaintance was among 1200 unsuccessful applicants for a job preparing smoothies in a café.  Stories like this are too common as students have exited the present system with little having been demanded of them.

The negative Stuff [4] report May 16^th 2026 on the NCEA replacement qualification, quoted the PPTA’s reaction that the qualification changes are a “significant over-correction, which would bring in a rigid system that would mean more students leave school without qualifications.”  This of course is speculation, and in any event far too many students have emerged from the NCEA system with a qualification that was of little value.

The further claim by the PPTA that students in the new system will be ill-prepared for an AI world requiring high levels of creativity is in this writer’s view nonsense.  A creativity-focused education on its own will take you somewhere, but a broad and deep knowledge-based education is essential to open up far wider creative horizons for those entering employment in the technically complex AI industry sector.

This is not a time for blinking. Erica Stanford must press on with the reforms.  If New Zealand is to make real headway in becoming a high-productivity, diverse technological economy with first world infrastructure and affordable high quality health and social services, we have to reduce the deadweight and ideological overreach of our public service, we must strive at every turn for greater efficiency, pay down debt, and direct more discretionary investment from housing into the productive sector.

But fundamental to our future success is a well-educated population. Without this, we can look forward to being a poor and decreasingly relevant Pacific Island nation.

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John Raine is an Emeritus Professor of Engineering and held Deputy and Pro Vice Chancellor roles in three New Zealand Universities. His responsibilities have included research, research commercialisation and internationalisation. 

References:

1.       Ben Leahy, “New NZCE qualification unveiled for Years 12-13 to include compulsory exams in every subject”. New Zealand Herald, 16^th May 2026. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland/new-nzce-qualification-unveiled-for-years-12-13-to-include-compulsory-exams-in-every-subject/TQSOQI42KRBFLLJ42TACW4VTQQ/

2.     Peter Schwerdtfeger, John Raine, and David Lillis, “Post-modernism and the Degrading of Education in New Zealand “Breaking Views NZ, 24^th July 2023.

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2023/07/peter-schwerdtfeger-john-raine-and.html

3.     O. Hartwich (2022), “Rebuilding Better: Once world-class, NZ’s education system is now a disaster. How do we fix it?” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/rebuilding-better-once-world-class-nzs-education-system-is-now-a-disaster-how-do-we-fix-it/SFMT6U2WSFGDLABJSL2RHPCR5I/

4.     Nicholas Jones, “NCEA replacement ‘not going to suit our young people’ says teachers’ union”, Stuff, 16^th May 2026.  https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360979795/ncea-replacement-details-revealed-high-school-education-set-major-overhaul