With the election on 7 November, here’s what the rules actually say about teachers and politics, and what each party is offering schools.
New Zealand votes on Saturday 7 November. Advance voting opens on 26 October, and the last day to enrol is 25 October. For the first time, there’s no enrolling once voting has started. All election advertising must end on 6 November.
That puts the campaign squarely in the first weeks of Term 4. For school leaders, it raises a familiar question about what teachers can and can’t say.
Are teachers bound by political neutrality?
Not in the way public servants are. PPTA guidance published in July sets out the position plainly. “School teachers are not part of the public service,” it says.
The Public Service Commissioner’s 2026 election guidance doesn’t apply to schools either, and “school boards are expressly exempt from coverage.”
The Code of Professional Responsibility also stops short of a duty of political neutrality. PPTA’s reading is that a failure to maintain political neutrality “does not in itself constitute a breach” of teachers’ professional obligations.
Teachers are still bound by the code’s broader obligations, including professional boundaries and managing their own assumptions and personal beliefs.
The practical line hasn’t moved. A teacher’s vote is their own business. Using a classroom to push students toward a party is a professional boundaries problem, and parents who complain won’t care whether the code uses the word “neutrality”.
School board members have a firmer rule. Their code of conduct includes the commitment, “I do not endorse or campaign for a political party or candidate in my capacity as a school board member.”
Teaching the election
Elections are among the best civics lessons a school gets. The Electoral Commission’s Kids Voting programme is free for Years 0 to 13, comes with a kit including a ballot box, and runs mock elections in Term 4. In 2023, more than 110,000 students at 745 schools took part.
The voting age stays at 18. A Bill to lower it to 16 for local elections was scrapped in January 2024.
What the parties are offering schools
National would require students to stay at school until they’ve completed Year 11. It would also ban screens in early childhood education and tightly limit them in Years 1 to 3.
ACT would give teachers the power to remove “seriously or persistently disruptive” students, and cap compulsory branded uniform items at three.
Labour would pause curriculum changes not yet implemented for a year, keeping the maths and English changes, and leave NCEA unchanged until 2029. It would also reinstate the previous school lunch programme and set up an independent council for curriculum and assessment.
The Greens would reset the curriculum and assessment reforms, expand the Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme and work towards a Māori Education Authority.
Te Pāti Māori would set up a Māori Education Authority, make te reo Māori a core subject to Year 10, and expand school lunches and free counselling.
RNZ’s education policy guide lists no schools policy for NZ First.
The teacher unions have their own asks. NZEI’s Platform for Change 2026 includes a teacher aide in every class and an independent curriculum and assessment council.
For principals, the biggest variable is curriculum timing. The Government’s programme has updated curricula from 2027 and the NCEA replacement from 2028, while Labour and the Greens would pause or reset parts of it.
Whatever the result, it will shape Term 1 planning, so it’s worth sketching both scenarios before the summer break.
