Emails show a staff member feared appointments were not being made on merit. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Emails show a Ministry of Education staff member feared appointments to the English and maths curriculum writing teams were not being made on merit, and might breach the ministry's code of conduct.
The messages, obtained under the Official Information Act by the Association for Teachers of English, showed the staff member warned it was "quite difficult to find justification for some of the writers we're proposing to hire".
"As we are not running our normal writer recruitment process I don't know if we are contracting these people on merit," they said in an email.
The ministry said the appointments were consistent with its process for selecting people for curriculum writing teams.
"Please note, within these emails you will see a ministry staff member raised concerns with the writing group procurement process," it told the association. "The ministry actively fosters and values an open working environment where staff members can speak up, express their opinions and raise any concerns that they might have.
"But to be clear, despite the one staff member's expressed concerns (and raising issues that relate to areas outside of procurement rules and therefore not relevant), the ministry worked within the parameters of the New Zealand Government procurement guidelines/rules when procuring services for these groups."
However, the emails showed the ministry opted out of aspects of the usual procurement process.
The concerned staff member said they might be overreacting, and asked for clarification because they worried that if they continued they might not be acting in a responsible or trustworthy manner.
They were so worried about the process for appointing people that they asked to step aside from the job.
A response from another ministry staff member said opting out of the usual process could be justified for people nominated by the ministerial advisory group or selected via an earlier competitive process.
The emails amplified English teachers' fears that the secondary school English curriculum would be ultra-conservative and out of step with the way most teachers work.
Association for Teachers of English president Pip Tinning said members were "quite shocked" the ministry had not followed its usual process.
She said the documents also showed a focus on "programmes" that indicated the new curriculum would be very prescriptive about what teachers should teach.
Tinning said the new primary school maths curriculum was structured in a similar way, and teachers were worried the amount of time required to teach each programme was unrealistic.
She said a list of possible programmes indicated they could be "really old-fashioned" with little reference to the New Zealand context.
Minister of Education Erica Stanford. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The secondary English writing team had five members, including two teachers from Auckland Grammar School, one from St Cuthbert's College, University of Auckland academic Elizabeth Rata and a teacher from Manurewa Intermediate.
A draft secondary school English curriculum was expected later this year and a draft primary school curriculum was published on Monday.
The emails also showed the ministerial advisory group that advised the government on broad changes to the English and maths curriculum had considerable influence over membership of the curriculum writing teams, and some of its members were appointed to the teams.
The ministry previously told RNZ none of the appointments involved exemptions from the procurement process.
It said the opt-out from the procurement process involved aspects of the process such as advertising contract opportunities, but no individual appointment involved an exemption.
"When procuring the services of the current writing groups, no government procurement exemptions (or 'opt-outs') were required in relation to any individual group member," the ministry said.
"As we previously noted, due diligence and standard vetting processes were carried out in relation to all members (excepting only specific members for whom we had recently completed vetting procedures in a different context), including careful management of any real, possible, or perceived conflicts of interest which may arise.
"As we have previously acknowledged, the English and mathematics writing groups were established at pace and this did not allow for internal consultation with ministry procurement personnel. Nevertheless, this approach is wholly consistent with our procurement processes for writing groups and other groups contributing to the curriculum refresh, both currently and in previous years.
"The writing groups were established swiftly to ensure the draft learning areas would be released to the sector for feedback in Term 3, 2024. While, in this instance, we were not able to carry out a procurement process which was open to any/all interested parties, it is our intention to advertise future opportunities more broadly so that interested experts can get involved, wherever possible."
