Education does not always decide an election, but it is rarely far from the centre of one, and this year it sits closer than usual.
Three years of fast-moving reform have given the sector plenty to react to: a rewritten curriculum, a replacement for NCEA, mandated assessment, and the return of charter schools.
Going into this year’s vote, the parties are no longer arguing about whether the system needs to change, but about how far, how fast, and in whose hands the steering wheel sits.
The Government’s programme
The National-led coalition, governing with ACT and New Zealand First, has built its story around lifting the basics.
Education Minister Erica Stanford has driven a structured approach to literacy and maths, twice-yearly assessment of Years 3 to 8 with phonics checks now required, and a knowledge-rich rewrite of the Years 0–10 curriculum, though that rollout has now been delayed after sustained sector pushback.
At secondary level, NCEA is to be replaced from 2028 with the New Zealand Certificate of Education at Year 12 and an advanced certificate at Year 13, a Year 11 Foundational Award, new compulsory subjects, a minimum five-subject load and a new grading scale.
Budget 2026 again centred reading, writing and maths, alongside a new school property agency, more trades academy places, and solar panels for up to 500 schools.
The Government’s pitch is consistency and higher expectations; the charge it must answer is content overload and a rushed timeline; the line the Opposition will press hardest.
ACT and NZ First
Within the coalition, ACT carries the most distinctive platform. It secured the return of charter schools, with 14 operating by the start of 2026, including a fully remote online school. Its longer-term goal is school choice: a publicly funded account parents could spend at any registered provider.
ACT also backs performance-based pay, public and comparable reporting of every school’s results, and cutting the cost of school uniforms, arguing charter schools are cheaper to open than equivalent state schools.
NZ First, the third partner, has been less prominent on schools; as a coalition member it has backed the Government’s programme, and had not set out a detailed standalone 2026 education policy at the time of writing, leaving its mark mainly on the shared coalition agenda.
Labour’s counter-offer
Labour, led by former education minister Chris Hipkins and with Ginny Andersen as its education spokesperson, offers the clearest alternative. It would slow the pace rather than tear up every reform, accepting that some consolidation of NCEA is needed while arguing too much has been attempted at once.
It has committed to reinstating school boards’ obligations under te Tiriti o Waitangi, reversing mandated standardised testing, and unwinding what it describes as the politicisation of the curriculum.
Labour also remains opposed to charter schools, arguing public money should stay in the public system. Its challenge is the one every opposition faces on education: promising stability to a sector weary of change, without simply offering to press rewind.
The Greens and Te Pāti Māori
On the left, the Greens want te reo Māori taught as a core subject through to Year 10, increased funding for kura kaupapa Māori, kōhanga reo and bilingual classrooms, better staff-to-student ratios, more early childhood funding, and inclusive, bully-free schools. They have also championed the Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme, whose funding beyond 2026 is uncertain.
Te Pāti Māori frames education around tino rangatiratanga and mātauranga Māori, though it had not released a detailed 2026 policy at the time of writing. Both parties, with Labour, opposed the Government’s changes to early childhood regulation, pointing to a markedly different ordering of priorities around equity and te ao Māori.
What it means for principals
Whatever the result, much of the current programme will outlast the campaign, whoever forms the next government. The NCEA replacement is timetabled into 2028, the curriculum is staged across several years, and the assessment requirements are already in classrooms; so, a change of government would mean adjustment, not a clean slate.
Even Labour, the most likely alternative, has framed its approach as slowing and consolidating the changes rather than starting over. The task for leadership teams is to separate the settled from the contested: plan firmly around what is already law, and hold lighter assumptions about the parts — curriculum timing, testing, charter funding, board obligations — that the election could still move.
Staffing, property and the qualification timeline are largely locked in; it is the political settings layered on top that a change of minister could shift. The useful question for the next leadership-team meeting is a simple one: which of our 2027 plans depend on who wins, and which don’t?
