Search results

This chapter traces the early beginnings of schools and schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand. We have drawn on archival evidence to identify shifting tensions between Māori and missionary, between Church and State and between local and national priorities. Despite its relative size, the history of New Zealand’s schools highlights their complex and competing origins. This educational landscape has been marked by emerging concerns and unresolved tensions regarding entry standards, academic and professional training, recruitment, and the knowledge, skills and dispositions a teacher ought to possess. There has been little consensus about how teachers should be prepared and where this training ought to occur. The absence of any uniform understanding or agreement about the effective professional training and preparation of teachers has induced a level of bureaucratization as competing interests sought to control the work of teachers.