'Power-sharing' in the classroom

"Across New Zealand, schools are declaring that they will 'give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.'

"Many parents assume this means teaching New Zealand history or acknowledging Māori culture. In reality, in modern policy language, it means something far more structural.

"To 'give effect' to Te Tiriti generally means embedding Treaty principles into governance, leadership, and decision-making. It often involves redefining power-sharing arrangements, treating Māori as governance partners, and redesigning institutional systems around Treaty-based frameworks.

"This is not merely education. It is a constitutional and governance shift. The idea of 'partnership' is modern — not original. New Zealand did not operate as a partnership state for most of its history. The modern concepts of 'partnership,' 'principles of the Treaty,' and co-governance emerged largely in the 1980s through court decisions and Waitangi Tribunal reports. These ideas are not written into the original 1840 texts.

"What is happening now is not preservation of an old system. It is the adoption of a modern constitutional interpretation that remains highly contested within public debate."

~ Judy Gill from her post 'What “Giving effect to Te Tiriti” means in schools – and how zoning denies parents real choice'