Emerging school-level education policy under National 2008-9

Abstract

This article discusses school level education policy developments over 2009, during National’s first year in office. National was elected amidst a growing sense of recession and quickly made cuts to a range of programmes, claiming these were necessary to rein in government spending. However there was a hollow ring to these claims given the nature of what was cut and given new spending on private schools. A stronger privatisation agenda was signalled in other areas as well and in its first year National also introduced National Standards, a nationwide form of assessment for primary and intermediate school children. This article discusses these developments and their contestation by some in the sector. It concludes that if the contested ideology of neoliberalism comes to further dominate New Zealand education policy in the next few years, research could have an important role to play in providing some light amidst the heat of reform. However, New Zealand’s capacity to undertake research into the impact of education policy is becoming quite limited. This is making it increasingly important to tap into academic analyses of neo-liberal policies in other national settings where research and scholarship is often better funded and more able to be searching than its New Zealand counterpart.