The Ministerial Advisory Group takeover of the curriculum refresh

The following investigation was done by Bevan Holloway and was based of a series of OIA requests. You can follow more of Bevan’s work at https://bevanholloway.com/

Last week I published a paper that gave an overview of what has occurred with the curriculum refresh since the new government took office in late 2023, with a particular focus on the actions of the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) appointed by Minister Stanford. That paper drew on the documents that were released as a result of NZATE’s series of OIA requests. You can read those documents on their website.

What I read in those documents astounded me. Far from being a group tasked with being laser focused on providing the Minister with advice about how ‘Teaching the Basics Brilliantly’ could find a place within the existing curriculum refresh programme — something the Ministerial Briefing Papers in those early days makes clear the Ministry was advocating for — it became clear the MAG had a wide-ranging remit and used it to, essentially, takeover the curriculum refresh, turning it into a rewrite.  

There needs to be serious questions asked of the Minister about this. There are very clear public service guidelines around the purpose of a ministerial advisory group and what they are suitable for: “a relatively easy way of involving outside experts in the supply of advice direct to the minister”. They are unsuited for anything beyond giving advice. This MAG clearly, and early on, moved beyond the realm of giving advice, embarking on the writing of curriculum documents which, because the curriculum creates the regulatory framework for schools, is solely the work of government. They were cautioned about continuing with this work in an email on 13 February by a senior official in the Ministry of Education, with this point made explicitly. Whether this led to the MAG pausing their writing activities at that point is unclear in the documents, but what is clear is that even before the MAG had issued their report for the Minister’s consideration, by 15 March they were gearing up to continue that work, organising writing groups that would create the curriculum based on their recommendations, Michael Johnston writing to the MAG that day with the good news that “we will also organise the additional help we’ll need with the writing … We will have strong input into who these people will be. Please provide me with names”.

Public Service guidelines are explicit in stating that “the lack of a statutory basis makes them [ministerial advisory groups] unsuited to regulatory roles”. The Terms of Reference for the MAG also draw that distinction. The MAG is to provide advice to the Minister by late February for consideration, who will then “decide which of the recommendations to progress further.” Any recommendations to be progressed will “provide direction for the curriculum developers to draft the redesigned curriculum content … The Ministry will check in with the Group as the work is being developed … The Group will provide quality assurance … and make recommendations on implementation supports by June 2024.” In other words, the process is clear: the MAG offers advice, the Minister decides which advice is to be progressed, and the Ministry will develop that work. This does not happen in a way any reasonable person would assume it would. Instead, the Mag co-opts the powers of the Ministry of Education and sets about controlling who does the writing of the curriculum — that regulatory framework that is the work of government.

Here’s how that happens.

The report to the Minister is not released until 19 March, and yet before then the MAG are getting ready to assume the writing roles. I was confused by their confidence. That was, until I read their report. On page 21, they recommend “that the Minister authorises the MAG to draft the in-scope documents for testing in schools, with support from suitable experts. The MAG would also like to be involved in the post-testing process (reviewing and responding to feedback).” What an elegant solution to the problem the public service guidelines presented. If the Minister agrees to this, they have effectively co-opted a government ministry and their actions become legitimate.

In the time between the release of the report and the Minister’s response the MAG, especially Michael Johnston and Elizabeth Rata, become frustrated at the time being lost, but still they carry on getting ready so they can get underway as soon as they get the green light. Ministry officials keep pushing back: “can you please not do anything further until the Minister has formally responded”; “We don’t yet have the authorising environment in place to be inviting people onto groups or discussing potential contractual arrangements.” But the MAG have made a good bet. On 5 April the Minister responds and agrees to most of their recommendations, even going as far to say she is “delighted that several members of the MAG wish to contribute to these sprint groups over the coming months”. Perhaps she forgets writing this when, in the heat of an interview with Kathryn Ryan on 12 June, she says “I didn’t even know who the people were until just recently … and they’re now putting together some ideas … they’ve only just started writing”.

I was struck by the level of unease and resignation within the Ministry. All their pushbacks were ineffectual, the MAG always finding a way around them. The concerns raised by a procurement staffer have already made the news — “… it seemed to be quite difficult to find justification for some of the writers who were proposed to be hired”; “I would prefer to not work on this and be put on a different piece of work” they write in an email — but really it’s fait accompli from late March. By late April all the procurement processes are sorted. The work of Elizabeth Rata’s 5-strong English curriculum writing group officially begin their work, based at Auckland Grammar, in early May. By 20 May they have completed the drafting of 24 different ‘programmes’, including ones at year 11-13 level even though those years were never in scope. Elizabeth has to ask for more days because, even though they’re a “well oiled machine!”, they’ve “realised that it’s just not possible to write more than one programme a day” which makes you wonder how they’ve written those 24 programmes in the 20 days of May.

And here we are, with an English curriculum for years 0-6 that’s 62 double sided pages long out for a short round of consultation. 

I kept thinking I was nuts as I read, thought and pieced this together. I had to keep checking myself, saying Calm down Bevan. So I sent the draft to Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa, Research Director at the Disinformation Project, just to see if I was nuts. In his opinion I wasn’t. In it he saw a clear case of what he has documented as the far-right’s theory of political change, and he provided me with a statement placing what occurred in that context (which you can read as an appendix to my report, or here).

We should all be alarmed by this. This is more than curriculum change, it is the subversion of democratic process and no pedagogical approach is worth that. Regardless of whether you think some of what the MAG has proposed is good or not, the real issue here is that we — schools, classrooms and the teaching profession — have been a test case for how a special interest group can co-opt the levers of government in pursuit of their own agenda. So, education sector leaders, don’t be reasonable in your commentary. You already had, for instance, structured literacy. What you won’t have, if we wave this through, is a functioning democratic infrastructure that leads to the development of public policy that reflects the interests of all the people in this place.