When Tomorrow Comes: contextualising the independent review of Tomorrow’s Schools

Abstract

The Tomorrow’s Schools reforms in 1989 fundamentally changed primary and secondary schooling in New Zealand. While the devolved nature of Tomorrow’s Schools has enabled higher levels of local autonomy, it has also been criticised for opening up schools to marketisation and contributing to inequality between schools. Around 30 years after the original reforms, a significant government-sponsored review was undertaken into whether the compulsory schooling system was still fit for purpose under the Tomorrow’s Schools settings. This article finds that there is a mismatch between the recommended structural reform and the resulting ‘reset’ of Tomorrow’s schools.