“Does an education system with industrial-era roots really help our youth thrive in today’s chaotic post-industrial world?” asks Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn. (Photo: RNZ)

No matter how our school qualifications are re-jigged, the education system remains a place that rewards conformity, writes Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn.

The numbers are stark: Ministry of Education data shows more kids in Aotearoa are leaving school without qualifications than we’ve seen in a decade.

At first glance, it’s heartbreaking — a generation of tamariki left empty-handed by a failed system. In a world where credentialed conformity is endorsed as the path to “success”, failure to obtain these qualifications could potentially harm their chances of getting on the career ladder, having knock-on impacts for their participation in other areas of society and overall trajectory in life.

And yet, despite this latest catastrophe, a bigger story here is quietly going unnoticed. What do these qualifications actually qualify our kids to be, do, and have?

Don’t get me wrong: literacy and numeracy have a definite place. But does an education system with industrial-era roots really help our youth thrive in today’s chaotic post-industrial world? Is it preparing them to navigate an age where truth itself is under attack, where technology is reshaping what it means to be human and artificial intelligence is blurring reality, and where interconnected crises — from the climate emergency to widening inequality and cultural division — demand resilience and a stronger sense of our shared humanity?

What, in fact, are these qualifications even worth?

This moment lays bare an underlying truth which we should finally admit: the education system wasn’t built to empower our kids. It was rigged to keep them compliant, disconnected from their most expanded sense of self, and vulnerable to control and exploitation by governments that shamelessly engage in the mechanics of fascistic control.

An aspect of this system is qualifications that are no longer fit for today’s complexities. They are relics of a bygone era — a world of stable jobs, predictable economies, a sustainable environment, strong democratic institutions and reliable truths. But that’s not today’s reality.

Schooling still focuses much of the time on rote learning, to train our kids to memorise facts, pass tests, and fit into a system that values conformity over creativity, censorship over freedom of expression, and obedience over agency.

Children are herded towards what anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”— soul-draining, unfulfilling work that serves corporate profits, not human flourishing. An exceptional student may be able to break through the “brules” (those “bullshit rules” that incentivise endless consumption, settling for a mediocre existence, and so on) and pursue meaningful purpose, courageous, independent critical thinking, or authentic sovereign expression. But why is busting through brules the exception, and not taught to be the norm?

Expert educators like Sir Ken Robinson years ago described the conventional schooling system as “education’s death valley”, a system that kills children’s creativity, leaves kids disengaged, fails to accommodate the diversity of students’ interests and learning styles, and therefore under-serves our children significantly in terms of expanding their minds.

And Indigenous children in colonised mainstream schools statistically fare even worse. They must also fend off a mind-numbing convergence of attacks  — whether direct or passive-aggressive — against their culture, history, and effective ways of acquiring knowledge and wisdom.

In reimagining education, we need to design a curriculum that equips our tamariki with the skills to thrive with dignity, authenticity, and a fierce sense of right and wrong in these dystopian times. A curriculum to cultivate creative, ethical leaders who can face today’s challenges and help build a just, thriving Aotearoa. What our children need is for their curiosity to be sparked and their spirits to be inspired. They need to be encouraged to transcend perceived limitations.

We also need our educators to be respected and well-treated. Unfortunately, we’re seeing yet another breakdown in negotiations over teacher pay and working conditions. The strike by secondary school teachers over a proposed one percent pay rise points to a perverse expectation by this government that educators should accept being underpaid and overworked while still performing to their highest potential for students.

I see the hardships ordinary folks are being forced to endure as the most compelling signs of a sterile, run-down education system. For if our schools were producing a truly wise, aware and empowered citizenry, then one would expect our political leadership to reflect that. Elected officials would also be held accountable by a population that is clear and strong in its sense of shared values and vision for the wellbeing of Aotearoa, and prepared to take effective, decisive, coordinated action when that vision is threatened.

But, after decades of indoctrination, only time will tell if the people have the capacity to strategise and effect real change.

Children have a human right to a quality education that equips them for effective participation in a strong democracy — not one that simply shapes them into cogs for the economic machine.

A major rethink on how education should truly serve our children, and our nation, is required. And this crisis moment is the trigger to do that.

Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn is a proud grandmother who hails from Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kurī. She has a Bachelor of Law and Social Sciences, and a Master of Laws, and holds two UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Indigenous Fellowships. Catherine is a co-founding member of numerous social justice and campaign groups, including Te Waka Hourua and Climate Change Tai Tokerau Northland. Catherine has been an Indigenous human rights and environmental activist for most of her adult life.

E-Tangata, 2025