WELLINGTON — A veteran classroom teacher who watched New Zealand’s education system change over four decades says the country’s slide in international test scores is no mystery. It tracks directly against the dismantling of a once-uniform national curriculum. David Crickmer arrived from England in 1969.
He was handed a copy of the National Curriculum. That document told him exactly what had to be taught at each year level.
“You knew what had to be taught at each year level,” Crickmer wrote in a letter published today in the Henderson Valley area of Auckland. The Education Department — not yet a ministry — and the Education Boards produced supporting handbooks. An expert advisory service existed.
The teacher’s job was straightforward: make the required content meaningful to students. The content itself stayed consistent across the country.
That structure has loosened significantly. The record shows it. Crickmer draws a direct line between that loosening and New Zealand’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 was responding to Patrick Drumm’s recent opinion piece on the “long road back to equitable learning for students.” He thanked Drumm for his assessment that “the journey back to quality education for our young people is underway.” The letter arrives at a time when 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. The broader coalition appears keen on replacing many front-line interactions with automated systems.
Crickmer offers four decades of classroom experience as evidence. He does not cite studies or academic papers. He cites what he saw from the front of a room, year after year.
A curriculum that told teachers what to teach. Students who learned the same material whether they sat in Auckland or Invercargill.
A system that produced results. The PISA scores tell the rest of the story. They have slipped.
They have slipped as the curriculum has loosened. Crickmer sees no coincidence. His argument is simple.
A clear curriculum structure gives teachers a foundation. They can then adapt content to make it meaningful for their particular students.
But the content itself must remain consistent. Without that consistency, the foundation crumbles. The Education Department once enforced that consistency.
Handbooks existed. Advisory services existed.
Teachers knew what was expected. Students knew what was expected. Parents knew what their children should be learning.
That clarity has eroded. The letter does not specify when the erosion began or who accelerated it. But Crickmer is clear on the result.
Less robust expectations. Less robust education.
Lower scores. Drumm’s original piece argued that the journey back has begun. Crickmer agrees.
He wrote to say so. He also wrote to offer his own experience as a warning and a guide.
The coalition government has not responded to Crickmer’s letter. It has not indicated whether curriculum reform is a priority. Seymour’s focus on AI for Pharmac suggests technology, not teaching, may be the coalition’s preferred answer to questions about public service performance.
Crickmer’s letter offers a different answer. It is an answer grounded in four decades of watching what works and what does not. A clear curriculum.
Consistent expectations. Teachers freed to teach, not to guess what they should be teaching.
That, he argues, is the path back to quality education for New Zealand’s young people.
