This newspaper recently reported the education union NZEI questioning why the Ministry of Education was allowing a consultation period 50% less for the draft of Māori curriculum than for its English counterpart.
The response from the ministry, reportedly, was to the effect that because the content of the Māori curriculum was of such import that the ministry had to put extra time and work into it ‘‘so as to get it right’’ but in doing do effectively halved the time for response.
A position that is difficult to see as being other than contradictory if not duplicitous.
A report compiled from feedback from teachers and school leaders published online in 2025 would strongly indicate the 2022 curriculum, at present in effect, is effective, well-received and supported at the coalface.
On the other hand, the New Zealand curriculum, released in October 2025, has been roundly criticised in education circles and elsewhere.
The proposed curriculum represents a significant departure from the current one which we are told by the profession provides an inclusive view of Aotearoa New Zealand’s past, to build relationships with mana whenua and exploration of the relevance of our histories within a wider global context.
The same profession is now telling us that the new history curriculum will have the effect of deepening divisions in this country.
In announcing the new curriculum in October 2025, Associate Minister of Education David Seymour is reported as saying the new curriculum takes politics out of history.
The nonsense of this comment is self-evident as all history reeks of politics.
What Mr Seymour is doing, along with Education Minister Erica Stanford, is blatantly introducing politics to education in furtherance of a particular ideology.
This is not something new and has its roots in an international organisation which is gaining support with libertarian factions throughout the Western world.
Ms Stanford and Mr Seymour are entitled to their views and by virtue of their office are enabled to give effect to them.
What is called for is some disclosure of motivations lurking in the background and perhaps some intellectual honesty.
Mr Seymour said in October last year, ‘‘school curricula should expand the minds, not some adult’s ideology’’.
Renowned German historian Charles Maier comments that ‘‘history should contribute to a reconstructive effort, by, as well as on behalf of its victims’’.
Limiting the time for consultation on these changes and pressuring the overextended professionals charged with the responsibility of the formal education of our children is unacceptable.
As is purporting to sanitise the changed curricula with rhetoric adopted by politicians driving the uncalled-for changes without full disclosure of the source of political ideology upon which they are based.
- Noel O’Malley is a former president of the Otago District Law Society and holds a master’s degree in peace and conflict studies.
