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In late 2018 and early 2019, the Ministry of Education engaged with a wide range of learners/ ākonga and sector representatives.

We spoke with diverse learners/ākonga of all ages, from backgrounds we don’t often hear from, whose needs are often not well met by the education sector.

We heard about their experiences of early learning and schooling, about the barriers they face to participation, and what could be done to improve education in New Zealand.

What we heard during these engagements was used to inform the draft NELP.

We’ve completed a detailed analysis of all of the ideas and comments shared during those meetings. You can read a report of those findings here:

Treat kids like they're gold [PDF, 4.6MB]

And a shorter summary of the report has been translated into several languages here:

[English] [PDF, 1.7MB]
[Māori] [PDF, 1.7MB]
[Chinese] [PDF, 1.7MB]
[Cook Island Māori] [PDF, 960KB]
[Hindi] [PDF, 1.1MB]
[Korean]  [PDF, 820KB]
[Niuean]  [PDF, 960KB]
[Samoan]  [PDF, 868KB]
[Tokelauan]  [PDF, 870KB]
[Tongan]  [PDF, 790KB]
[New Zealand Sign Language – 5 videos] [NZSL, video]
[Easy Read]
[E-Text] [ DOC, 130KB]
[Plain text] [TXT, 17KB]

There is also this one page fold-up wallet card of the key themes from this engagement:
Download the wallet card

As part of our meetings we heard many stories from individuals about their personal learning pathways. 
Read the personal learning stories

These comments and the discussion from the wider Kōrero Mātauranga, in addition to evidence we have about education, have informed the development of the draft National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP). Consultation on the NELP opened on 17 September 2019 and closed 25 November.

Find resources on the Shaping a Stronger Education System with New Zealanders Resource Page 

To subscribe to updates regarding next steps – please send us an email at nelp@education.govt.nz.