New Zealand Ministry of Education transparency investigation

Chief Ombudsman John Allen has requested an urgent meeting with the Secretary for Education following allegations of transparency failures within the Ministry of Education.

A whistleblower and leaked video suggest that staff were encouraged to avoid written communications to evade scrutiny under the Official Information Act. Specifically, a senior staff member, Catherine Law, reportedly instructed employees not to record feedback from the Education Minister’s office regarding draft secondary school curricula in writing. The footage allegedly shows staff being advised to use passive verbs to imply that feedback originated from the curriculum centre rather than the Minister’s office.

Further allegations from a whistleblower claim that staff were repeatedly instructed to keep communications off the record and were verbally asked to remove Māori terms, such as ‘ākonga’, ‘kaiako’, and ‘Aotearoa’, from draft documents. These claims follow a Waitangi Tribunal finding that the Crown breached Treaty principles during curriculum reform due to insufficient engagement with Māori. The Ombudsman is currently evaluating whether to initiate a formal investigation under the Ombudsmen Act 1975.