New Zealand educators are calling for a fundamental change in the way governments approach education, arguing schools, teachers and tamariki cannot keep being subjected to major policy shifts every time the political winds change.
The call, reported by Scoop, puts the spotlight on one of the persistent tensions within Aotearoa’s education system — governments are elected for three-year terms, but meaningful improvements in teaching, learning and student achievement can take many years to develop and measure.
The challenge for politicians is whether education can move beyond election-cycle policymaking towards a more enduring national direction that survives changes of government.
Education cannot operate on a three-year clock
Education is inherently long-term.
A tamaiti beginning primary school today will remain within the education system through multiple elections and potentially several governments.
Teachers trained under one set of expectations can find themselves working under substantially different curriculum, assessment or professional requirements only a few years later.
Schools must meanwhile implement changes while continuing the daily work of teaching thousands of children.
That creates a fundamental mismatch between political time and educational time.
Governments understandably want to implement the programmes voters elected them to deliver. But repeated changes can create uncertainty for principals, teachers, boards, parents and students.
The bigger question is whether every change of government should also require substantial parts of the education system to change direction.
Teachers carry the cost of constant change
Education reform does not happen simply because Parliament passes legislation or a minister announces a new policy.
Implementation eventually lands in classrooms.
Teachers may need new professional development.
Schools can have to rewrite programmes, alter assessment practices, purchase resources and explain new expectations to whānau.
Principals and leadership teams must interpret new requirements while continuing to manage staffing, budgets, student wellbeing and everyday school operations.
When another reform arrives before the previous one has had time to settle, the system risks creating reform fatigue rather than meaningful improvement.
It can also become difficult to determine whether an initiative actually worked.
If policies are repeatedly modified or replaced before sufficient evidence emerges, governments can end up evaluating political philosophies rather than educational outcomes.
Tamariki need stability
The greatest concern is what constant change means for learners.
Education policy ultimately affects what tamariki are taught, how progress is measured, what support is available when they struggle and the resources schools have to respond.
Students do not experience education as a policy debate in Wellington.
They experience it through their teacher, classroom and school.
Consistency matters, particularly for children who already face barriers to educational achievement.
A stable long-term direction does not mean accepting poor performance or refusing to reform systems that are failing.
It means giving well-designed policies enough time to work, measuring the results and making changes based on evidence rather than automatically dismantling the previous government’s approach.
Māori education raises an even bigger question
For Māori, the debate has another important dimension.
Changes in government policy can affect te reo Māori, mātauranga Māori, Māori-medium education, kura kaupapa, curriculum content and the way Te Tiriti is reflected across the education system.
Those kaupapa are not short-term projects.
Language revitalisation is intergenerational.
Building a strong Māori teaching workforce takes years.
Developing culturally responsive education requires sustained relationships between schools, whānau, hapū and iwi.
And educational outcomes established during childhood can influence employment, income, health and wellbeing across a person’s lifetime.
That makes continuity particularly important when policy involves kaupapa carrying responsibilities to future generations.
Consensus does not mean politicians have to agree on everything
Ending short-term political swings would not require National, Labour, the Greens, ACT, New Zealand First or Te Pāti Māori to adopt identical education policies.
Education will always involve legitimate political differences.
Parties will disagree about curriculum, assessment, school structures, funding and the appropriate role of government.
But there may be areas where a durable national consensus is possible.
Basic expectations around literacy and numeracy, teacher workforce planning, learning support, infrastructure and long-term educational outcomes could potentially be given greater stability across electoral cycles.
Such an approach would require politicians to distinguish between policies that genuinely need changing and those being changed primarily because they belong to the previous government.
Schools need to know where they are heading
Long-term certainty also matters for investment.
School buildings can remain in use for generations.
Teacher workforce shortages cannot be solved overnight.
Training specialist teachers takes years.
Population changes require schools to anticipate where classrooms will be needed long before students arrive.
Digital infrastructure and learning-support services require sustained investment.
A system constantly changing direction can make that planning considerably harder.
The same long-term thinking increasingly being demanded for roads, electricity, housing and other infrastructure can therefore be applied to education.
Human infrastructure also needs a pipeline.
The election challenge
With the 2026 General Election approaching, education will inevitably become another political battleground.
Parties will announce policies and argue their approach will produce better outcomes.
That competition is part of democracy.
But educators are raising a different question: what happens after election day?
If another government arrives with another programme of reforms, how much existing work will survive?
How much will be rewritten?
How much money and teacher time will be required to implement another change?
And most importantly, will tamariki actually achieve better outcomes because of it?
Those questions deserve answers because the people carrying the consequences extend far beyond politicians.
They are principals trying to plan their schools.
Teachers trying to teach.
Whānau trying to understand what their children need.
And tamariki whose education cannot be restarted every three years.
Governments will always change. The challenge for Aotearoa is building an education system strong enough that its long-term direction does not have to change with them.
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