Politics in Education: Teachers fear debates over curriculum rewrites on key topics

Teachers' professional judgment on text choices and study direction are important for students' learning, teachers' groups say. Photo / RNZ / Richard Tindiller

• Teachers fear curriculum rewrites will spark debates over topics like Shakespeare, transgender identity, and mātauranga Māori.
• PPTA President Chris Abercrombie warns political involvement in curriculum development could lead to culture war issues.
• Concerns include the secretive process and potential for small groups to influence teaching content.

By RNZ

Teachers fear a series of curriculum rewrites will erupt into fierce debates over topics including Shakespeare, transgender identity and traditional Māori knowledge.

A months-late advance draft of the secondary school English curriculum is only now circulating among select teachers after what they say was a cloak-and-dagger writing process. In November, the group rewriting the science curriculum was suddenly paused.

Meanwhile, rewrites of the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum and health and physical education, which included relationships and sexuality curriculums, lay ahead.

PPTA president Chris Abercrombie said curriculum rewrites were usually controversial only among teachers, but increasingly they were attracting public debate and some teachers were worried.

“In certain subjects there’s quite a lot of anxiety. I know particularly in English we saw recent issues, the sort of secret writing group and how much they were involved.

“The ministry to my understanding has really listened to the feedback on that issue and we haven’t seen that in other writing groups at this point.”

Abercrombie said there were potential flashpoints in several rewrites including English, science, Aotearoa New Zealand histories, and relationships and sexuality.

Abercrombie said the Ministry of Education had to listen to the associations that represented teachers of each subject.

National’s coalition agreements with NZ First and Act included commitments to can the relationships and sexuality guidelines and review the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum.

Abercrombie said that was unusual and a potential problem.

“Traditionally politicians have stayed out of curriculum development,” he said.

“It can, if you look at overseas jurisdictions and America, [lead to] banning books and you have to have the 10 commandments up on the classroom and that’s not great for education ... Once you open that door it’s very hard to close it.”

Abercrombie said it could lead to curriculums becoming about culture war issues rather than about what was best to teach.

“That’s a big concern for us and we saw that in the ERO report about the relationships and sexuality education curriculum and guidelines. Some community groups being really concerned, some parents being really concerned but often based on misinformation or a misunderstanding of what’s occurring. So we don’t want our education system to go pillar to post and that’s what we’re seeing at the moment, these big changes, big shifts,” he said.

He said there was always a risk that small, vocal groups would exercise outsized control of what was taught.

PPTA president Chris Abercrombie. Photo / RNZ / Angus Dreaver

The Government wanted more prescriptive curriculums but it needed to value teachers’ professional judgment, he said.

“Teachers are highly qualified, highly experienced professionals who know that text A might be better than text B in this situation because of the students we have in front of us and not ‘the Government said I have to teach this text, I have to use this resource’.”

Some teachers’ fears had already played out with the secondary school English curriculum.

Pip Tinning from the Association for Teachers of English said that rewrite was put in the hands of a select group in an unprecedented “cloak and dagger” process.

“This one’s been very, very cloak and dagger, really under wraps, really hard to get comms out of anyone. We have never [sent an Official Information Act request to] the ministry about what’s happening before but that was literally the only way we could get information around what was occurring.”

Tinning said details of the likely content, shared with RNZ by a member of the writing group earlier this year, deepened teachers’ fears about what would be in it.

“Texts that actually were out of touch. There wasn’t a lot of modern texts in there. The cursory nod to Aotearoa New Zealand literature, to Māori writers, it was cursory. That was a major, major concern for us.”

Tinning could not discuss what was in the advance draft she had received, but the ministry said a draft would be available for consultation from January 27.

The science curriculum also ran into problems recently, with the ministry suddenly halting the rewrite after a single meeting.

The ministry said it was now asking science subject associations to nominate people to join the contributing group.

Associate Professor Chris Eames from the University of Waikato’s School of Education, said it was not clear what caused the sudden pause.

Among science educators, there was some disagreement about the future direction of the subject, he said.

Basically, some wanted science lessons that taught facts and prepared young people for a career in science, while others wanted more emphasis on ensuring all young people could understand science issues.

Eames said the extent to which mātauranga Māori was included in the curriculum could also be a sticking point for some, though most teachers appeared happy to include it in some form.

The health and physical education curriculum was also up for review in 2025.

It included relationships and sexuality, recently the subject of an Education Review Office report that warned public consultation on the content of lessons exposed school staff to threats and bigotry.

Leigh Morgan from the Health Education Association said there was not a lot of disagreement among teachers about what should be in the curriculum.

A more prescriptive curriculum might help reduce controversy by removing the need for each school to consult its community about what it would teach, she said.