Policy breakdown: Education

We’re breaking down different parties' policies on some of the biggest issues in Aotearoa right now. Here's education.

For summaries on other key topics, here’s tax and cost of living.

These are condensed summaries, to make it as easy as possible for young voters to get key, relevant information. Parties may have more policies, or there may be more information or more policy detail beyond what we have been able to fit in here.

There are links to the full set of a party’s policies at the end of each section if you want more details or to see where it sits in their policy portfolio.

Parties are listed in order of the most recent 1News Verian poll, and there’s further info about our methodology at the bottom of this article.

Here’s what the parties are promising to do:

National

Ban phones in all schools

National wants to ban cell phone use at school to help lift student achievement.

Schools would be able to decide how they enforce it, but it could mean handing in phones before school or leaving them in lockers or bags.
Parents would be able to contact their kids via the school office.
There would be exceptions for students with health conditions or special circumstances.

An hour of reading, writing and maths every day in primary and intermediate

National says there is currently too much variation in how much time different schools spend teaching the basics.

So to fix this, National promises to rewrite the curriculum so it has specific requirements about knowledge and skills in reading, writing, maths and science.
National would also require standardised assessment for reading, writing and maths at least twice a year every year from Year 3 to Year 8.
National also wants to make financial literacy, such as learning about debt, bank accounts and mortgages, compulsory in schools.
The cost of this policy is not listed in the policy breakdown however National says their education policies will be funded by the Vote Education baselines which received $16.2 billion in the latest financial year.

Read more on National’s policies here or an analysis of their education policy here.

Labour

Teaching financial skills in school

Labour wants to make it compulsory for schools to teach financial skills.

Students will learn about budgeting, managing bills, investing, Kiwisaver, insurance and taxes.
Financial skills will mostly be taught through maths and social sciences. Schools will have flexibility on how they teach it but there will be essential learning outcomes for each year level. Teachers would receive the needed training and resources.
Labour said the policy would come at no extra cost to the taxpayer and would not add to teachers’ workload.

Labour also wants compulsory core reading, writing, and maths requirements, to make sure there is consistency between schools.

Additionally Labour wants to fund 20 hours free early childhood education for two-year-olds, continue funding free school lunches and make the apprenticeship boost scheme permanent.

Read the full policy here, or an analysis of this policy here.

Green Party

Incorporate Te Tiriti o Waitangi, sustainability and inclusivity

Fund universal teaching of te reo Māori and tikanga.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi education for all year levels.
Incorporating sustainability, mātauranga Māori and age-appropriate animal rights education within school curriculum.
Make it a requirement under the Education Act to include principles of sustainability, e.g. building schools sustainably.
Ban class streaming.
Provide an enforceable right to inclusive education, similar to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Establish a unit within the Ministry of Education designed to make schools listen and respond to the voices of students.
Partner with rainbow organisations to deliver rainbow diversity education and teacher training. This includes adding rainbow histories and rights, including pre-colonial understandings of sexuality and gender, in the curriculum.

The Green Party additionally want a universal $385/ week university student support payment.

The cost of each of these policies and how they will be funded are not listed in the policy breakdown.

You can read the full policies and their other education policies here.

ACT

Tackling the truancy crisis

ACT is making an election promise to fine parents if their kids don’t attend school.

Currently parents can only be fined if there’s a court conviction, but ACT wants it to be more like a speeding ticket.
ACT also wants the Ministry of Education to publish an electronic truancy register every day. And if schools don’t, they would risk losing their government funding.
ACT would also take the $38.5 million the government currently spends on truancy and give it to schools to hire their own truancy officers. The funding would be weighted to the Equity Index, so schools with more vulnerable student populations would receive more funding.

ACT is also promising:

To allow schools to opt out of NCEA and do internationally recognised qualifications instead, such as Cambridge or International Baccalaureate. ACT would fund these qualifications in the same way so schools can redirect funding to the secondary qualification of their choice. Currently schools need to provide their own funding to offer qualifications other than NCEA.
ACT also wants to establish a $250 million a year Teaching Excellence Reward Fund that would be dished out by school principals to reward outstanding teachers. Funding will be allocated to schools in proportion to the number of teachers at that school.

The cost of each of these policies and how they will be funded are not listed in the policy breakdown.

You can read ACT’s education policies here.

New Zealand First

Remove gender ideology from school curriculum

New Zealand First is promising to remove gender ideology from school curriculum.

Currently there are guidelines for teaching relationship and sexuality education (RSE). For example, the Ministry of Education recommends teaching years 4 to 6 about “stereotypes about relationships, sexuality and gender, and how these affect wellbeing”.
RSE is compulsory but how it is taught is up to the school board and leadership in consultation with the community.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says: “The government has no place in the nation's bedrooms - so why are our school children, from age five, now being taught about ‘relationships, gender, and sexuality’?”

New Zealand First also wants to:

Enforce compulsory education and address truancy.
Review the New Zealand curriculum to “remove critical race theory and de-colonialism”.
Provide better pathways and funding for STEM subjects and focus more on reading, writing and arithmetic in schools.
Change ‘Fees Free’ to cover fees for university students in their third year of study, not in the first year as it currently is, to reward students for “successfully passing all coursework to that point”.
Offer free apprenticeships for in-demand trades by refunding fees and course costs after successful completion of each trade examination.

The cost of each of these policies and how they will be funded are not listed in the policy breakdown.

You can read all of New Zealand First’s policies here.

Te Pāti Māori

Prioritise kaupapa Māori education

Te Pāti Māori is promising to fund Māori education the same as mainstream education.

The party would establish a $200 million fund to establish new hapū-based wānanga.
Implement the Te Kōhanga Reo settlement claim by increasing funding for kōhanga and guaranteeing pay equity across the sector.
Increase the number of scholarships for young Māori and reo Māori speakers to train as teachers.

Te Pāti Māori also want to:

Target support for rangatahi Māori with disabilities by establishing a Māori-led taskforce that will specifically focus on how Māori students with disabilities and learning differences are taught in schools.
Create pathways for school leavers by permanently removing fees from apprenticeships and double the amount of Māori and Pacific trade training and cadetships placements available each year.
Pay teachers based on their te reo competency.
Have te reo Māori and Māori history be core curriculum subjects up to Year 10.
Have 50% of the curriculum in te reo by 2030.
Double the student allowance.
End expulsion for kids under 16.

The cost of each of these policies and how they will be funded are not listed in the policy breakdown.

You can read all of the Te Pāti Māori policies here.

Notes on our methodology

How we chose the parties: We’ve included parties who currently have MPs in Parliament, (aka Labour, National, Greens, ACT and Te Pāti Māori) or parties which are likely to win one electorate seat or meet the 5% threshold to get into Parliament (aka NZ First), according to what recent polls are showing. Political parties need to get at least 5% of the party vote or win at least one electorate seat to get into Parliament.

These are condensed summaries: To make it as easy as possible for young voters to get key, relevant information. Parties may have more policies or there may be more information or more policy detail beyond what we have been able to fit in here.

These summaries were accurate as of the time of publication: But parties can release policies right up until the day before election day, so some parties may announce policies after we have published.

How will these policies be paid for? Where possible we’ve tried to include information about what the parties say these policies will cost and how they will be paid for, but not every announcement has that information.

Difference between election promises and government policy announcements:

Some of the things Labour has announced over the last few months are government policy announcements (where work can start on them as soon as they are announced), and some are election promises (where they only happen if that party gets elected). It all gets a bit confusing because both of these things can be referred to as policies, so where possible we’ve tried to indicate which is which.