21/09/2026
There’s been a lot of discussion about National’s new education policy around screens. The proposal would end screen and individual-device use in ECE, tightly limit it in Years 1–3, and introduce age-appropriate limits for older primary students.
One thing I do think is getting a little lost in the headlines is that children sitting in front of iPads and screens is not what I see as normal practice across the ECE centres I work with. Devices might be used for photos, documentation or a particular purpose, but early childhood education is largely about relationships, conversation, play, movement, exploration and hands-on learning.
For me, the bigger conversation is about how much time our children are spending on screens overall.
The latest PISA results show New Zealand 15-year-olds spend an average of 2.5 hours a day using digital devices at school for learning, compared with 1.7 hours across the OECD. We also have 38% of NZ students saying their classmates are distracted by digital devices in most or every science lesson, compared with 28% across the OECD. (OECD)
Then there’s what happens outside school.
The 2025 NZ Youth Health and Wellbeing Survey found 56% of 13–19-year-olds spend at least five hours a day on screens, excluding schoolwork and work. That’s at least 35 hours a week for more than half of our young people. (Ministry of Social Development)
Put those figures alongside each other and the amount of childhood being spent on devices starts to become pretty significant. For a 15-year-old who fits both sets of figures, it could be 47.5 hours or more each week across learning-related school use and non-school screen use. That’s not an average for every NZ teenager, but it gives some perspective on just how much time we’re talking about.
There is also growing research looking at screen use and executive function: the skills children use to pay attention, remember instructions, control impulses, plan and solve problems. A recent review of 58 studies found links running in both directions between higher or problematic screen use and difficulties with executive function, so we can’t simply say screens cause the problem. But it is another reason to take the amount and type of screen use seriously. (Peeref)
Technology can absolutely be useful. I’ve seen that myself. An online maths programme was really helpful for one of my own children when he needed repeated practice. But that doesn’t mean a device needs to be the default way children learn.
Time on screens can also be time not spent talking with other people, writing and drawing by hand, moving, making things, reading, solving problems, playing, being outdoors and learning how to manage themselves in the real world.
It is also worth putting the decline in our education results into an international context. New Zealand remains above the OECD average in science, maths and reading, while there has been a significant longer-term decline in maths and reading. But this decline is not uniquely a New Zealand problem. Across OECD countries, maths performance fell by 22 points between 2015 and 2025 and reading by 28 points. New Zealand’s 2025 results were broadly unchanged from 2022. (OECD)
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned about New Zealand’s decline. We should. But it does mean the story is more complex than saying New Zealand education has fallen while everyone else has stood still.
I think schools are only part of this conversation. When more than half of our teenagers are spending five or more hours a day on screens outside schoolwork, there is a much bigger conversation to be had with parents and whānau too about what healthy device use actually looks like, and what all that screen time might be replacing.
We often hear that children need devices because they’re growing up in a technological world. Of course they are, but being prepared for a technological world doesn’t necessarily mean spending more of childhood on a screen.
The question we should keep coming back to is: what genuinely benefits from a screen, and what are children better off doing with their hands, bodies, books, teachers, friends, whānau and the real world around them?
