Documentation of institutional capture through curriculum development in New Zealand

What follows is a condensed version of the report I wrote in August 2024 about how the education Ministerial Advisory Group seized control of the New Zealand’s curriculum refresh. The full report (PDF) is linked at the bottom of this post.

Background: The Democratic Foundation Under Attack

Education in New Zealand operates within a highly politicised landscape. When Labour took power in 2017, they undertook wide-sweeping reviews across the country with diverse stakeholders to address serious sector concerns that had emerged during the previous eight years.

The National Standards implementation (2010) had narrowed curriculum focus and coincided with significant drops in New Zealand’s PISA scores, especially during early adoption. There had been a new curriculum introduced (NZC 2007) which had brought values and key competencies to the fore, devolved school autonomy for contextualising learning, and was less prescriptive than previous iterations. It’s ethos was lost somewhat with the focus being on National Standards.

Labour’s curriculum refresh, initiated as a result of the reviews, involved extensive stakeholders over four years: the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), university curriculum experts, teachers and school leaders from diverse cultural and socio-economic contexts. The refreshed curriculum was developing as representative of New Zealand’s culture, history and communities, well-founded in educational theory and research.

Opposition and Political Context

The New Zealand Initiative (NZI) emerged as a leading dissenting voice. In 2018, they partnered with ResearchEd for a festival at Auckland Grammar School to “reignite evidence-based education in New Zealand,” featuring speakers including Katharine Birbalsingh and Michael Johnston.

In 2020, NZI published “New Zealand’s Education Delusion: How Bad Ideas Ruined a Once World-Leading School System,” blaming declining achievement on “an experiment in child-centred orthodoxy.”

When National’s 2023 election policy “Teaching the Basics Brilliantly” was endorsed by Michael Johnston (who had joined NZI in March 2022), sector concerns about politically-driven education policy intensified.

The Three-Phase Takeover

Phase 1: Scope Definition (November-December 2023)

Ministry’s Defensive Position

The incoming Minister wanted to appoint an Expert Group to review the refresh work to date. The Ministry of Education attempted to limit the proposed Expert Group’s scope and position advice within existing curriculum refresh work. Briefing notes from this timeframe emphasised:

• Building on existing work to “maintain momentum and buy-in”

• Te Poutāhū | The Curriculum Centre’s established curriculum leadership role

• The danger of reducing school autonomy too much

Initial scope limitations proposed

• No reworking of progression models

• No reworking of learning area purpose statements or Understand, Know, Do structure

• No redesigning of learning areas and developing granular descriptors

• No reworking of pedagogies

The Ministry is not successful in convincing the Minister of the prudence of its recommended scope.

Network Installation

By December 20, the Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) was approved with twelve members. Only four came from Ministry recommendations, despite extensive documentation of hundreds of experts involved in the refresh process over four years.

Critical network analysis: Eight of twelve MAG members had extensive prior collaboration with Chair Michael Johnston through academic research, think tanks, and advocacy work: Elizabeth Rata, Melissa Derby, Amy Tan, Iain Taylor, Christine Braid, James Chapman, and Helen Walls.

Phase 2: Boundary Violations (February-April 2024)

Early Document Writing

By 13 February, MAG Chair Michael Johnston was asking about writing documents: “we have been operating on the understanding that writing the documents is within scope for the MAG.”

Ministry Pushback

Chief Adviser Anya Pollock reminded Johnston of Public Service guidelines: “Creating regulations (which is what the national curriculum is and also the intended status for the common practice model) and providing resource and tools to schools is part of the work of government.”

She explicitly stated advisory groups’ “lack of a statutory basis makes them unsuited to regulatory roles” because they have no “legal personality” and thus lack “strong formal accountability.”

MAG Takes Control

On March 15 Johnston emails the MAG detailing confirmation of the “project ahead” after meeting with Ministry officials, and reassuring them they have significant control over it.

On March 19 the MAG report is submitted. In it, they recommend themselves as doing the curriculum writing work. The Minister accepts this report on 5 April.

Procurement Concerns Emerge

By 22 April, Ministry procurement staff expressed serious concerns:

“Today I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the work I was doing for the procurement of the new writers… I would prefer to not work on this and be put on a different piece of work… it seemed to be quite difficult to find justification for some of the writers who were proposed to be hired.”

Phase 3: Full Implementation Control (May-June 2024)

Writing Groups Established

Elizabeth Rata’s team began curriculum writing workshops at Auckland Grammar School in May. By 6 May, she reported: “The first two workshops were a great start to the project. Given such a start, I’m confident that we’ll have the year 7-13 English curriculum written by the end of June.”

Scope Expansion Beyond Authority

The original scope covered years 1-10, but Rata’s team was writing years 11-13 curriculum without authorisation. By 20 May, they had completed extensive curriculum sections across all year levels.

Ministry Contradictions

On 12 June, the Minister stated in a Radio New Zealand interview:

• “The MoE have used criteria that they always used to pick people for a writing group”

• “The MAG recommendations… I’ve said thank you very much. That work is now finished”

• “The MoE have now gone and put writing groups together which are quite separate from the MAG”

These statements contradicted documented evidence of MAG control over writing group composition and ongoing involvement.

Democratic Process Violations

Public Service Guidelines Ignored

The MAG consistently operated beyond their statutory authority:

• Writing regulatory documents despite lacking legal basis

• Controlling procurement and staffing decisions

• Bypassing normal government processes through manufactured urgency

Consultation Requirements Abandoned

The legislation requires “reasonable efforts” to consult with children, teachers, principals, governing bodies, parents, and disability communities. Instead of this requirement for exhaustive consultation, something the previous (discarded) refresh work had been through, the sector was effectively sidelined from the development process.

Institutional Capture Achieved

The final outcome: The writing team for the Year 7-13 English curriculum comprised of five people, discarding four years of work involving hundreds of experts and extensive community consultation. Te Poutāhū | The Curriculum Centre, established specifically for curriculum leadership, was marginalised.

Questions for Democratic Accountability

The evidence raises fundamental questions about democratic process:

• How did the MAG manage to subvert procurement processes and sidestep in-house Ministry capability?

• Why was advice from hundreds of refresh participants disregarded for the narrow ideology of eight individuals?

• Can this really be called independent advisory work when predetermined outcomes were coordinated before official advice submission?

• Is Michael Johnston suitable to lead curriculum work, given National Standards’ documented failure and his think tank advocacy position?

Broader Implications for Democracy

Transferable Methodology

This case reveals how small, ideologically-aligned networks can capture government agencies through:

1. Advisory group scope expansion beyond statutory authority

2. Coordination of predetermined outcomes before official advice

3. Procurement process bypass using manufactured urgency

4. Institutional marginalisation of existing expertise

Threats to Democratic Institutions

The curriculum development process violated fundamental democratic principles:

• Expert consultation replaced by ideological alignment

• Public service guidelines systematically ignored

• Regulatory development captured by special interests

• Democratic façade maintained while substance was hollowed out

Regardless of views on specific education policies, the process represents bureaucratic takeover by a special interest group and constitutes a clear threat to democratic governance.

Conclusion: Early Warning for Democracy

The ease with which this institutional capture occurred should alarm all democracy defenders. A small network successfully took control of a national regulatory process, predetermined outcomes, and implemented their agenda while maintaining the appearance of democratic consultation and independent advice.

This methodology is transferable to other sectors and jurisdictions. The warning signals are identifiable, and the threat to democratic institutions is real.

As Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa observed in Appendix 2 in the full report, this represents “a fundamental shift in educational philosophy and practice designed to have intergenerational impact,” and the way it was done mirrors far-right strategies of “gradual institutional capture, beyond electoral moments, and term limits of governments.”

Democracy is more than winning elections — it demands adherence to democratic processes, consultation requirements, and institutional safeguards that protect against capture by special interests.

This analysis is based on Official Information Act responses obtained by the New Zealand Association of Teachers of English and systematic examination of public documents.