The Government’s practice of conflating social policy with education policy, with education becoming the meta-policy, has also allowed equity issues identified with neoliberalism to be passed onto schools as ‘their problem’. Also considered is the importance to the Government of the key measures of success used by it in its economically grounded education system, those being GDP and New Zealand’s standing in the triennial comparative tables issued by PISA, linking the use of PISA data to producing policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy.

A review of the research literature reveals the importance of the OECD’s Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) assessment ‘league tables’ in acting as a trigger and a driver for policy change. These problems relate to inequity, ineffective teachers, and a lack of market forces interventions to make the education system efficient. Under consideration are the introduction and use of National Standards and the Investing in Educational Success (IES) suite of policies, and the way that these policies are explained as being necessary to combat perceived ‘problems’ with schools. Specifically, the study seeks to add clarity to the way that ‘problems’ perceived to be in need of fixing are represented by this government and how such problematisations support the neoliberal agenda. Thus, its problematisations may be representative of a more general neoliberal means of approaching education policy. These are used to identify, analyse, and challenge the beliefs and values which underpin the education policy changes made by this particular government, the National-led coalition government, which is viewed as market fundamentalist or neoliberal in its approach. This methodology is overlaid by a critical realist theoretical perspective, whereby WPR analysis is supported through the use of Bourdieu’s thinking tools and Baudrillard's formulations of hyper-reality and Simulacra. This study draws on Bacchi’s ‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) methodology of policy analysis, to explore the problem representations found in New Zealand’s National-led coalition Government’s discourse from 2008-2017.

Fear of Food by Carol Bacchi