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In 2011 the Ministry of Education embarked on a ten-year strategy to rejuvenate New Zealand’s aging classroom estate. Part of this strategy involved establishing large, open plan classrooms, populated by many more children than are found in cellular classrooms. The Ministry conducted no research on the effects of these ‘Modern learning Environments’ on students’ learning prior to compelling schools to adopt them. Read more

Alarming results have come from a pilot of new literacy and numeracy assessments for NCEA. The new assessments are scheduled to be introduced as part of the Ministry of Education’s review of the NCEA system. Read more

New Zealand’s reading light has been dimming for some time. International assessments show New Zealand’s reading performance has fallen, and that Māori and Pasifika students are particularly underserved. Read more

The purpose of secondary schooling varies depending on who you ask. For many parents, educators, and education professionals, schooling is meant to transmit the most ‘powerful’ knowledge that exists. Read more

Read our submission to the Ministry of Education on Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories in the New Zealand Curriculum (draft for consultation). New Zealand's history is much more complex than can be explained by arguments about the exercise and expression of power. Read more

The year 2020 was one none of us will forget in a hurry. Lives were put on hold. Read more

A well-functioning education system that delivers good outcomes for all is essential to New Zealand's future prosperity and the wellbeing of its people. However, there have been a number of recent reports highlighting our declining educational performance. Read more

New Zealand faces its worst recession in nearly a century. Unfortunately, the economic response to the challenges of Covid-19 leaves much to be desired. Read more

There is a rot at the core of schooling in New Zealand. The Ministry of Education follows unscientific advice and is in thrall to a flawed philosophy. Read more

This research note takes a closer look at school effectiveness across state, state-integrated, and private schools, otherwise defined as school authority (or type) using the Initiative's school performance tool. In a New Zealand first, we estimate each school’s contribution to student achievement across the three school authorities after separating out the contribution of the family socioeconomic background using data from Statistics New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). Read more