Labour would scrap the daily hour for reading, writing and maths
Chris Hipkins used the first TVNZ leaders' debate to confirm that a Labour government would drop the rule requiring schools to teach a mandated hour a day of reading, writing and maths. According to B2B News, which is also the source for the Newsroom and Newstalk ZB material in this report, he said Labour wants to "give schools the discretion" over how the basics are taught.
He was quick to qualify that. "We still want kids to be learning reading, writing, and maths," Hipkins said afterwards, just with more flexibility.
Under National's rule, teachers must find an hour a day for reading, writing and maths. Under Labour, principals and teachers would decide how much time the subjects get.
National brought in the rule in its first 100 days, and education spokesperson Erica Stanford said in a release on the night of the debate that it would stay. She said Hipkins had "committed to scrapping" it.
Labour's position didn't start with the debate. In April, education spokesperson Ginny Andersen told Newsroom she was "less sure about the mandated hour a day". She argued that it crowds out music, art and PE, and said Labour favoured "a less prescribed, or top down approach to education". By September, Labour had settled on pausing further maths and English reform. It said it would put more weight on socioeconomic deprivation and on teaching "critical thinking, creativity, and digital literacy".
The morning after the debate, Andersen told Newstalk ZB that "politicians shouldn't be deciding how kids learn". National's Mark Mitchell replied that Labour should "let them learn maths and read for an hour a day." During the debate itself, Luxon called Hipkins the worst education minister the country has had.
Stanford's case for keeping the rule rests on results. In her release, she said the latest national data showed the share of Year 6 students meeting curriculum expectations rose from 30 per cent to 36 per cent in maths and from 33 per cent to 38 per cent in writing. She called both gains statistically significant.
Stanford also turned the argument back on Hipkins. She said he was Education Minister when the 2021 Royal Society expert report on maths and statistics was commissioned. That report recommended that every child in Years 0 to 10 get the chance to learn maths and statistics for at least an hour a day. Stanford said he implemented neither that recommendation nor any of the report's 14 others.
ERO's 2025 evaluation found that only 60 per cent of teachers were delivering the full daily hour of reading and 67 per cent the full hour of maths. That makes it hard to credit the hour alone with any gains, or to blame it for crowding out other subjects.
The same evaluation found phonics checks at or above expectation rose from 36 per cent to 58 per cent across three terms of 2025. About three-quarters of parents reported better progress. Those results relate to the wider structured literacy changes as well as the time rule.
The 2024 national maths assessment found no statistically significant change in average scores at Years 3, 6 and 8 from 2023. Only 22 to 30 per cent of students reached the benchmark.
Target 7 aims for 80 per cent of Year 8 students at the expected curriculum level by 2030. The Government's 2025 factsheet put the starting point at 47 per cent in reading, 24 per cent in writing and 22 per cent in maths.
Teachers don't all agree. In 2024, more than 40 maths educators and researchers signed an open letter asking why a maths curriculum ERO had rated positively was being replaced again. Newsroom reported that some veteran teachers who vote Labour back the explicit teaching model and fear more upheaval.
Newstalk ZB's Heather du Plessis-Allan took National's side. She wrote that Hipkins had "conceded" Labour would scrap the hour for primary school children. She also noted he said a Labour government would keep the ban on phones in schools.
Whether any of this moved voters is unclear. The 1News panel of undecided voters backed Hipkins over Christopher Luxon 49 per cent to 24 per cent. That result covered the whole debate, not education.
The election is on 7 November.
The ERO, national assessment, Target 7, open letter and 1News panel figures are as reported by B2B News.