WELLINGTON, June 30 — A veteran educator is arguing that New Zealand’s declining academic achievement tracks directly against the dismantling of the country’s once-uniform national curriculum. David Crickmer, writing in a letter published today, praised Patrick Drumm’s recent opinion piece on the “long road back to equitable learning for students” and offered his own four decades of classroom experience as evidence. Crickmer arrived from England in 1969 and was handed a copy of the National Curriculum — a document that specified what had to be taught at each year level.
“You knew what had to be taught at each year level,” Crickmer wrote. The Education Department — not yet a ministry — and the Education Boards produced handbooks supported by an expert advisory service.
The teacher’s job was to make the required content meaningful to students, while the content itself remained consistent across the country. The record shows that structure has since loosened significantly. Crickmer drew a direct line between that decline and the country’s slipping scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA.
“The looser the expectations of a curriculum, the less robust it becomes,” he wrote. Crickmer thanked Drumm for his assessment that “the journey back to quality education for our young people is underway.” The letter was published in the Henderson Valley area of Auckland.
Curriculum structure under debate
The letter arrives as the coalition government faces questions about its approach to education and public services. Act leader David Seymour has suggested that Pharmac, the pharmaceutical purchasing agency, should make greater use of artificial intelligence, according to the source material. The broader coalition appears keen on replacing many front-line interface services and decisions with AI systems.
Crickmer’s critique is notable for its specificity. He taught in England when there was no national curriculum, and found the contrast with New Zealand’s system in 1969 striking.
The Education Department of that era produced what he described as “very helpful and informative handbooks.” The advisory service that supported teachers has since been dismantled along with much of the curriculum framework. The timeline of that erosion, Crickmer argued, “would probably have a strong correlation with the decline of our levels of achievement as recorded by our PISA results.” Sources familiar with the education policy landscape note that the debate over curriculum specificity has been running for years.
Proponents of a looser framework argue it allows teachers flexibility to adapt to local communities. Crickmer acknowledged that teachers still need to know their students and communities — but insisted the content itself should not vary.
The letter stops short of endorsing any specific policy proposal from the current government. But the timing is significant. The coalition is actively considering AI deployment across multiple agencies, and curriculum reform remains a live political issue.
What comes next is unclear. Drumm’s original piece, published June 29, suggested the direction of travel is now toward recovery. Crickmer’s letter today amounts to a warning that the path back will require rebuilding the very structures that were allowed to decay.
