Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. He leads the workstream on education.
Prior to his time at the Initiative, Dr Johnston held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington from 2011-2022. From 2020 until 2022 he was the Associate Dean (Academic) in the University’s Faculty of Education.
Prior to his time at Victoria, Dr Johnston was the Senior Statistician at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, a position he held for 6 years. Before that, he was a lecturer in psychology at the University Melbourne and a Research Fellow at Latrobe University.
Dr Johnston holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne.
Phone: 044990790
The parlous state of new Zealand’s school education system is common knowledge, in part thanks to the Herald’s recent Making the Grade series. Our poor results in literacy featured prominently. Read more
Learning is a central pursuit of the education system. It is essential that educators understand key elements of the science of human learning and how to apply them in the classroom. Read more
Hate speech and misinformation are both real and undesirable. But trying to curb them through criminal law risks undermining democracy. Read more
Yesterday, the New Zealand Initiative launched a new report. Save Our Schools makes wide-ranging recommendations to rescue our failing school system. Read more
This manifesto draws on the body of research compiled at The New Zealand Initiative over the past decade to bring together a coherent plan to improve our education system, and to restore it to a place of international pre-eminence. New Zealand’s once world-leading school education system is in a state of deep malaise. Read more
Wellington (Thursday, 27 April 2023) – A comprehensive report authored by Dr Michael Johnston offers a detailed analysis of the current challenges facing New Zealand’s educational infrastructure. Save our Schools: Solutions for New Zealand’s education crisis outlines a series of innovative proposals for reforming and revitalising New Zealand's education system, including curriculum, assessment and qualification systems, initial teacher education, teacher career structure, teacher supply, systems monitoring, and information provision to parents. Read more
Webinar: A Turning Point for New Zealand’s Education System Join us for a webinar as we launch “Save Our Schools: Solutions for New Zealand's Education Crisis.” Our webinar, and our publication, come at a critical moment. New Zealand faces the choice between reform and decline in our education system. Read more
In this podcast episode, we explore the state of education in New Zealand, both at the school and university levels. Drawing from our own experiences, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the current education system and the challenges that students face in their pursuit of higher education. Read more
I remember Primary School maths as being about learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Once we had learned those things, we took on fractions and decimals. Read more
National recently announced a series of education policies that it will take to the election in October. One is to a develop a much more structured and knowledge-rich curriculum. Read more
During my years as an education academic, Professor Elizabeth Rata of the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland always stood out as a model scholar. She has always argued calmly for her ideas, using logic and evidence. Read more
Once again, the Ministry of Education has shown that it prefers ideology to evidence. Last week, it published a Common Practice Model (CPM) – a model of teaching literacy and numeracy to be followed by teachers across the country. Read more
In this week’s podcast, Oliver Hartwich and Michael Johnston are joined by visiting professor Dr Antje Barabasch to discuss vocational education and training, the Swiss dual education system, and the differences with the New Zealand system. Professor Dr Antje Barabasch is head of the research axe “Teaching and Learning in VET” and the research field “Learning cultures and instruction”. Read more
In September 1969, hippies thronged to Auckland’s Albert Park to stand up for free speech, protest the Vietnam War, and enjoy the grass. It was part of a movement for free love and free minds that was sweeping the English-speaking world at the time. Read more
For a brief moment last year, it looked as if the Ministry of Education was finally going to embrace methods of teaching literacy and numeracy supported by scientific evidence. They published a new literacy and numeracy strategy that made reference to structured teaching methods. Read more