Senior official appearing to try hide information being taken ‘very seriously’

This story has been updated to clarify the Public Service Commissioner is not investigating the matter

The secondary teachers union fears a video that shows an education official seemingly trying to “subvert” the Official Information Act is part of a wider problem with secrecy around the government’s curriculum rewrite.

The head of the Education Ministry is investigating the case after leaked footage given to the NZ Herald showed senior Ministry of Education official Catherine Law telling staff not to put information shared with the minister’s office in writing and reminding them it was “OIA-able” – referencing the Official Information Act.

“What we do not need is anything in response in writing that shows that this stuff has gone backwards and forwards between them and us,” she said.

“It’s just really important.

“As far as anyone’s concerned it’s just feedback from me.”

Law was seconded from her role as principal of Avonside Girls’ High School to lead work on the secondary school curriculum.

Post Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie told RNZ the video raised significant concerns and the union believed there was a widespread problem.

“It confirms rumours we’ve been hearing that there’s this real push to not have things written down, to be really opaque about what’s occurring in the curriculum,” he said.

“I don’t think this one individual just decided off their own bat that this was something they were going to talk about. I think this is really clearly a government trying to work in secret on the curriculum and you tie this in with the heavy use of non-disclosure agreements, the significant sort of pushing out of individual voices – this is a real concern.”

Abercrombie said the development of a school curriculum should be transparent .

“If there’s anything in this country that should be done publicly, it’s our national curriculum,” he said.

“There should be no secrets about this and it should be clear who’s involved, why they’re involved, and the process behind it.”

Abercrombie said knowing the debates and thinking that shaped curriculums was vital.

“Curriculums just don’t appear out of thin air. It’s a process, it’s an understanding. What was left out? What was not put in? What was the discussion about?” he said.

“Those discussions are just as important as the finished document… Every single thing in a curriculum is that someone made a decision. So who made that decision? Was it teachers? Was it ministry officials? Or was it someone in the minister’s office that has no accountability?”

Abercrombie said the union would raise the issue at its next meeting with the ministry.

The government’s curriculum rewrite has been dogged by criticism and controversy.

Groups representing teachers of various school subjects repeatedly criticised the process for writing the curriculums and the resulting documents

The Waitangi Tribunal said last week the rewrite was ideological, aided by people hostile to Māori knowledge, and breached multiple Treaty principles.

The primary teachers union, NZEI Te Riu Roa said it had asked Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche to investigate.

The union’s national secretary Stephanie Mills said the video reinforced ongoing concerns from the education sector about the closed and unnecessarily secret development of curriculum documents over the past two years.

“The Minister of Education stands to benefit from this attempt by ministry staff and her office to breach transparency because it reduces public scrutiny of her decision-making,” Mills said.

“It is implausible in our view that she had no knowledge of the approach they were taking.”

A former Education Ministry curriculum writer, Claire Coleman, said the video was the type of behaviour she and other ministry staff had encountered.

“It’s not a surprise to me in the slightest,” she said.

“It’s exactly the kind of thing going on – don’t write it down, instructions coming through verbally so that there is no record. Yeah, it’s not a surprise at all,” she said.

Coleman said there were a lot of questions about who had input to the curriculum and it was clear the minister’s office had a lot of influence.

She said some of the content was not supported by evidence or appeared to be ideological.

“If you’re trying to create a curriculum where you want to suggest that it’s been written by experts and it’s been properly done through a process, you don’t people to know that’s not the case,” she said.

Coleman said there should be an independent inquiry into the way the curriculum was rewritten.

She made similar allegations earlier this year.

Speaking to media earlier, Erica Stanford said she was confident her Secretary of Education had the situation “in hand”.

“She’s already talked to the Public Service Commission, she’s already talked to the Ombudsman, and she’s already looking into the matter and taking it very seriously, as I expect that she would do.”

Stanford denied instructing officials to subvert the OIA process.

“We take our obligations extremely seriously, and as I said, this is a matter for the Secretary of Education and her staff.

“My political staff and I have not seen the documents that she was talking about.”

Asked if there was a culture where officials were trying to hide information so they did not embarrass her, Stanford said she hoped “that’s not the case”.

“I’ve always made sure that the Secretary of Education understands that we are abiding by the Official Information Act, and I’ve made that clear again yesterday.”

Labour leader and former education minister Chris Hipkins said circumventing transparency laws was “inexcusable”.

“Ultimately, ministers sign off the curriculum so there’s there’s nothing that should be secret here.

“There should be a transparent process around that, and trying to circumvent that so that you can make edits to the curriculum without anybody knowing that’s what you’re doing seems bizarre, secretive, and just inexcusable.” he said.

Hipkins said he had not experienced a culture of hiding information to avoid the OIA process.