“Next year is going to be a tough year for me, because I’m going to have to make some very, very difficult decisions,” Education Minister Erica Stanford says.
That means cuts. Or at least replacements.
“This is the problem in education: we never stop doing things.”
This leads to a disjointed system, where new programmes, initiatives, ideas are constantly tacked on. They might count for a good headline, among bad results. But the return on investment, the impact on student outcomes, aren’t there, she says.
Stanford believes this approach, across successive governments, is why the country is spending $20 billion a year to watch results go backwards.
Officials often don’t know the outcomes or direct impacts of a specific programme. “There’s no outcomes. It’s just money at a contract,” Stanford says.
“So, we are going to have to stop doing some of those things.”
All added up, it’s potentially a lot of money and a lot of programmes cut as part of Budget 2025 – an exercise expected to see a knife once again taken to public services.
“Yep, and it’s going to be noisy. But in the end, I know it’s the right thing to do.”
The education minister won’t be more specific. When she sits down with Newsroom it’s December, and ministers are already preparing their Budget bids for 2025, so the cone of secrecy has descended. But the conversation comes about in the context of learning support.
Budget 2024 saw little for learning support, despite it being one of the areas teachers and educators talk about the most. High learning and behavioural needs are dominating in the classroom, but teachers, students and families are struggling to get support.
In 2024, Stanford tasked the ministry with overhauling the system – a piece of work she inherited from Labour – but not much has been released in terms of a plan or actions.
Stanford says they have already streamlined systems to make applying for support quicker and easier – just one form. The rest will come next year.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education recently made a 0 percent pay offer to school support staff, including teacher aides.
The learning support issue is not going to be an easy one for Stanford to crack. But there are many tricky issues in education – as the minister is well-aware.
This is probably why she’s hinting at sector reform.
Stanford says they’re “only very early stage thinking” and any changes will likely come during the next parliamentary term (post-2026). However, she expects to think more about what is needed in 2025.
The past year has seen the coalition Government make significant changes in education, starting with structured literacy, a return to maths workbooks and more direct teaching of an explicit maths curriculum, along with an overhaul of the literacy and maths curriculums.
Meanwhile, there have been changes to initial teacher education, truancy policy, the reintroduction of charter schools, and the release of Stanford’s six priority areas for education: clearer curriculum; better approach to literacy and numeracy; smarter assessment and reporting; improved teacher training; stronger learning support; and greater use of data.
But she says all these changes are different pieces of a bigger puzzle, which often overlap and should be thought of as a package “rather than biting off one little bit at a time”.
“I don’t want to do a piecemeal change and then find out later that: ‘Oh, we should have done it this way, because now it doesn’t suit this’.”
The coalition is still working through the detail of what that reform or overhaul might look like, but she has a clear problem definition.
“We have schools that are failing; they’ve been failing for decades. And if you’re unlucky enough to live next to that school, that’s the school you go to.”
The last time a government tried to implement wholesale reform of the education system wasn’t so long ago. The Labour-led coalition government launched the Tomorrow’s Schools Review in 2019. Following a nationwide tour of town hall-style meetings, the government unveiled a significantly watered-down version of the draft review.
The lack of buy-in from across the aisle and some schooling communities meant an opportunity to reform the inequities between public schools, brought about by a competitive model that promoted self-governance, was lost.
Stanford acknowledges the need for cross-party support, as well as broad consultation and buy-in for any significant reforms.
“Hey, we’re all in this together,” she says.
When Newsroom first sat down with Stanford after she took on the education portfolio, she named closing the education equity gap as her primary objective.
Aotearoa continues to have one of the largest gaps between the highest and lowest achievers, with socioeconomic factors playing a significant role in those disparities.
This was reinforced by the latest international testing data (for whatever that’s worth).
In December, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study data showed the average performance of Year 5 students is trending upwards, and for Year 9 science, overall results hold steady.
And while New Zealand was middle of the pack of countries in overall results, the four-yearly study showed a concerning gap emerging between the achievement of Year 9 boys and girls. And the gap in results for students from different socioeconomic statuses remains a problem.
New Zealand showed one of the largest differences in achievement between those more economically disadvantaged than those who are economically affluent – only six countries have bigger differences.
While there are high and low achievers across all socioeconomic groups, students who come from poor households are less likely to achieve.
More than one in five Kiwi kids are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Stanford says there is still a way to go in closing the equity gap – a problem this ingrained isn’t turned around in a year. But she is seeing green shoots, which the minister is attributing to her mandating of structured literacy.
Everything else hangs off this policy, and with about 18,000 teachers trained to teach structured literacy, the programme will be “on steroids” from the start of term 1.
Stanford says structured literacy is having the biggest impact for those who’ve struggled to learn to read – and to achieve – before now. And there is still the opportunity for extension of those at the top end.
If a child can read, they can learn, and they have a chance of unlocking their potential and further opportunities. This is the premise Stanford and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon are working from.
Stanford is a minister who appears strong in her views and resolute in her desire to get things done. But that doesn’t mean she’s unmovable.
When the fact (or the feedback) changes, she’s willing to change her mind, she says.
There have already been examples of this in implementing the structured literacy professional development for teachers and a proposed change to initial teacher education.
Listening and learning from students, teachers, principles, communities and even politicians in other parties will take on more importance as Stanford moves towards even bigger and bolder reform in 2025.
