Stanford’s Dictatorial Education & Training (System Reform) Bill, Continued
I discussed this very concerning bill in my previous article. As it was getting too long, I had to omit further information, in my opinion the educational equivalent of Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill, not that we should be surprised because it is well known that Stanford and Seymour have the same puppet masters pulling their strings.
Guerilla Surgeon’s comment on the article is very apt:
‘Yes Labour might do it – and then three years later National may do it again. It’s about time education stopped being made a political fucking football. Because I imagine that everyone outside the Ministry of education is sick of it.’
Absolutely – Guerilla Surgeon gets it. How about the rest of you?
Recently the Aotearoa Educators Collective (AEC) published their thoughts on this bill, especially Stanford’s intent to take over the New Zealand Teachers Council. As usual I will highlight sections, however I implore you to read it for yourself.
I can almost hear Arlo Guthrie’s song ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ playing as I write, for those oldies out there who remember it. If you’ve never listened to this, then track it down.
‘There are moments in Aotearoa’s educational history when reform feels principled, when change is careful, evidence-based, and necessary. Think of our 2007 NZC, the development of Ka Hikitia, Te Mātaiaho and the “Vision for Young People”, by our young people. And then there are moments when reform (like much in the last two years) feels timed, carefully managed and artfully directed. Strategically. Conveniently. Politically. Crises manufactured. Heavy handed reforms rolled out in their wake.’
I’ve written about this in-depth over previous articles, in the hope that the message will get through to all readers. What is being done to education is very seriously harmful to current and present children.
‘At the centre of this upheaval sits the ‘Education and Training (System Reform) Bill’. Framed as improvement, the Bill reshapes many things, Much “gripping up” including for the governance arrangements for the Teaching Council, the board composition and the degree of ministerial influence over regulatory settings.
Cabinet papers on occupational regulation and workforce governance speak of alignment, coherence, and responsiveness. But beneath that language lies a deeper recalibration, a movement away from arm’s-length professional self-regulation and toward stronger executive oversight and control. A shift that places New Zealand at odds with international best practice.‘
New Zealand has been seen as an educational world leader in the past, but this was for progressive educational reasons, not the reactionary ones that Stanford is espousing.
‘Across high-performing education systems, professional regulatory bodies are deliberately structured to be independent of direct political control.’
The article then lists examples from Scotland, Ontario, and Australia. Even the OECD has differing standards:
‘In fact the ‘Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’ (OECD) consistently emphasises that high-performing systems balance accountability with professional trust. Strong professions regulate themselves within clear statutory frameworks, but never under day-to-day political direction.’
Contrast this to Stanford’s incipient educational dictatorship. We are an outlier.
How does this look in practice?
This article then goes on to allege that the then CEO of the Teachers Council was dismissed to prevent her expressing her opposition to this bill. That may be so.
‘When the CEO of The Teaching Council, Lesley Hoskins was suddenly placed on leave amid conduct allegations, the timing raised immediate concern within the sector.
Hoskins was known as a CEO willing to speak out, including raising concerns about political interference in professional regulation. And then, during the peak of legislative momentum behind the System Reform Bill, she was stood down and effectively silenced.
Officially, the decision related to conduct concerns. But governance is not judged solely by formal explanations, it is judged by sequence and context. It is important to consider the facts – a CEO known for pushing back is suddenly placed on leave just as a government is advancing legislation centralising regulatory power. A sudden removal at a pivotal reform moment. It is interesting to note that in Hoskin’s absence the Teaching Council did not submit an oral submission regarding the System Reform Bill.’
However recent revelations has shown that there is another side to this, which Bryce Edwards details in an X post.
The Teaching Council and the rot at the heart of NZ’s public sector
‘The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is supposed to be the guardian of teaching standards. It registers and certifies teachers, vets who get to stand in front of a classroom, and enforces professional conduct. Right now it looks more like a case study in how public institutions go wrong.
Over the past two weeks, two devastating reports have landed in public view, exposing an organisation riddled with conflicts of interest, procurement failures, child safety breakdowns, and a culture that prioritised being popular over doing its job. This isn’t some minor bureaucratic stumble. The body entrusted with protecting children and upholding the standards of around 150,000 teachers has been found to have fallen “well short” of the most basic expectations.’
We need to be mindful of a number of things here. Teachers must have current registration with this council, for which they have to pay an ever increasing fee each year. Second this council, as I’ve previously explained, has aways had a government involvement, although nothing as dictatorial as Stanford plans. As you will see, however, the council appears to have broadened its operations beyond its remit as an arbiter of teacher quality.
‘On Tuesday, the Public Service Commission released its investigation into procurement and conflict of interest management at the Teaching Council. The findings were brutal.
Between late 2018 and early 2025, the council awarded approximately $1.735 million in contracts to advertising firm Clemenger Wellington, whose managing director Brett Hoskin is married to Teaching Council CEO Lesley Hoskin. Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche did not mince words. The council’s management “fell short, and sometimes well short, of the standards expected in the public sector.” The failures were “not matters of minor or technical non-compliance” but “reflected poor oversight and immature organisational controls.”
I can’t see why the council needed to pay for so much advertising? More importantly though, isn’t this a conflict of interests?
‘The Commission found that “many of the contracts linked to these initiatives were not procured through competitive processes.” One contract stands out starkly. A “Request for Proposal” was issued indicating a value of $75,000. The final contract came in at $570,000 (later adjusted to $530,000). The description of services also “differed significantly” from what was originally scoped. So, how does a $75,000 job balloon to more than seven times its estimated value without anyone raising an alarm?’
Further, a review by consultant Debbie Francis found:
“The most damning finding was around child safety. Francis stated: “The most critical function the council performs is the prevention of harm and victimisation of children.” She found the organisation had the culture of “an advocacy body” rather than a regulator. Its leadership “appears to be personality-driven.” There were signs of “dominant cliques” that might “freeze out” dissenters. And the executive appeared “to some interviewees, to prioritise pliability over relevant experience and technical expertise.”
For an organisation entrusted with gatekeeper functions over who gets to teach our children, that is a devastating assessment. The council had essentially been captured by the industry it was supposed to be overseeing.”
I’d dispute that as teachers have little input or control over how this body operates. This is in contrast to other professional bodies e.g., doctors, lawyers, nurses, social workers and so on. If anything it shows that teachers should have full control including appointment of the CEO.
The AEC has its own take on the Francis report.
‘But what has been striking is the timing and the way the report’s findings were framed publicly. Rather than presented as a forward looking targeted strategic review of a functioning statutory body, aspects of the report were positioned as evidence of systemic dysfunction, reinforcing the case for urgent structural overhaul under the System Reform Bill. Nuance was flattened. Context was compressed. Urgency was amplified. Ironically, the existing powers and functions of the Teaching Council do not permit it to undertake the functions that the Francis review, the media and the Minister claimed it should already be undertaking.’
But there is another aspect, as much as I dislike having to quote David Farrar:
‘David Farrar drew attention on Kiwiblog today to something equally noteworthy: almost all the contracts at the centre of the scandal were for projects that had nothing to do with the council’s core business of teacher registration and regulation. As Farrar put it, even if these projects had been properly procured, they were still a massive cost that teachers were being levied to fund. He highlighted $400,000 spent on “unteaching racism,” $600,000 on raising awareness and a stakeholder engagement plan, and $500,000 on digital engagement.’
As Edwards writes:
‘A regulator that was supposed to be focused on standards and safety was instead running advertising campaigns and building its brand, all while funnelling work to the CEO’s husband’s firm without proper competitive processes.
Teachers were footing the bill through fees that have skyrocketed in recent years. The current renewal cost sits at about $506. Teachers have every right to ask why they are being squeezed to fund a regulator that spends $1.7 million with the boss’s husband’s firm and can’t effectively safeguard children.’
Again if the teaching profession had control of the council, then skyrocketing fees wouldn’t be an issue.
But there is another issue, of equal importance, and that relates to Stanford’s appointment David Ferguson as the new CEO.
As the AEC article explains,
‘the Chair appointed by the Minister herself appears to be untouchable in the face of missteps (such as appointing his Deputy Chair as Interim CEO) and a number of unconventional communications reported by RNZ.
In the reports it is clear that David Ferguson engaged in multiple communications with the Minister about advice for securing funding for his ITE, The Teachers Institute. He then went on to be appointed Chair of the Teaching Council, by the Minister, whilst serving as CEO of an Initial Teacher Education provider, whilst also holding a ministerially appointed governance role at NZQA, the folk who provide qualifications and accreditation for said ITE.’
Read that carefully. Ferguson has his own private teacher training institution, as well as being appointed to the NZQA that overseas teacher education. That screams ‘conflict of interests’ and should have ruled him out from anything to do with the Teachers Council.
Edwards also addresses this:
‘Professor Joce Nuttall, Chair of the Council of Deans of Education, was blunter: “Ms Stanford has some explaining to do about how a private teacher education provider came to have such a ‘cosy’ relationship with the Minister in setting up their business. This appalling conflict of interest is even more shocking given that Mr Ferguson is now Chair of the Teaching Council, the very body that approves the Teaching Institute’s programmes.
The irony of Ferguson overseeing a council under fire for conflicts of interest while having his own unexplored conflict is hard to miss. In a small country like New Zealand, these connections scream cronyism. This pattern of mates helping mates is a recurring theme in Wellington’s political culture.’
But in this government’s usual corrupt fashion, this was overlooked, as were the conflicts between Michael Johnstone and Elizabeth Rata’s connections with the New Zealand Initiative, and them being appointed to Stanford’s education advisory group.
Again, from the AEC article:
“This structural overlap is significant. The optics are not good. In international regulatory practice, perceived conflicts of interest are taken seriously precisely because regulatory credibility depends on impartiality. The OECD and comparable jurisdictions emphasise not only the management of actual conflicts, but the avoidance of perceived ones.
What has unsettled many observers is the contrast. Inferred governance concerns surrounding Hoskins prompted decisive removal. Structural overlap and suggested ministerial assistance in Ferguson’s roles prompted explanation but continuation. ‘Move on, nothing to see here’”
This is supported by Bryce Edwards:
‘Genuine failures at the Teaching Council are now being used to justify a restructure that concentrates more power in the Minister’s hands. The Council needs major reform, no question. But there is a difference between fixing an institution and hollowing it out. A regulator captured by its profession is bad. A regulator captured by a minister is not automatically better.’
And:
‘The teachers of New Zealand, and the children they teach, deserve a regulator that is governed with integrity and focused on its actual job. What they got instead was an organisation where the CEO’s husband’s firm was awarded $1.7 million without proper competitive processes, where a convicted child sex offender was waved through vetting despite police warnings, and where the chair may have his own undeclared conflicts with the minister who appointed him.’
This is a variation of the disaster capitalism approach of using some kind of disaster to implement sweeping changes. As the AEC report implies, the release of the Francis report was carefully planned to coincide with the introduction of this bill.
If you ever wanted an example that things are rotten in the state of New Zealand (to paraphrase Shakespeare), this one stands out.
The AEC article concludes:
‘This is not a horror story of scandal. It is a horror story of sequencing. Of convenient timing. Of amplified narrative. Of selective scrutiny. Of structural power shifts disguised as administrative tidying.
Reform can strengthen systems. But reform that appears politically convenient, particularly when it coincides with the removal of independent voices, risks dismantling the very trust it claims to protect.
The horror show that is the System Reform Bill may pass. But the profession will remember how it unfolded. And history tends to judge not only what was changed, but how.
And by whom.’
To add to this, David Choat, a former member of the New Zealand Teachers Council, has published his thoughts as he finished his term.
‘Last week I said farewell to the Teaching Council after two enjoyable and rewarding years. But, while I’m proud of my contribution, I am sad about the circumstances that the organisation is currently facing.’
He then lists his concerns. If you’ve been paying attention, you won’t be surprised.
‘If the ‘System Reform Bill’ passes in its current form:
- the Teaching Council will become far less teacher-governed,
- its role will be narrowed to policing the rules that govern the profession, and
- those rules in future will be set by the Ministry of Education, as an agent of the Minister.
As you may have already read elsewhere, the process for developing and announcing this set of changes was shoddy, its rationale was flimsy, and its implications are troubling.’
And then:
‘The Teaching Council has proved, including over the last two years, that it can engage constructively with Government intentions and make speedy and effective changes in a way that kept faith with the profession.
Instead, we are seeing a time-consuming merry-go-round of agency functions.’
Why then, have these changes been deemed necessary?
Choat concludes:
‘But what’s truly at stake here isn’t an organisation.
It is the teaching profession having a meaningful say in the way it is regulated.
I have a strong conviction, though, that whatever changes the ‘System Reform Bill’ makes will not stand. In due course, the profession will prevail and the teachers will once again have a central role in setting their own code of conduct, entry requirements, professional standards and registration criteria.
I only hope not too much damage is done – to the profession, to the education system, to our children’s futures, and to our democracy – before that day.’
We can only live in hope that sanity will return to New Zealand Education.
