Ginny Andersen — This Is What Education Actually Needs

by Rebecca Thomas

Ginny — will you listen?

As the change of government begins to gather pace again, I’ll be honest — I feel uneasy.

Many of us grew familiar with Willow-Jean Prime and the deliberate way she sought to stand alongside an exhausted workforce. She worked to understand it — not perfectly, but visibly. 

And now, we are left with Ginny Andersen.

I don’t know her well. And maybe that’s part of the problem.

Because from where I stand — I’m not yet convinced she fully grasps the scale of what sits in front of her.

Right now, it feels less like she has been chosen to protect education, and more like she has been positioned to contest it. A strategic move for the Wellington theatre.

And that might win debates.

But it won’t rebuild what has been quietly festering in our kura over recent years. It won’t restore the fractured relationships between educators and politicians.

So when I read your response this week , Ginny, I wasn’t nodding in agreement.

I was scanning.

Scanning for danger. Scanning for spin where there should be promise. Scanning for something that felt like hope.

Maybe that’s a bad habit now. 

Maybe it’s what happens when a workforce has felt repeatedly done to, rather than worked with. But I can’t help feeling protective of what is left of a profession that wants so badly to believe again.

So please — notice this.

Speak to the depth of what has actually unfolded across our schools.

Name the exhaustion outright. Be honest about the overload. Acknowledge the quiet triaging happening in classrooms every single day.

Because without that, your promises don’t feel lived.

They feel constructed.

And in a time like this, constructed can feel a lot like distance.

What’s missing most from your voice is this: A promise of protection.

Not just slowing things down — but ensuring that education is never again used as a political tool at the expense of our kaiako and ākonga. Because that is what it has felt like. A system bent and reshaped to win votes. Not to hold people with care.

So Ginny — if this ever reaches you — this is what I need you to understand.

We do not need another reshuffle.

We do not need another soft promise to “take stock.”

We need courage.

Because the system you are stepping into is not just strained — it is structurally misaligned for the communities who need it most.

And we already know what could change that.

A North-East Equity Accord.

Not a programme. Not a headline.

An Accord — a coming together of iwi, educators, whānau, and government — grounded in the truth that equity is not charity. It is justice.

Imagine this.

Flagship kura in the places where education has been marginalised the most over lifetimes — and where the weight of generational inequity still sits in the walls. Tai Tokerau. South Auckland.

Not elite. Not exclusive.

But flagship — beacons of what is possible when we build properly.

Schools where North-East pedagogy sits at the centre. Where relationships are not an add-on, but the foundation. Where high expectations and deep care walk side by side.

Inside these kura, we don’t send teachers in alone and hope for the best.

We build teams. Experienced kaiako. Beginning teachers learning alongside them.RTLBs, hauora workers, cultural advisors — not visiting, but embedded.

Because inclusion is not a word.

It is a workforce.

And the teachers who choose to work in these spaces?

They are not quietly burning out. Instead, they are recognised. Not through inflated salaries that fracture the profession — but through mana. Through pathways that say: You are a master practitioner. A mentor. A leader of this work.

They are given time. Coaching. Smaller classes. Space to do this properly.

And when they leave?

They carry that learning back into the system. That is how you lift a nation.

Not through competition.

Through contribution.

Because right now, we have it backwards.

The hardest places to teach are the least supported.

And then we wonder why things fracture.

These flagship kura would restore dignity. They would say to communities who have been labelled as failing — you are not the problem. The system is. They would be held to account.

Two years.

Real shifts in engagement, progress, wellbeing.

And when it works? We don’t hide it. We share it. Across networks, across Kāhui Ako. Across the motu. Because what works for our most marginalised tamariki will always work for everyone.

And alongside this — we stop pretending teachers can carry trauma without training.

Trauma-informed practice must be mandatory.

Not optional. Not dependent on whether a school has the capacity. Because our classrooms hold everything. Brilliance. Pain. History. Hope.

And if we are serious about inclusion, then we must be serious about preparing teachers for that reality.

You already have the mandate. The responsibility to reduce disparity. To honour Te Tiriti. To lift outcomes for those underserved by this system.

So this is the question sitting in front of you.

Will you manage the system?

Or will you transform it?

Because the difference will not be measured in speeches, or posts, or policy announcements. It will be measured in whether our kaiako can stay. Whether our tamariki can belong. Whether our communities feel seen.

No more fighting, Ginny.

We don’t need another politician ready to win.

We need someone ready to listen.

And then — finally — respond.