Education Hub
The Ministry of Education licenses the work of NZ authors for curriculum use.
Schools are large consumers of NZ writers’ novels, poetry, and curriculum resources for use in the classroom and in testing materials.
License agreements must be issued to you to give permission to use your work on the Education Hub, and you will agree a use-for-fee payment.
NZSA has a contract team that you can check in with about contracts offered to you.
We recommend fixed-term licenses, say for 5 years rather than ‘forever’ agreements, and to limit the use to the Ministry of Education as opposed to The Crown.
Testing Materials
There is a copyright exception for testing materials and you may discover your work has been used in exams. While it is nice to be asked, there is no legal requirement for the MOE to seek your permission for short extracts used in exams.
Commercially or printed testing materials however do require licensing, permission and payment to use you work.
Copyright Licensing School Licenses
Copyright Licensing is responsible for school licensing. With an annual Copyright License, schools can legally use the work of NZ writers, artists and musicians in their curriculum.
Unlike Microsoft for example, schools are not centrally licensed by the Ministry of Education. Copyright Licensing advocates to government to instigate central licensing for school copyright licenses.
This is something that CLNZ, PANZ, and NZSA lobby for. Central licensing would ensure fair reward to NZ writers. Currently circa 70% of schools purchase a licence voluntarily, but that means that 30% of schools would infringe copyright on a weekly basis.
Copyright Licensing NZ surveys schools and universities as to what materials they are using in classrooms, and from this data, authors and publishers are reimbursed for the use of that work from those school license fees.
School Libraries
Given the proven links between local content, school libraries, and literacy NZSA considers it a dereliction of duty for any school to decommission their library. Unfortunately in 2023, one-third (or over 900) of primary schools no longer have a school library. Secondary libraries are also losing space as roles increase in some areas.
On November 27, 2023 NZSA delivered a briefing to the incoming Minister of Education, to protest the decommissioning of school libraries.