Former Education Ministry staffer lodges formal complaint over school curriculum rewrite

A former Education Ministry staffer has asked a Parliamentary committee to rein in the government's curriculum changes, and demand more detail about its use of AI and an Australian company.

Claire Coleman has lodged a formal complaint with Parliament's regulations review committee.

The committee checks that the government is using its powers correctly and would consider the complaint on Wednesday.

Coleman told RNZ the curriculum was a nationally significant piece of secondary legislation, and she was concerned the Education Ministry and Education Minister Erica Stanford did not follow due process and the standards expected for such work.

She said her concern was based on her own experience working in curriculum development for the ministry and later attempts to obtain information about it under the Official Information Act.

Coleman hoped the hearing would prompt the government to provide more information, and stop the remaining draft curriculums from being gazetted and introduced to schools.

The Education Ministry did not accept how the complaint characterised the curriculum development process.

It said it would engage constructively with the committee, but would not comment on the details of the complaint, while the process was underway.

"We're confident the curriculum refresh is being developed in line with the Education and Training Act, with input from teachers, subject experts and sector groups," it said. "Draft content and summaries of feedback are publicly available, and feedback will continue to shape the final curriculum."

Coleman's complaint alleged the process departed materially from what was contemplated in the Education and Training Act, and Parliament's delegation of curriculum-making power to the minister.

They also appeared to make unusual use of the curriculum-making power by using AI tools without public disclosure, and the direction of "an undisclosed external Australian consultancy without formal mandate or documented ministerial approval".

The complaint said the curriculum work did not comply "with the process requirements that were described to the minister as governing their development and which formed the basis on which the minister gave approval to the development approach on at least three separate occasions".

The complaint said the government used a process the Education Ministry later said was not fit for purpose to develop the English and maths curriculums.

It introduced a new process in late 2024 and revised that in April 2025, but departed from it, she said.

The complaint also said documents provided under the OIA showed AI was used to "help generate and check content", but it was not clear what it generated and what human checks were applied to the work.

It said Australian company Learning First was engaged to support and direct Ministry of Education work on the curriculums, but no contracts or terms of engagement had been published.

Coleman said the ministry had said it did not use AI to generate curriculum content.

"If you look at the draft content... it's really evident that they have used it to make the curriculum material," she said.

Coleman was not alone in criticising the way new and draft curriculums were developed.

Several teacher subject associations told RNZ this month their members' contributions during drafting appeared to have been ignored and some writing had the hallmarks of AI tools.

The Association of Teachers of English was so unhappy with the process for writing the English curriculum, it [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/541700/teacher-association-steps-back-from-unreliable-education-ministry

walked away early in 2025].

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