NZEI Te Riu Roa is calling on all political parties to commit to five key actions over the next five years to boost the quality of teaching and learning for tamariki.
In its “Platform for Change 2026”, the education union outlines five key election demands prioritised by its 50,000-strong members across early childhood, primary, and support staff sectors.
The five actions include:
- Funding a teacher aide in every class
- Investing in quality early childhood education
- Valuing educators better
- Upholding Te Tiriti in the curriculum and wider education system, and
- Creating an independent Curriculum and Assessment Council.
“Our education system requires cross-party commitments to ensure the long-term policy, regulation, implementation, and investment needed to embed system changes successfully,” NZEI Te Riu Roa President Ripeka Lessels said following the launch at Parliament this morning.
“Every political party must recognise that investing in public education is a direct investment in the future of our children,” Mrs Lessels said.
“When we support our early learning centres, schools, and educators today, we are giving our tamariki the strong foundation they deserve to thrive.
“Our children’s learning is too important to be a political football, with policies and funding priorities changing every election cycle. Our members believe these five actions will make the biggest difference for our tamariki and want all political parties to commit to implementing them over multiple years,” Mrs Lessels said.
The union’s “priorities for action” for the 2027 to 2030 parliamentary term include:
- Increasing dedicated funding toward a fully funded teacher aide service by 2030
- Repealing the Equal Pay Amendment Act within the first 100 days of government and replacing it with an updated legislation so pay equity claims and reviews can resume immediately
- Repealing the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Act, which gives direct Ministerial control of the teaching profession and curriculum
- Restoring school boards' mandatory obligation to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi
- Pausing the curriculum rollout until authentic co-design with Māori and sector groups is completed
- Advancing a public system of early childhood education, restoring pay parity for all ECE teachers, and rejecting all recommendations from the ECE Funding Review that seek to dismantle pay parity, lower quality, and extend the market model, and
- Establishing an independent Curriculum and Assessment Council.
ENDS
Note to Editors:
NZEI Te Riu Roa Platform for Change 2026