Tomorrow's Schools
The changes suggested in the white paper, which resulted in a radical restructuring of the country's education system, drew largely on a report by the Picot task force, appointed by the fourth Labour Government of New Zealand.
[7]: p.4 The disputing of whether state mechanisms were "disinterested upholders of the public good" was said to have allowed a "common policy discourse centering on the need for radical structural reforms in education...by an ideologically disparate coalition of interests".
[10] The paper acknowledged that much of the state system was functioning, but raised concerns that some government interventions into education had resulted in inequitable institutional and financing structures that disadvantaged large numbers of students.
[15]: 14 The Picot report of 1988 was seen by one commentator as a "high-level initiative" that acknowledged and responded to increasingly complex social political issues that had led to criticisms of the education system from a variety of interests.
[14]: p.77 In August 1988 the newly re-elected Fourth Labour Government, with Lange as Minister of Education, published Tomorrow's Schools, which accepted most of the recommendations of the Picot report.
Other functions of the MoE included reviewing the curriculum, establishing national guidelines for education, approving charters and managing capital works in schools.
[3]: p.10 Harvey McQueen, who had been a personal educational advisor to David Lange during the period of these reforms, claimed in a 1999 reflection that the Butterworths had been incorrect in concluding the Picot model had left the New Zealand education system in a "steady state", contending there remained a basic tension at the heart of the reforms as society endeavored "to balance two prospects of freedom: entrepreneurial capitalism, the capacity to maximise profit, and democracy based on concepts of equity and social responsibility".
[24] Other reviewers noted that the Butterworths understood their history was largely that of insiders, calling into question their value in assisting external groups who needed to "translate [the policy] into practice in classrooms and other educational settings".
The authors concluded this led to an inference the proposed new system, likely to be market-driven, would improve educational equality, but the debate was clouded by a reluctance of those in favour the reforms to analyse them and those opposed, to criticising perceived underlying ideologies of the government.
[29]: pp 10–11 In moving in the direction of reforming education by changing the machinery of government, the SSC took a strong position that the problem was one of "producer capture" in the sector and its brief was to advise on how this could be overseen by performance management of staff and other good employer provisions.
[29]: p.26 Another paper took the view that this changed the position of teachers within the system from being professionals to "just employees of individual schools" but without access to any "policy-making decisions...[in a role]...limited to operational matters".
[30]: p.99 Geoffrey Leane, from the University of Canterbury School of Law, noted that under such a system the "professional context for teachers – including matters of discipline, classification, training and working hours – now lay in the hands of the new managers, the Board of Trustees".
[27]: p.4 There have been other challenges to the theory that the educational reforms of the late 1980s were only a reflection of imported neo-liberal ideology,[7][15] with one commentary noting that this [ignored] "the cumulative impact of indigenous factors".
Those better able to promote themselves were in areas of the country that reflected the culture of middle-class European and wealthy immigrant families, while schools where the population was of a lower socio-economic status had less funding and often a transient student body.
[65] Martin Thrupp and Katrina McChesney from the University of Waikato wrote a four-part series on the report suggesting it could be read to identify issues and concerns that have "broad agreement nation-wide...[to]...establish a shared platform or rationale for change before tackling the more demanding discussions of the needs of different and unequal communities".
[66] An editorial in the New Zealand Journal of Teachers' Work noted the Taskforce had aimed to promote "educational issues rather than the competitive commercial interests promoted by the Treasury in 1988", and while acknowledging there would be public resistance to some of the suggested roles for boards of trustees, concluded that key to the recommendations was the claim of the Taskforce that under the current self-governing school model there had been a significant increase in "unhealthy competition between schools".
The submission also stressed the importance of supporting all schools to have a qualified librarian and to address the scientific case that students do not retain as much information from online learning as they do from books.
[68] John Ryan, Controller and Auditor-General of New Zealand,[69] within the mandate of his position not to hold a view on the proposed changes to the education system, wrote to Bali Haque on 5 April 2019 with several questions related to school governance, ensuring accountability, better support for boards, improved reporting on school performance, considering effects on other parts of the education system and ensuring changes are implemented effectively.
[72] One research paper noted: The report highlighted the time and effort spent on matters many boards did not have the capacity and capability to address, such as managing school property and appointing the principal.
The Taskforce also reported they had found no evidence to suggest the self-governing model had been successful in raising student achievement or improving equity...[and]...made a number of recommendations that, if implemented, would change the relationships between schools and the Ministry of Education.
[75] Chris Hipkins explained in the media that the Government would set up a new Education Support Agency, create an "independent disputes panel for parents and students", simplify management of schools' property and establish a new leadership centre.
The writers held that this 'policy gap' left individual schools under the influence of local factors and, without incentives to respond to Government policies, enabled some leadership teams to "ignore guidance from the central agencies, such as the Ministry of Education (and occasionally even the law)".
[79] Two academics from Victoria University said the government's response indicated not all of the changes proposed by the taskforce would be implemented and questioned whether the review had "gone far enough to address the systemic inequalities between New Zealand Schools".
[81][82] On 10 August 2020 as New Zealand managed the COVID-19 pandemic, Chris Hipkins, in his capacity as Minister of Education, provided the Government with COVID-19: Update on the Reforms of Tomorrow's Schools System.
[86] In March 2021, the Cabinet of the New Zealand Government approved the Education Work Programme (EWP) 2021,[87] with "Reform of the Tomorrow's Schools system" headlined under Objective 3: Quality teaching and leadership.
[89] An article in the Victoria University-based journal, Policy Quarterly, in August 2023, suggested that when the government approached the Review from a position of resetting the current system, this was at odds with the recommendation by the Taskforce that there be more of a structural transformation.
