Education as an Investment in the Future – But What Future?

Amid competing reforms, Aotearoa must confront a deeper question: what kind of future are we preparing young people for?

I recently had the privilege of attending an iwi-led education summit that took place at Te Papa, called Whiti Te Rā. The summit was organised by the team at Pātaka Toa, the education arm of Ngati Toa. I loved the theme they’d chosen: “preparing tomorrow for our mokopuna today” – a creative and compelling call to act now, not at some point in the future!

The day featured an inspiring programme of speakers  including Helmut Modlik, Tumu Whakarae at Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira;  Bianca Elkington, GM Education and Employment at Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira Incorporated: Lee Stephen from Hiku Media, Ian Musson from Young Enterprise Trust,  Piripi Winiata from Kawea Law and consultancy, Grant Bruno from Alberta (expert on indigenous understandings of neurodiversity)  and Elle Archer. In addition, there was a fabulous rangatahi panel sharing their thoughts and experiences in relation to navigating knowledge across the moana. 

As I listened, I couldn’t help noticing the stark contrast with the debates dominating national education policy. Where the summit offered clarity about the future our mokopuna deserve, the national conversation often feels fragmented, reactive, and pulled in competing directions.

“Letters to My Mokopuna”: A Coherent Vision for 2040

One of the highlights of the day was being introduced to Rautaki Pātaka Toa – the 2040 Education and Employment Strategy, beautifully titled Letters to my Mokopuna. It is one of the most coherent and future-aligned education strategies I have seen in a long time — bold in ambition, yet precise in how that ambition will be realised.

The strategy is anchored around three priorities: Education Excellence, Innovative Leadership, and Social Impact. The Social Impact section in particular resonated deeply:

“Social impact captures the wider transformation we seek – where career development is not an end in itself, but a pathway to lasting wellbeing, equity, and rangatiratanga for our people… Our system connects whānau, iwi, and communities to create clear, supported pathways to career success.”

What stands out is not only the clarity of purpose but the coherence of the pathway. For example, the Mauri Ora Development Plans go far beyond assessing readiness for work. They map identity, aspirations, strengths, and whānau context, ensuring career development becomes an expression of rangatiratanga rather than a response to labour-market shortages. This is education aligned with a vision of the future – not the other way around.

Two Visions of the Future in Our National System

Reflecting on this illuminated the broader tensions in New Zealand’s current education landscape. When politicians describe education as an investment, the idea sounds simple and reassuring. But the moment we ask, “investment in what future?”, the fault lines emerge.

Across today’s reforms, we see two competing visions:

1. A future of standardisation

A tightly directed curriculum, strong control mechanisms, clear national expectations, and a narrow focus on literacy and numeracy as gatekeeper skills. In this model, education serves the productivity needs of today’s economy.

2. A future of diversity and autonomy

Localised decision-making, diverse schooling models, broader definitions of success, and responsiveness to community identity and aspirations. Here, education serves social, cultural, and ecological futures as much as economic ones.

Both perspectives arise from legitimate concerns – the need for strong foundational skills on one hand, and the need for identity, equity, and adaptability on the other. But they point in very different directions.

Without clarity about the future we want, the system oscillates between them, often unproductively.

What Does It Mean to Be Literate and Numerate in the 21st Century?

At the heart of the debate is a deceptively simple question:

What does it mean to be a literate and numerate citizen today?

Is literacy/numeracy:

• A minimum competency for workplace productivity?
• A set of expansive capabilities for civic engagement, digital navigation, critical analysis, and multimodal communication?
• A set of cultural and relational skills for navigating multiple worldviews, languages, and knowledge systems?

In an age shaped by AI, climate instability, misinformation, and shifting labour markets, literacy and numeracy cannot be reduced to basic technical functions. They are civic skills. Democratic skills. Tools for navigating uncertainty and complexity.

Foundational skills matter – deeply. The question is whether we define them broadly enough to serve the future we actually face.

Responding to – or Shaping – the Industrial Strategy?

A further question arises: Should education follow the industrial strategy, or shape it?

If education merely produces workers for existing industries, we risk preparing young people for a past that is already disappearing.

If, instead, education cultivates adaptability, creativity, ethical reasoning, systems thinking, and collaborative problem-solving, it becomes a driver of innovation and a partner in shaping new industries and social futures.

A truly future-focused education system would:

• Teach foundational skills broadly and deeply
• Connect learning to real-world problems and contexts
• Develop capabilities that remain relevant even as jobs change
• Recognise that economic futures and social/ecological futures are intertwined
• Build a strong sense of identity and belonging – the foundation of agency

This aligns closely with the principle of Tātarāmoa in the Ngāti Toa strategy, which centres on empowerment and identity:

“When whānau know who they are, they can shape where they’re going.”

So where does this leave us?

Ultimately, the tensions in our education system are not just political. They are philosophical. They reflect different answers to the same core question: What future are we preparing our mokopuna for?

If we can clearly articulate:

• The kind of future we want for Aotearoa
• The capabilities young people need to navigate and shape that future
• The balance of autonomy and direction that best supports those capabilities

…then the debates about curriculum, assessment, and schooling models start to look less like isolated reforms and more like competing visions of the future.

This is why iwi-led strategies such as Letters to My Mokopuna matter so much. They demonstrate what becomes possible when clarity of purpose meets courage of vision. They remind us that education is never a neutral investment – it is always an investment in a particular future.

The question is whether we, as a nation, are prepared to define that future with equal clarity.

Because until we do, our system will continue to oscillate between incompatible futures – one standardised, one diverse; one economically driven, one socially and culturally grounded – leaving our mokopuna to navigate the consequences.

Moments like Whiti Te Rā invite us to think bigger. They call us to imagine, with confidence, the future our young people deserve – and then invest in it with coherence, integrity, and courage.

Our mokopuna deserve nothing less.