The Waitangi Tribunal says the government’s rewrite of the school curriculum was ideological, aided by people hostile to Māori knowledge, and breached multiple Treaty principles.

This report follows the Tribunal’s stage one interim report concerning proposed changes to treaty provisions in the Education and Training Act and precedes another report into the removal of school boards’ treaty obligations.

In her letter to ministers, presiding officer Rachel Mullins said the adoption of a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum – which stresses the importance of all students acquiring the same knowledge, in sequence and structure, and progressing together – as government policy was a predetermined course to return to a one-size-fits-all style of education.