July 2026 Quarterly Newsletter

Government Liaison Report 
By Cynthia Hancox, Government Liaison

Background

As most of you will be aware, Education Minister Erica Stanford introduced proposed legislation in May, without consultation, that would have allowed the Ministry to set regulations for home educators around reporting, assessment and any other measures they deem necessary now or in the future, and potentially revoke exemptions for non-compliance, even if a family passes an ERO review. For obvious reasons, this was very concerning and the home education community did a stellar job of coming together to write to MPs to voice their concerns, culminating in a gathering at Parliament on 27 th May. After meeting with the Minister and Secretary for Education inside the Beehive, I accompanied her out to announce that she was withdrawing the legislation. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

However, that is not the end of the matter. The Minister intimated at the time that a new Amendment Bill (for the Education and Training Act) was already being drafted and she wanted to look at including legislation around home education in that, but this time with proper consultation. I do not expect that Bill to see the light of day for quite some time, and there is much work to be done in the meantime.

One very positive thing to come out of our meeting in the Beehive was that the Secretary became aware that NCHENZ had previously met regularly with national office Ministry staff members, but that those meetings ceased in 2024 and we have been unable to reestablish them. She decided to facilitate that herself, this time connecting us with senior staff members instead of the most junior ones we typically met with. As a result, we have had several meetings with more planned.

Meetings since then

We met with two General Managers in charge of Operational teams. These are the ones responsible for things like the exemption application forms, the structure of teams for processing applications and dealing with home education matters, the declaration forms etc. This was a very positive meeting, and we plan to meet with them each month for the near future as we work collaboratively around updates to the application form, improving the Ministry’s policies and procedures manual, possible centralising of application processing (and any potential issues around that), digitalising the declarations (but ensuring they are still accessible to those who prefer a non-digital form) and so on.

We went to Wellington and met with the Secretary for Education, and the acting Deputy Secretary. The purpose of this meeting was primarily to “reset” the relationship between NCHENZ and the Ministry. This was also a very positive meeting. The Secretary mentioned that she was thinking about the need to brief incoming Ministers close to Christmas, and so would like to see the above work well advanced by then, and was assured by the acting Deputy Secretary (who also happens to be one of the General Managers we’d met with) that this was in hand. This adds an extra layer of assurance that the proposed meetings will continue, along with the related collaborative work.

The Secretary also proposed facilitating a meeting with ERO so we can engage with them too – as ERO are the other side of the coin when it comes to any future accountability proposals. Similarly, we used to meet regularly with ERO (though less often than the MoE) but this has also fallen away due to staff changes.

Now that our meeting with the Secretary has occurred, I also anticipate we will begin meeting with senior members of the Policy team. These are the folk who are responsible for policy development and any future proposed changes around accountability and, if needed, associated legislation changes.

While in Wellington we also met with Andy Foster, Education Spokesperson for NZ First. He asked some insightful questions and took many notes, proposing that we have further meetings to delve more into various topics raised. He was quite taken aback by the requirements of the exemption application as it stands. He indicated that he will be writing NZF policy around home education and would like our input on that. He asked, among other things, if we could design any future changes so they best fit home educators, as well as providing the Ministry with the assurances they need, what would that look like?

That is exactly what we are and will continue to discuss with both the Ministry and politicians at every available opportunity. In general terms, we are advocating that any changes need to be proportionate, reasonable, properly consulted on, and not too onerous. They must take into account the wide range of ways in which people choose to home educate.

Current view point

In my view, additional accountability can be introduced without legislative changes – and that would be the best approach. They can simply become requirements that sit alongside the allowance – in the same way as they now require us to sign declarations to get the allowance, and require Te Kura students to regularly return work, they could potentially require home educators to, for example, provide an update on their child’s learning programme and progress at certain intervals in order to get the allowance. (And yes, we will be discussing the fact that the allowance itself needs updating).

What the Minister has been proposing is an update at “transition points” – suggested as around 8, 10 and 13 years old. Such updates would provide the Ministry with some assurance that the family is continuing to home educate the child, and continues to have suitable plans and resources for them, and can identify the progress they are making. While the details of what this could look like need further discussion and development, in theory this could be a reasonable option.

Alongside of that, she has proposed increasing funding for ERO reviews to 200 per year, with the intention that reviews would be conducted where family’s updates raise concerns, rather than relying on the current complaints process. As the Ministry noted in the Regulatory Impact Statement for the proposed legislation, most complaints are due to parental conflict rather than genuine educational concerns. In other words, they are often nefarious, and don’t meet the expectation that complaints would be sufficient to identify children who are not receiving a suitable education at home.

While some families prefer to avoid any additional engagement with the Ministry at all, we must face the fact that there will be changes – whether we like them or not – and so our best approach is to work with the Ministry towards ensuring that what comes is as reasonable and workable as possible. This also means proactively proposing solutions that will work for our community while also giving the Ministry what it believes it needs – rather than stubbornly insisting they don’t need anything.

What you can do

When Amendment 583 was before Parliament, many of the MPs voting on it knew little or nothing about home education. They only heard only messaging via media or internal chatter about things like “there are so many people switching to homeschooling – we need to do something about that” and “some home educated children may have been in unsafe environments – so we need to take action” and so on. And they were told how to vote by their parties.

The work that families have done in writing to and meeting with their MPs, and the decisive action we took collectively, has begun to turn the tide on that – helping MPs to see that we are real, diverse families who care about our children and their education. We need to keep up those conversations – doing whatever we can to build relationships with our local MPs and local candidates. It’s an election year – when they are more motivated than ever to engage with their current or potential constituents. It is important to engage respectfully and positively – not in a demanding or ungrateful way. I would encourage you all to consider doing things like sharing your positive personal stories, your children’s successes, and why you value home education. You could do this by writing to your MP/candidates, or, where practical, arranging to meet with them (perhaps you could arrange to do this with a few other families?)

To make this easier, NCHENZ is providing contact details on current MPs and known (so far) candidates. See HERE.

If you are part of organising a local homeschooling group which arranges special events where children showcase their work or take part in organised competitions etc, then please consider whether you might invite a local MP or candidate to attend that event and perhaps give out prizes or similar. I’m thinking particularly of larger annual events (especially those in the next few months) such as science fairs, pet days, home and country shows, athletics days and so on.

In my update in our next newsletter, I will be providing information about home education policy from each significant political party for you to consider before the election.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, you can reach me at govt.liaison@nchenz.org.nz