Education system’s new roles and responsibilities#

The Bill introduces a range of changes to how New Zealand’s education system is governed, regulated and supported. It will become legislation after receiving the Royal assent, which is expected soon.

The new legislation seeks to clarify roles and responsibilities across the education system. It includes reforms to education property management, regulatory functions and sector leadership.

This includes the establishment of the New Zealand School Property Agency (NZSPA) as a Crown entity to manage, plan, build, maintain and administer the education property portfolio by no later than 1 November 2026.

The new legislation also includes the transfer of key regulatory functions from the Ministry of Education to the Education Review Office (ERO) by no later than 1 November 2026. This includes:

• licensing, certification and associated regulatory functions for early childhood education
• licensing and related monitoring, compliance and enforcement functions for school hostels
• registration and related monitoring, compliance and enforcement functions for private schools
• shifting responsibility for setting standards and criteria for the teaching workforce from the Teaching Council to the Secretary for Education.

Changes to the Teaching Council#

Further changes to the Teaching Council include:

• strengthening the Teaching Council’s focus on protecting child safety, its quality assurance functions for initial teacher education and its reporting and monitoring arrangements
• a requirement for the Council to give effect to government policy directions while also confirming the independence of its decision-making in individual cases
• reducing the Council from 13 members to between 7 and 9 members, all appointed by the Minister – at least 3 members will have a minimum of 5 years’ education sector experience to provide sector knowledge and insight
• changing the threshold for removal of appointed Council members to be at the Minister's discretion and introducing term limits for the chief executive.

System-wide changes#

The Bill also introduces a range of system-wide changes, including:

• updating curriculum regulatory settings, including regular rolling reviews of curriculum areas and a requirement for schools to provide parents with better health curriculum information which replaces the requirement to consult about the delivery of the health curriculum
• clearer roles for the Ministry and ERO in responding when a school of ‘serious concern’ is identified
• changes to attendance exemptions, which will come into effect on 1 January 2027
• changes to physical restraint requirements in school hostels, which will come into effect on 1 July 2027
• mandatory participation in system monitoring studies for selected schools, such as the OECD’s Programme for International Assessment (PISA)
• updates to the charter school model to allow multi-school contracts and provide more certainty for converted charter schools that a similar type of state school may be established if their contract ends
• micro-credentials to be reported to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and other minor technical changes to support vocational education and training.

We are focused on implementing the reforms and will provide more detailed information on what this means for the sector as work progresses.

Read more information about the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill.

Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill