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New civics education resources have been developed as part of the School Leavers’ Toolkit to help prepare young people for life beyond school. (Photo: Tina Tiller)
New civics education resources have been developed as part of the School Leavers’ Toolkit to help prepare young people for life beyond school. (Photo: Tina Tiller)

SocietyMay 27, 2021

Civics education experts ‘dumbstruck’ by lack of consultation on new curriculum

New civics education resources have been developed as part of the School Leavers’ Toolkit to help prepare young people for life beyond school. (Photo: Tina Tiller)
New civics education resources have been developed as part of the School Leavers’ Toolkit to help prepare young people for life beyond school. (Photo: Tina Tiller)

When Labour was first elected in 2017 it promised to introduce civics education into high schools. The promise was kept, but civics education experts are dissatisfied about the way it’s been rolled out. 

A government-funded organisation already delivering classes in high school on civics and citizenship says it’s disappointed about the lack of communication from the education ministry regarding the development of resources and curriculum focused on these subjects.

Youth Law, which is part of a government-funded network of community law centres, has a particular focus on under 25s, and its work includes running legal education in schools on topics including the way New Zealand’s democracy works, our founding documents and young people’s legal rights. 

In 2019, the Ministry of Education launched the School Leavers’ Toolkit, which aims to provide practical skills for students navigating life after finishing school. The following year, a section on civics and citizenship was added, on which the ministry said it “engaged” with Youth Law.

As part of a curriculum refresh for social sciences currently under way, the ministry has also said it will look at whether to increase the prominence of civics and citizenship education. 

Youth Law manager Neil Shaw said the organisation was aware a civics education revamp was being considered, but it’s been kept in the dark about how and when that would happen.  

“I’m a little bit dumbstruck that there hasn’t been more of a conversation going on,” he said. “There was some knowledge of it, but we feel a bit let down here, as it’s something we’re passionate about and that we do every day. 

“We are a law firm, but education is a core part of our work, working with young people in schools and youth justice institutions.”

Youth Law legal educator Sarah Guy said the need for greater civic engagement was undeniable. “These discussions need to be happening at year 9 or earlier,” she said. “As evidenced by our advice line, young people are in adult situations and need to know these things much earlier than we might realise.

“We need to get away from the perception that the law is just to limit us, then [our young people] will be much more equipped to see things from both sides.”

Guy is also concerned that civics might be targeted only at school leavers in year 13. 

“I suspect that marginalised youth are more likely to exit education before civics as a subject will be available to them … and in communities like South Auckland it might be statistically significant.”

Equal Justice Project’s Hurya Ahmad and Jonathan de Jongh. (Photo: Supplied)

Jackie Talbot, group manager for secondary and tertiary at for the Ministry of Education, said in a written statement that Youth Law had been involved in the “development of content for the School Leavers’ Toolkit”.  

She added that the toolkit is an “optional resource for schools to use” and that the ministry is supportive of schools offering alternative learning around these subjects. 

“In addition to teaching through subjects like social studies, we have heard that secondary schools are starting to create life skills programmes for their senior secondary ākonga [students] to get them ready to transition out of compulsory schooling, and we are looking at resources we can create to support this initiative.”

Another group delivering civics presentations in schools is the Equal Justice Project, a large volunteer organisation made up of around 100 University of Auckland law students. Hurya Ahmad and Jonathan de Jongh, who manage the students who go into schools, believe any extra input in these areas will make a difference. 

“I do think there’s a gap there,” de Jongh said. 

“We had zero civics education where I grew up in Whanganui. And what I’ve noticed is that there is a big polarisation between the students who are extremely well-informed about politics and the law and those who have never been told.”

Ahmad said social media plays a part in informing young people, but they need to be given the skills to know what they can trust. 

“I grew up in Auckland but not everybody gets the privilege of being taught about civics, so to have a baseline curriculum would be really important for anyone, whether they are from rural communities or migrant communities.”

Michael Cabral-Tarry, the national convenor of the Aotearoa Social Studies Educators’ Network and a secondary school history teacher in Auckland, said the recent focus on civics has created a misconception it wasn’t being taught before. 

“We’ve always had a focus on citizenship and civics in social sciences education. [But] the current curriculum refresh does provide a chance to make civics and citizenship education more explicit. 

“Exactly what the curriculum refresh is going to deliver is still some months away, but values-based teaching about things like diversity, inclusion, participation, social action, justice, and responsibilities, all should be front and centre – because it’s those things that make good citizens.”

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Wellington’s cycleways budget is set to take a big cut.
Wellington’s cycleways budget is set to take a big cut.

OPINIONSocietyMay 27, 2021

The guerilla bike lane of Wellington was born out of the betrayal of cyclists

Wellington’s cycleways budget is set to take a big cut.
Wellington’s cycleways budget is set to take a big cut.

Pop-up cycle lanes in the capital city reflect a desperation in the face of failure to properly provide for cyclists, writes Axel Downard-Wilke.

A duel is being fought in our capital city. At stake is the small matter of people’s personal safety. Wellingtonians who choose to ride a bike are often left feeling like the meat in a sandwich. Lines of parked cars on one side, heavy vehicles rattling past on the other. Cycling in Wellington is, on most streets, a hair-raising affair and not for the fainthearted. And that’s even before you consider the argument that enabling people to ride a bike gives tangible meaning to the ecological and climate emergency declaration of two years ago.

The official response has been dismally slow. Describing the pace with which officials are addressing the situation as “glacial” is an offence to actual glaciers. So at the start of the week, some activists started putting in separated cycling infrastructure themselves. Take a lane on Adelaide Road that’s usually occupied by parked cars, put planter boxes and flexiposts along the outside, and voilà, you have some space for cycling that looks and feels safe. It’s not too different from what many central government-supported Innovating Streets projects look like. It’s just a lot cheaper than what everyone else does.

Understandably, a road controlling authority has problems with others making changes to their road without permission. Fair enough. But what really gets me is the rationale that staff put forward: what’s been put there is “unsafe”.

Wellington City Council’s spokesperson went into a bit more detail in an interview given to Radio New Zealand: “We watched some school kids riding in the traffic on the outside of the cycle lane because they clearly thought that it was some sort of roadworks or an area where they weren’t supposed to be riding,” said Richard MacLean.

The irony with that statement is that every other day of the week the space that is currently a pop-up cycleway is usually a row of parked cars. And therefore, the school kids must ride in traffic, which both MacLean and I believe is unsafe. Yet the way the city council has laid out the road, that is what the pupils are forced to do.

I’ve been planning cycle networks and designing cycling infrastructure since the late 1990s. I’ve been training my peers how to do this since 2003. Given the nationwide scope of my work, I think I have a good understanding of what is going on around the country. In my view Wellington City Council is the poor cousin of the other city councils; things just aren’t happening in the capital city. With its mostly narrow roads (unlike Christchurch, say), there isn’t much room for safe cycling unless it’s specifically created, which they don’t do much of in Wellington. The city is one of the places that feels most unsafe to ride a bike in.

These issues won’t get fixed overnight. But it’s troubling that, in general, the officials I have dealt with don’t seem particularly open to improving the situation. For those community members who would like to see some action from the city council, it’s all very frustrating, which MacLean acknowledges. “The council has been working with the group for years on the cycle lanes. We can obviously spot that they are frustrated at the speed at which we’re moving,” he said.

Support for community action comes from Auckland City councillor Chris Darby, who chairs Auckland’s planning committee and thus leads the city’s physical development. Darby is more progressive than many of his fellow elected members and he appears to anticipate similar actions in his city. It could be that the Harbour Bridge becomes Auckland’s cycling battlefield.

Christchurch is the place that “gets” cycling infrastructure on the ground; it is the clear national leader. When that city’s elected members speak at consultation meetings, their message is that the decision to build a cycleway has already been made, and the only thing that’s up for discussion is the how. Elected members in Wellington take heed. Given the declared climate emergency, the time for dithering is over.

But wait there's more!