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December 28, 2025
Radio Waatea Feature: Education and Culture in the Spotlight, 2025
Waatea Team
Posted On December 28, 2025
If there is one place where the future of Aotearoa was most fiercely contested in 2025, it was in the classroom.
This year, education and culture became the frontline of political and social debate – because what our tamariki learn, what language they speak, and whose stories they grow up hearing are not neutral decisions. They are acts of power.
Throughout 2025, Māori communities watched with growing concern as government changes began to reshape the education system.
Moves to reduce the visibility of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in schools, to water down curriculum commitments to Māori history, and to remove te reo Māori from early reading resources sent shockwaves through kura, kōhanga, whānau and educators.
For many Māori, these changes felt like a return to old battles – ones our parents and grandparents fought when te reo was punished in schools, when Māori identity was treated as an obstacle rather than a strength.
Teachers, principals, kura kaupapa leaders and whānau spoke out.
Submissions were written.
Protests were organised.
And once again, Māori had to explain why our language and culture are not “extras”, but essential to the wellbeing of every child in this country.
At the heart of 2025’s education debates was a simple truth:
Culture is not decoration.
Culture is foundation.
Research continues to show that when Māori students see themselves in the curriculum – when their language, history and identity are valued – they succeed. When they don’t, the system fails them.
Yet this year, policy decisions repeatedly sent the opposite message: that Māori perspectives were negotiable, that Te Tiriti could be sidelined, and that cultural knowledge was secondary to so-called “core” learning.
Whānau knew better.
From kōhanga reo to whare kura, Māori educators held the line – protecting spaces where te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori continue to thrive, even when national policy shifted against them.
Perhaps the most powerful voices in 2025 came from rangatahi themselves.
Students organised hui, wrote open letters, spoke at board meetings, and used social media to defend the future of their education. They reminded the country that these decisions are not abstract political debates – they shape real lives, real classrooms, real futures.
Their message was clear:
We deserve an education system that reflects who we are.
By the end of the year, it was impossible to ignore what was really at stake.
2025 forced Aotearoa to ask:
Do we want an education system that prepares children for the world – or one that erases the very culture that makes this place unique?
For Māori, the answer has never changed.
Our language is life.
Our stories are strength.
Our culture is not optional.
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