If you were the boss of education in NZ, what would you do?

“Everyone I meet has a strong view about education and what we can do to transform it”, says Andrew Becroft, Children’s Commissioner and the Chair of the Guardians of the Education Conversation.

The government’s multi-pronged conversation about the future of education is providing an opportunity for people of all ages to share their views with decision-makers.

There have already been 2 Summit events attended by around 1400 people. There’s also an online survey, Kōrero Mātauranga, which has already received 16,000 responses. But it’s due to close on October 14.

“While that’s a good response for an online survey, we’ve got to do a lot better for the future of our education system because education affects all of us, all of our children and all of our children’s children.

“Altogether that adds up to 0.37% of the population. Frankly we need to hear from more New Zealanders than that”, Commissioner Becroft says.

“We want everyone to have their say. Children, young people, parents, teachers, employers, iwi, families and whānau all have a place in the conversation about building not just a better education system, but the world’s best”, the Commissioner says.

The survey is a simple and open-ended one. All people need to do is answer four simple questions:

• What would you do if you were the boss of education?

• What does a successful student look like?

• What do they need to know and be able to do?

• And what do we have to put in place to make them successful?

The survey will be available online until October 14 at:

“We want people to go online and fill it out. We want them to do it now and to tell their friends. We want everyone to have their say”, says Commissioner Becroft.