Examining education reform and Tomorrows Schools

A new book looks at one of the most radical changes made to the administration of New Zealand Education and critically examines the Picot Report and subsequent policy document, Tomorrow’s Schools.

Reforming New Zealand Secondary Education: The Picot Report and the Road to Radical Reform, by Professor Roger Openshaw from the College of Education will be launched on November 18 and argues that New Zealand educational reforms were the product of longstanding unresolved educational issues that came to a head during the economic and cultural crisis that characterised the 1970s and early 1980s.

“The Picot Report, released in April 1988, argued for the decentralisation of educational decision-making and focused on the management of schools by local parent representatives,” Professor Openshaw says. “The pervading message from all sides was a call for radical change.”

Professor Openshaw says there was to be a two-tiered education system, with a Ministry of Education supplying policy advice to the Minister and letting contracts for curriculum development; and the learning institutions themselves. “The latter were to be run by boards of trustees largely elected by local parents,” he says.

“They were to have some discretion in the use of the funds including leeway in the numbers of teachers they hired, and at what rate in the salary scale they did so. There was a suggestion that funds were to be sent directly to the institutions as a bulk grant,” Professor Openshaw says.

“When National succeeded Labour in 1990, they attempted to swing things back to what they saw as the original intentions of the Picot report. Similarly, when Labour was returned to power, they also had a firm idea about just what the original reforms should have meant.”

Professor Openshaw says that contemporary research into the whole reform era has to deal with the fact that, right from the beginning of the reform process, there have been two almost diametrically opposing views on the report, and these views have tended to influence views of the reforms ever since.

“One view, often held by those in commerce and industry, is that the reforms were originally an attempt to introduce, democracy from below, through empowering the local community,” he says. “Proponents of this view however, argue that devolution was essentially compromised by the vested interests of state bureaucrats and the teacher’s unions, which politicians did not dare to challenge.

“The other view, more common within the education sector, contends that the reforms were largely a cynical attempt by Treasury and State Services Commission neo-liberals to privatise education, and introduce the notion of competition into a system which had largely served well up until that time.

Ironically, Professor Openshaw contends, the two views have at least one thing in common. “Both argue that, far from resulting in a more democratic system, we ended up with even more centralised government control over education. “

In viewing educational reform within a much more complex and multi-dimensional process of public policy making, Reforming New Zealand Secondary Education: The Picot Report and the Road to Radical Reform aims to make a wider contribution to the global policy debate.

Professor Openshaw holds a Personal Chair in History of Education in the School of Educational Studies at Massey University. His current research interests include the history and politics of literacy in England and New Zealand, social studies and citizenship education, school curriculum policy and history, the politics of ethnicity, assessment issues, and longstanding debates over educational standards.

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