Science in New Zealand schools: Viewpoint 2025
- Lian Soh
- May 22
- 6 min read
Georgina Tuari Stewart, AUT, and Sally Birdsall, University of Auckland
Science educators and learners in Aotearoa New Zealand have experienced curriculum change for more than 30 years. In this blog post, science educators Georgina Tuari Stewart and Sally Birdsall summarise curriculum change in science based on two recently published articles, “What’s the Future for Science in the New Zealand Curriculum?” and “Winds of change buffeting science education in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Science curriculum changes under the microscope
School science education in Aotearoa New Zealand has been constantly changing since the introduction of the 1993 New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). NZC was the first national curriculum that defined all subjects at all levels of compulsory schooling. Writing the curriculum as a matrix of achievement objectives shifted classroom practice towards assessment-focused pedagogy. Science in the NZC included the traditional four major discipline areas (Living World/Biology, Material World/Chemistry, Physical World/Physics and Earth & Space Science/ESS) along with explicit achievement objectives about the nature of science and skills associated with hands-on investigations. Science knowledge was seen as value-laden, tentative but durable and portrayed as embedded within society.
In the initial NZC discussion document released in 1988, this shift to viewing science as being embedded in society was evident in the title of the science learning area, which was “Science, Technology and the Environment.” However, in the 1991 draft NZC, it had become “Science and Environment.” By the time NZC was finalised, reference to ‘environment’ had completely disappeared from the science learning area, but links between science and technology were one of the prescribed strands for learning. While technology was promoted to become a separate new learning area in NZC, eventually a separate booklet “Guidelines for Environmental Education” was published in 1999 but never mandated. The launch of Science in the NZC was supported by teacher professional learning from contracted facilitators. Science teaching resources commissioned then remain useful today and ongoing—the Making Better Sense series and the Building Science Concepts series.
The next change to the national curriculum took place with the 2007 ‘update’. The major change in the science curriculum was a contraction in the number of strands and the collapsing of achievement objectives in Levels 1-2 and 3-4. The updated curriculum had only five strands as The Making Sense of the Relationship between the Nature of Science and Technology and Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes strands had been collapsed into one overarching strand – the Nature of Science. This change was an acknowledgement that the 1993 curriculum contained too much material that could not reasonably be covered. Organising learning according to the traditional discipline areas remained. Emphasis on science being embedded in society was still evident with the introduction of a Participating and Contributing sub-strand in the Nature of Science strand. Achievement objectives in this sub-strand emphasised how science knowledge and skills could be used to benefit the lives of individuals and society as a whole, and to enhance environmental quality. But no teacher professional learning was offered, and no new resources were written.
Science teaching and learning suffered when the taught curriculum narrowed to focus on literacy and numeracy with the introduction of National Standards 2008-2017. The newly elected 2017 Labour-led government removed National Standards and embarked on a ‘refresh’ of NZC, though it seemed a major renovation. For science, there was a proposed re-structure with learning organised into cross-disciplinary ‘big ideas’ rather than traditional disciplinary grouping. The NZC refresh was unfinished when it was overtaken by the 2023 election and a new National-led government, introducing a different agenda for education. School science education is a site of struggle between those who want it to stay the same, and those who want to see changes, and the former group usually wins. As a country, Aotearoa New Zealand is currently going through another round of this debate.
Looking towards future science curricula
Being knowledge-rich is important for scientific literacy, and this includes understanding scientific ideas, science practices, and how science itself works. But it is also essential that students can use science knowledge to evaluate information in many different contexts, so they can make informed decisions. A knowledge-rich curriculum is important, but insufficient. The new science curriculum must prepare students to be competent to use science knowledge to enrich their lives, and make our economy, society and environment thrive in a sustainable way.
This year in 2025, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) will assess the science competencies of 15-year-old students in 90+ OECD countries including Aotearoa New Zealand. PISA measures competence to:
Explain phenomena scientifically
Construct and evaluate designs for scientific enquiry and interpret scientific data and evidence critically
Research, evaluate and use scientific information for decision making and action.
These competencies move beyond traditional, content-driven curricular models that focus on learning science concepts to contextualise learning for its application in ways that prepare students for the future. Such a competency-based approach is designed to be engaging, relevant and practical, and to allow a young person to develop a science identity with which they are equipped to engage competently, confidently and actively in the world.
The world our young people are growing up into is different from that which most of us have experienced. Decisions they will have to make will require an understanding of and trust in science to empower them to engage with socio-scientific issues, artificial intelligence and ecological challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
We know that interest in studying science under the current traditional model is continuing to decline overall and serve a skewed sub-population, favouring students from wealthy families. Science education today is a complex endeavour that requires us all to work together in evidence-informed ways for the benefit of our young people, their futures, and the future of our nation and our planet. The terms of reference for the MBIE Science System Advisory Group identify the challenge for science education: “Career pathways [in science] are uncertain, diversity is limited, Māori and Pacific Peoples are under-represented and under-served, and there are difficulties in attracting and retaining the best talent.”
A strong, future-focussed school science curriculum is a key aspect of addressing this challenge, and achieving the aspirations to strengthen our science, innovation and technology system. Working in partnership with science teachers is another. Teachers need more science-focussed time in their pre-service education and, when teaching, opportunities to engage in quality science professional learning facilitated by knowledgeable science educators.
Since the 2023 election, there has been a sharp turn away from open consultative processes. Instead, national curriculum development has been placed in the hands of a few individuals and interest groups with views that are not aligned with current best practice in science curriculum and pedagogy. These interest groups believe in teaching de-contextualised knowledge and strict year-by-year expectations, raising concerns that this government is covertly bringing back National Standards. Evidence uncovered by OIA requests from the English teacher association show that the Minister of Education has been in extensive, direct and informal communication with prominent individual science teachers who are well-known for their particular views on science and how it should be taught.
Designing a national curriculum is too important to be left up to a few individuals. Teachers have professional knowledge developed through teaching practice and working with children in classrooms every day. They are the experts and need to be properly part of any curriculum development process. We stand at the crossroads with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design a contemporary, world-leading science curriculum, and we owe it to our young people and the future to get it right.
This blogpost draws on these two previously published papers in NZJES
Stewart, G. T., Eames, C., Hipkins, R., Cheng, M. M. W., Birdsall, S., Buntting, C., Carpendale, J., Edwards, R., Hunt, D., & Swanson, C. (2024). What’s the Future for Science in the New Zealand Curriculum? New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 59(2), 371–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-024-00345-3
Birdsall, S., & Stewart, G. T. (2025). Winds of change buffeting science education in Aotearoa New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-025-00386-2
Up-to-date research into science education in Aotearoa New Zealand can be found in this NZJES collection.
Acknowledgements: This blog post has been republished from Ipū Kererū, Blog of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education with permission from Georgina Tuari Stewart.
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