19/12/2024
Louise Quinn
[FYI request #29308 email]
Tēnā koe Louise
Thank you for your email of 25 November 2024 to the Ministry of Education (the Ministry)
requesting the following information regarding the replacement of nzmaths with Tāhūrangi:
1. How much money has been wasted on this 'project'?
2. Who signed off on the decision to get rid of NZ maths when not only was it an excellent
resource for NZ teachers, it was used by teachers from overseas (Australia and Ireland
for example).
3. Why replace a top class website with something that resembles a webpage created by
someone starting out in website design?
4. Can this disaster please be reversed?
For 25 years, Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI) has been the online home for our national curricula. Over
time, it evolved into a suite of more than 70 independent websites, each with its own design,
functionality, and purpose. One of those websites was nzmaths, which became the largest TKI
website in terms of volume of content, amount of usage, and maintenance costs. Over the last
year, more than 5,000 items across nzmaths have been reviewed, updated, and then 3,500 moved
to Tāhūrangi. These resources cover The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
and represent the best of the content available and can be found at the links below. We encourage
you to use the filters on the side of the page to narrow your search within certain topics, audience,
and series to name a few.
•
TMoA - Pāngarau
•
NZC - Mathematics and Statistics
In 2018, as part of the Education Conversation | Kōrero Mātauranga and the review of Tomorrow’s
Schools, the Ministry received significant feedback on the user experience of TKI. It was reported
that, while teachers and kaiako trusted what they found on TKI, the content was hard to find and
occasionally out of date. Attempts were made over time to improve the search function within
particular websites and across all of TKI. However, building those functions made the websites
even less inter-connected, and increasingly costly and complicated. This was further exacerbated
by TKI being on an old platform that could not cope with the modern website requirements that
users expect.
Wellington National Office, 1 The Terrace, Levels 5 to 14, Wellington 6011
PO Box 1666, Wel ington 6140, DX SR51201 Phone: +64 4 463 8000
As a result of this, it was decided to replace TKI with a new one-stop shop for all curriculum
resources. This platform, which has been gifted the name Tāhūrangi, will replace all 70+ TKI
websites and provide a consistent experience for users across the whole curriculum. One website,
one set of search functions, and one connected suite of only the best resources on offer. This
stands in contrast to the alternative, which was to replace each website individually and be left with
the same issues of a disconnects between each area and a platform that was difficult and time
consuming to navigate.
In response to
question one, the Ministry has spent $45.3 million on building Tāhūrangi to date.
This figure includes:
•
Designing and launching Tāhūrangi as a technical platform, along with a number of
customisations to support:
o Te Whāriki – principles, strands, goals and learning outcomes
o Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (TMoA) – key aspects and all wāhanga ako
o New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) – key aspects and all learning areas.
•
Reviewing, redeveloping and migrating published (excluding new or draft) curriculum
resources from TKI, Kauwhata Reo and Te Whāriki onto Tāhūrangi. This consists of
approximately 30,000 pages of content and over 5,000 downloadable documents.
In response to your other questions, the decision to replace TKI with Tāhūrangi was first endorsed
by nine senior leaders across the Ministry, including in ICT, Finance, and Legal. It was then
approved in a business case in 2019 by the Deputy and Associate Deputy Secretary for Early
Learning, Student Achievement. The Ministry procured the platform through an international tender
in 2020, with Microsoft New Zealand ultimately being selected in 2021. Since then, more than
7,000 items to date have been transferred from TKI to Tāhūrangi, and 19 TKI websites have
already been decommissioned.
The Ministry is continuing to make improvements to Tāhūrangi, and you are welcome to email
suggestions to
Tāhūrangi@education.govt.nz.
Nāku noa, nā
Tara Taylor-Jorgenson
General Manager (Acting)
Curriculum Integration Service
OIA: 1340435