New Zealand's histories (ANZH) and Te Takanga o Te Wā refer to the documents for use in English- and Maori-medium New Zealand schools from 2023 to guide the explicit and compulsory teaching about the country's history.
Although the final documents were part of reviews of the New Zealand education system by the Labour government elected in 2017, there had been pressure building previously for the focus of the reforms to be on developing a curriculum that truly reflected the history of New Zealand. This had included a petition taken to parliament in 2015 by high school students expressing concerns about how the New Zealand Wars were being taught, ongoing debate in the media amongst academics and educationists, and another petition urging teaching of New Zealand histories to be compulsory. In response to this, the government commissioned advice and consultation, and announced that New Zealand history would be a compulsory subject in schools by 2022, with the actual implementation occurring in 2023.
In 2025, as part of a campaign promise in the National-ACT Coalition Government agreement to "rebalance" the curriculum, the new draft social sciences curriculum modified the existing content in the histories curriculum, particularly in relation to Māori and global history, with this receiving criticism from various groups, including the NZ History Teachers Association.
Background In 2015, the public were made aware of concerns about the approach to history in New Zealand schools when students from Otorohanga College gathered more than 10,000 signatures on a petition in support of setting aside a day to remember the New Zealand Wars. The students had visited battle sites, including Rangiaowhia, in 2014 and talked with kaumātua who often had stories of cruelty to women and children during the conflicts. The head girl at the school, Rhiannon Magee, said that the past should be acknowledged and not hidden, and a teacher Mariana Papa noted that the students had the support of King Tuheitia and other Māori leaders. Historian Paul Moon felt a day of commemoration would build understanding of the wars, although the response from David Bennett and Scott Simpson, members of the governing National Party, was more measured and not totally in support of a public holiday.
In December 2015, the students took the petition to the New Zealand parliament. Nanaia Mahuta, in her role as Hauraki-Waikato MP, presented the petition to the National Government of the time, pledging Labour's support for a proposed public holiday in recognition of the struggle. Mahuta said she hoped that "the Government [would] see the importance in recognising the New Zealand Land Wars and its contribution to our national identity...[ensuring people]...continue to tell the story of ancestors who went to war to fight for their land, rather than have it taken by colonial government". John Key, Prime Minister, ruled out an extra holiday and said he had not had much support for replacing one of the existing holidays.
In 2016, the Māori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell confirmed Te Pūtake o Te Riri, He Rā Maumahara as a national day on October 28 to annually commemorate the New Zealand Wars. The first day was held on 11 March 2018, the anniversary of the Battle of Kororāreka in 1845, and it was agreed that future days would be held annually on 28 October, to mark the signing of He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, "serving as a reminder of the rangatiratanga and authority that Māori fought to protect and preserve throughout the New Zealand Wars". At the 2019 Rā Maumahara, members of the Labour Government were welcomed onto Ōwae Marae, Waitara. After receiving a "white feather or raukura as a symbol of peace" during the welcome, the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said that rather than just one day of commemoration, she favoured "putting the teaching of New Zealand history into our schools, into our education system, for all our young people to learn, I think that is the most significant and important thing that we can do going forward".
By December 2017, after the newly elected Labour Government had made some educational reforms, the New Zealand Ministry of Education said it would work with students, parents and community to review progress across the National Curriculum. To support this process Ministerial Advisory and Reference Groups would be established. On 21 February 2018, Chris Hipkins, the Minister of Education, announced a review of the education system, and it was reported in the media that "the focus of his review would likely be to put in place an education model that is more reflective of the 21st century". The Cabinet agreed to initial actions arising from the Curriculum, Progress and Achievement Ministerial Advisory Group's June 2019 report. The Advisory Group supported the development of "new strategies and responses to create the conditions to empower all ākonga [students] and their whānau [families] to thrive in a changing world, and to meet the challenge of addressing educational inequity" through a review of the "design and use of local curriculum".
There was increasing pressure for an update of the curriculums to focus on the teaching of New Zealand histories in schools, but Chris Hipkins said on 13 September 2018 he did not favour this, noting: At the moment, history is a core part of the New Zealand curriculum. What schools choose to teach within that is over to schools because schools have the ability to design their content based on local knowledge and local needs. I think the New Zealand Wars are an important part of New Zealand's history as a country, but again, I don't want us to become too prescriptive about which parts of the New Zealand Wars, for example, should be standard at which schools. When Hamilton Junior High School began teaching about the New Zealand Wars in 2018, students and staff felt not only did it revive the "voices" about the wars, but also built understanding of challenges to colonialism that were happening in their community. In 2018 Fairfield College in Hamilton unveiled a pou in memory of those who fought in the wars. School principal Richard Crawford, a strong supporter of New Zealand history being a compulsory part of the curriculum, stressed the importance of learning about "the conflict and how it helped shape current-day New Zealand". Students at St Paul's Collegiate School had been specifically learning about battles in Waikato during the wars for more than 20 years according to the principal Defyd Williams and each term ended with visits to the sites within the region. Williams said the learning touched on many of the "big questions of history", and according to one student, "we live here, we should all know our history. It's our duty. Even if we're not from here, we're still here at this time and need to be a part of it".
Leading up to Waitangi Day 2019, history teachers called for "compulsory teaching of New Zealand's Māori and colonial history in schools", prompting responses from Chris Hipkin that the Education Ministry was working on projects to address this, and Kelvin Davis, associate minister of education and Minister for Māori Crown Relations, who said it would be "inappropriate for governments to come along and dictate specifics of what's taught in schools". A petition presented to the New Zealand House of Representatives on 11 June 2019, requested "legislation that would make compulsory the coherent teaching of our own past across appropriate year levels in our schools, with professional development and resources to do so provided".
Announcement in 2019 Jacinda Ardern was reported in the Waikato Times in September 2019, as saying she had "heard the calls from those who embed themselves in the teaching of our history...[and]...it prompted me to have a conversation again with the Minister of Education to point out to him that this was becoming equally a grass roots movement". On 12 September 2019 Ardern and Chris Hipkins made a joint announcement that the national curriculum would be updated to make explicit the expectation that New Zealand's history is taught to all students in New Zealand schools and kura from 2022. Hipkins also said that the need to update Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (Māori-medium curriculum) and The New Zealand Curriculum was "to ensure equitable outcomes and that it is fit-for-purpose, with a stronger focus on the wellbeing, identities, languages and cultures of all ākonga". Radio New Zealand reported that history lessons were expected to include the "arrival of Māori, early colonisation, the Treaty of Waitangi, immigration to New Zealand, and the evolving identity of the country", and this was seen as a change from what was happening at the time when schools could choose how they covered history. Ardern said this was about resetting the national curriculum to build awareness of what has shaped the nation and Hipkins committed the Ministry of Education to working with experts, iwi and Pasifika and school communities.
Responses Acknowledging the significance of the announcement, Joe Davis, of Ngāti Hei descent, recalled that he had been telling students at local schools for years about James Cook being welcomed ashore with a pōwhiri in Mercury Bay, regarded as the "first official welcoming held between Māori and Pākehā...[and]...when kids come here and you explain to them what happened here, it dawns on them that there's more to history than just English history and American history".
Hokotehi Moriori Trust chair Maui Solomon said that it was an "opportunity to dispel some of the myths about Moriori". Graeme Ball from the New Zealand History Teachers Association (NZHTA) supported the initiative, which he said needed to be driven by people with a history background, and while some of the process might be "contentious...that is part of engaging in healthy debates and evolving theories about subjects such as history".
The New Zealand Historical Association website described the announcement by Ardern as "surprising" because the Ministry of Education had argued against the intended compulsory history curriculum seeing it as possibly too prescriptive and not in support of the current focus in the Social Sciences curriculum for schools to have a degree of autonomy in this learning area. The statement was made in the discussion that the decision to carry on developing the new curriculum was "political" and a response to public pressure following the presentation of the petition to the government by the students from Otorohanga.
Philippa Hunter, an academic from Waikato University whose research has specialised in "social sciences education, critical pedagogy and curriculum perspectives", suggested that a "momentum" had built up to the making of the decision. Hunter identified recent actions from the government that indicated a growing awareness to acknowledge the effects of colonisation, concluding: "most importantly, the racist underbelly of Aotearoa New Zealand society has been given scrutiny following the March 15 Christchurch massacre".
Historian Vincent O'Malley, who had earlier claimed that any "half-decent education system around the world should deliver a basic knowledge of one's own country...[and New Zealand's]...is currently failing to do that", said in 2019 that the announcement by the government had "exceeded his expectations".