So What’s the Story Behind Stanford’s Proposed New Senior Secondary Curriculum?

This week, with great fanfare at the Auckland base of the US (military?) owned Rocket Lab company, Education Minister Erica Stanford revealed the proposals for the revamp of the senior school curriculum.

Albany Senior High School principal Claire Amos has published her thoughts on this:

The Senior Subjects List is Out

‘Where Does This Leave Our Students?”

Her opening paragraph:

“As Principal of Albany Senior High School, I’ve been waiting for the the great “reveal” of the senior subjects list with great interest. At first glance, the breadth is wider than many of us anticipated, and that’s a welcome win. But beneath the surface, the timing, process, and detail raise serious concerns about how well this serves our young people, our teachers, and the future of education in Aotearoa.”

She continues to bemoan the lack of consultation, that this document has been released just before the September 15th deadline for feedback over the proposed changes to NCEA.  Is this just coincidental or a deliberate ploy to minimise any criticism – you could be excused for thinking.this government isn’t keen on democratic processes.

“Releasing such significant information at this late stage simply does not support meaningful consultation. Genuine partnership (as promised under Te Tiriti o Waitangi) requires early, transparent, and collaborative engagement with schools, students, whānau, and communities.

Instead, we are being presented with a “done deal” list of subjects, in the final days of a less than convincing “consultation”. That undermines trust and risks alienating the very sector expected to bring this vision to life.”

The proposals include widening the range of vocational and educational training subjects, which on the face of it is good, and fits in with comments I made in my observations I made in my previous article about providing a non-academic education pathway. But there are some issues which Claire lays out.

“The inclusion of a large number of new vocational education and training (VET) subjects reflects an intent to broaden pathways. That’s important. However, how these subjects will be developed, resourced and even taught remains unclear. The devil will be in the detail (which at this stage we do not have), but already the risks are clear:

Resourcing: Currently, vocational programmes such as STAR and Trades Academy are often delivered off-site by external providers. If schools are expected to take these on, where is the additional funding and infrastructure or this is a sign that VET subjects will simply be outsourced? Will they even be taught by registered teachers?

Staffing: If we do get to teach these in school (it is not clear that we do) schools already struggle to recruit specialist teachers. How will we staff new VET subjects without further draining our workforce? 

Equity: Larger, urban schools may cope; smaller and rural schools will likely miss out. That creates a two-tier system.

Privatisation: By handing responsibility to Industry Skills Boards (overseen by something akin TEC but still within MoE curriculum?), we risk fragmentation and creeping privatisation. Who ensures consistency, fairness, and access for all students?

These are not minor details, they determine whether these subjects genuinely increase opportunity or entrench inequity. With little actual detail it’s hard to know how to feel.”

Creeping privatisation? What a surprise from this government. Otherwise, things could be worse. Oh wait, let’s look at the next section.

“While new subjects emerge, others have quietly disappeared or been subsumed:

• Art History – gone.

• Education for Sustainability – gone.

• Food and Nutrition (Home Economics) – removed from the Health & PE curriculum. Is Food Technology now with Materials & Processing Technology? It’s hard to know without the detail. 

• Agriculture & Horticultural Science – eliminated, despite its role as a core academic subject and a critical pathway for rural schools.

• Food Technology folded into “Materials and Processing” (one presumes), diluting its identity.

• Meanwhile, “Further Maths” has appeared – which appears to be imported directly from the UK Cambridge GCSE framework.”

What did I write in my previous article about the Arts not being part of the future curriculum?

“These choices raise questions about what knowledge and disciplines we value as a nation. Removing Food & Nutrition and Agriculture & Horticultural ignores Aotearoa’s deep connections to land, food, and wellbeing. Cutting Art History erodes cultural literacy. At the same time, borrowing from overseas frameworks risks undermining our own curriculum identity. Whilst there are some great additions such as Pacific Studies, we are yet to know what these subjects actual entail.”

Claire details the learning opportunities Albany Senior High School offer their students – this look very good to me and and I encourage you to read her article to learn about these and about similar opportunities provided in other schools – the flexibility being a real strength of NCEA.

She then expresses a major concern about the new proposals. 

“But the new model appears far more siloed. To achieve credits, students will likely have to complete an entire subject package (and entire subject curriculum), losing the ability to mix and match.

The risk of narrowing each subject curriculum (so as to fit the constraints of the proposed NZCE), means forcing prescriptive content (e.g., Shakespeare in English) and stifling innovation.

It’s important that we don’t conflate a broad list of subjects with a broad curriculum. There have been many signals to suggest we are moving towards far narrower more prescribed syllabus with each of the subjects listed.”

‘Knowledge Rich’ prescriptive curricula being force fed to students? Stifling creativity, originality and innovation? I wrote about this in my previous article.

She then comments about the problems of superimposing the massive changes of this new curriculum with the proposed new assessment regime.

She concludes:

“We owe it to our young people to get this right. The senior subject list shows both promise and peril. What happens next will determine whether we create a “UK lite” syllabus or an education system that truly reflects the needs and aspirations of all learners in Aotearoa.”

This takes us back to my previous articles about overseas curricula being imposed on New Zealand schools.

Is that what we want?

Brie Elliot has posted the follow video on Facebook (again apologies to those without a Facebook Account).

Erica’s Big Idea: Rename Everything

“Erica Stanford’s big NCEA refresh looks flashy, but students know the truth. From Media Studies and Music Tech to vocational classes, I break down why these so-called ‘new subjects’ are mostly rebrand and PR spin – and why the system still isn’t helping stressed students or teachers.”