Education Act update consultation closing soon

By Education Gazette editors

Issue: Volume 94, Number 22

Posted: 7 December 2015

Reference #: 1H9cyT

Minister of Education Hekia Parata launched a public consultation on November 2, which runs until December 14. There’s still time to have your say on how the Act can better fit our modern educational environment and what things you think will make the biggest difference to help all children and young people achieve educational success.

The Minister is asking for the views of everyone involved with education in New Zealand – students, teachers, administrators, academics, trustees, families and whānau.

Have your say

Over 100 consultation workshops have been held around the country to support the update of the Education Act 1989. Thank you to everyone who attended a consultation workshop and for sharing your views on the proposed changes outlined in the discussion document.

If you haven’t done so already, we encourage you to make a submission about updating the Education Act 1989. Your submission, along with information gathered from the workshops, will be carefully analysed by the Ministry of Education and will help shape some firmer proposals for the Minister of Education to consider. The Minister will then seek Cabinet’s agreement to her preferred proposals. If Cabinet agrees, a Bill will be drafted.

There will be further opportunity to comment on any specific proposals for change through a Parliamentary select committee process in 2016.

What are the proposals for discussion?

We want to hear your views on:

Making sure everyone knows the goals for education – What the goals for education should be, and how national priorities for learners aged 0–18 years could be set out.
Supporting school and kura boards to focus on what’s important – How the responsibilities of boards can be made clearer, unnecessary red tape can be removed, and boards can respond more effectively to lift student and school performance.
Enabling collaboration, flexibility and innovation – How resources can be better focused to get the best whole-of-community education outcomes.
Making every school and kura a great one – How a graduated range of responses could be developed to better support schools when difficulties arise.
Making best use of local education provision – How local arrangements can support choice and diversity.

Submissions

The easiest way to have your say about the proposals is online at consultation.education.govt.nz. The online consultation includes an introductory video from the Minister, background information, and links to a 13-page discussion document, which details the proposals the Minister is consulting on. There are questions to help guide your submission and you can either respond directly online or upload a submission from your computer.

You can also email your submission to:
education.update@education.govt.nz

Or you can write to:
Education Act Update
Ministry of Education
PO Box 1666
Wellington 6140
New Zealand