Erica Stanford’s Move to Take Total Control of Education

Bevan Holloway has just posted an article about dictator Stanford’s last minute move to take control of all aspects of New Zealand primary and secondary education.

I must have offended the ME/CFS gods when I wrote my article about this cursed affliction as I’ve been down with the ME/CFS crash I’ve had in years. Therefore I don’t have the brain or energy to comment on Bevan’s article, so I’m reposting the whole article. The original is available here.

What just happened to the curriculum and the Teaching Council

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This morning, 19 May 2026, the Minister of Education tabled Amendment Paper 583 to the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill. Committee of the whole House sits today.

There are two crucial things (among many) you need to know.

The Minister now writes the curriculum

• The Secretary must review curriculum every five years and report to the Minister.
• The Minister may make curriculum changes which ignore that report if they decide the change is “minor or technical”.
• “Minor or technical” is not defined. The Minister decides.
• The Minister, personally, can make and amend national curriculum statements regardless of whether the Secretary has or not.
• The only transparency requirement: public notice after the fact.
• I can find no reference to Te Tiriti as part of the review or decision framework.
• Comes into force 6 July 2026.
• One person decides what children learn, and what evidence is consulted.

The Teaching Council becomes a ministerial appointment

• The Amendment Paper, tabled this morning (which means this option was never consulted on), removes all elected representation.
• Every member appointed by the Minister.
• The Minister may remove any member “at any time and entirely at the Minister’s discretion”.
• Professional standards, registration criteria, and the code of conduct move from the Council to the Ministry.
• None of this was in the Bill the public submitted on. The Bill consulted on kept three elected members from ECE, primary and secondary.
• The Teaching Council is no longer independent.

What it means

• What you teach, how you teach it, what counts as good teaching, and who is fit to teach — all now sit under ministerial control.
• The body that regulates the profession reports to the Minister (who has the power to write the curriculum).
• The check on ministerial curriculum-making is the Minister’s own judgement.

The Bill will pass.

Want to see what this looks like in practice? The psychology curriculum is an example.

Claxton’s warning is about to be made the legislative standard.

Guy Claxton this week called the proposed psychology curriculum “politically motivated intellectual malpractice.”

The Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill — second reading passed 14 May — scales across the system the risk Claxton identifies. Clauses 9 and 10 let the Minister issue curriculum statements, with or without the Secretary’s review — that’s curriculum by ministerial preference, not professional process.

The psychology curriculum is a preview of what that means, practically: politically appropriate curriculum, approved by the Minister’s office, delivered straight to your child’s brain.