Michael is a Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative. He leads the Initiative’s work on education. He is a cognitive psychologist with a background in literacy research, educational assessment and psychometrics.
Prior to his time at the Initiative, he was the Associate Dean (Academic) of the Faculty of Education at Victoria University of Wellington. Between 2005 and 2011, he worked at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), where he developed a new, more reliable, marking system for NCEA examinations. In 2024, Michael chaired a Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) for Education Minister Erica Stanford. The MAG advised on the development of a knowledge-rich curriculum for English and mathematics. Following that work, Michael is currently a member of the Curriculum Coherence group, which advises on the development of knowledge-rich curricula across all school subjects. Michael is also a member of a technical advisory group to NZQA on assessment for NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship.
In his time at The New Zealand Initiative, Michael has published reports on Modern Learning Environments, systems reform in education, teacher education, the use of AI in education, and pathways for industry training and apprenticeships.
Phone: 044990790
Dr Michael Johnston talks to Tim Dower on Newstalk ZB's Early Edition about the Government delaying plan to make online numeracy and literacy tests a prerequisite for NCEA from 2026. Listen below. Read more
Two decades ago, a new term – ‘PISA shock’ – entered the German lexicon. The Germans had prided themselves on a world-class education system. Read more
Dr Michael Johnston recently spoke on RNZ's morning news about NZ's poor PISA 2022 results following their release earlier in the week. Listen below. Read more
Every three years since 2000 - except during the Covid-19 pandemic - the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) has assessed the reading skill of 15-year-olds from an ever-increasing range of countries. From 2003, mathematics was assessed as well. Read more
Wellington (Tuesday, 5 December 2023) – Changes are coming to the way New Zealand students will be tested for reading, writing, and numeracy for NCEA. From 2026, if students fail any one of these new tests, they will not be able to achieve any level of NCEA. Read more
From 2026, students will have to pass new assessments in reading, writing and numeracy to attain any level of NCEA. However, pilots of the new assessments in 2022 and the first full-scale assessment round for these new standards in 2023 indicate that if they are adopted as a corequisite for NCEA as planned, completion rates for the qualification will fall precipitously. Read more
Dr Michael Johnston talks to Dr Claudia Rozas Gomez, who is a lecturer in Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland. In this episode, they discuss issues and criticisms around university-based teacher education. Read more
Dr Michael Johnston and Ben Macintyre talk about the impact of classroom streaming in NZ, which is the subject of their new research report. It is a topic of debate in NZ, with calls for the practice to be banned by 2030. Read more
Classroom streaming – the separation of students into classes based on their prior attainment – is currently a topic of debate in New Zealand. Some commentators have called for the practice to be banned. Read more
Wellington (Monday, 20 November 2023) – There have been calls to ban streaming in New Zealand schools. Streaming is the practice of separating students into different classes based on their prior learning. Read more
When it comes to the annual NCEA exam round, no news is good news. News about exams almost always signals that something has gone wrong. Read more
Dr Michael Johnston talks to Glenn Fahey, who is the Director of the Education program at The Centre for Independent Studies based in Australia. They discuss the problems of Teacher Education in both NZ and Australia and the differing solutions they both came up with, which highlights the differences in both countries' systems. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
Every NCEA Level 1 assessment unit – the achievement standards – will be replaced from next year. The new standards were published last month. Read more
Dr Michael Johnson talks to Dr Christine Braid, of Massey University, and Linda Kimpton, a literacy advocate. They discuss what structured literacy is and how an incoming Minister might approach getting structured literacy embedded. Read more
This week we have a special guest, Lord Jonathan Sumption, in this combined Free Kiwis and The New Zealand Initiative podcast episode. Lord Sumption talks to us about his advocacy on free speech and is in NZ as a guest of the Free Speech Union. Read more
