Work With Us

Why you should work with us

Working for Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga | Ministry of Education means you’re making a valuable contribution to the educational outcomes of all ākonga | students across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Our current Tā mātou kaupapa | Purpose is "He mea tārai e mātou te mātauranga kia rangitira ai, kia mana taurite ai ōna huanga. | We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.” You’ll be part of that.

We're proud to offer our people rewarding, interesting, and stimulating mahi across a range of professions. We offer this within a respectful environment centred on career progression and development.

We offer options of flexibility in the way we work, enabling our people to structure their working week in a way that creates good work-life balance.  

Read more below about:

  • The benefits we offer all employees
  • Health and wellbeing initiatives
  • How we support career development
  • How we strive for an inclusive and diverse workplace

Employee benefits

We offer a range of benefits to show we value your mahi and well-being*.

Flexible working options: These include varied working hours and flexible locations, including working from home 

Hauora | Wellbeing allowance: An annual allowance of $400 is offered to employees whose roles are in the A and B salary bands to help cover the costs of caring for their own personal health and wellbeing needs.

Long service leave: We offer permanent fulltime and part-time employees long service leave in accordance with their employment agreements and our Long Service Leave policy.

Service recognition: Employees can apply to have previous service at another (approved) agency credited for leave purposes. This means the anniversary date of your previous employment will be used to calculate leave entitlements.

Flu vaccination: We provide employees with the option to receive a free annual flu vaccination

ACC partnership: You can request to use your sick or annual leave entitlements to ‘top up’ your pay to bring earnings from 80% up to 100% of usual income for any injury claims you make. 

Lifestyle leave: Employees can ‘purchase’ up to three weeks leave per annum.

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) – Employees can access our free and confidential EAP, which provides independent guidance/counselling sessions

Study Assistance: You may be eligible for financial assistance and additional leave for study towards relevant tertiary level qualifications

Southern Cross healthcare insurance: Through our Southern Cross Healthcare Insurance Scheme, employees can access reduced health insurance premiums

The above benefits will be dependent upon whether you are hired on a fixed term or permanent basis & also the collective agreement you sign when joining Te Tāhuhu.

Health and wellbeing

Our people’s wellbeing is important to us. All our people have access to a range of health and wellbeing benefit such as our Wellbeing Hub, which provides access to our flu vaccination programme, event information and material such as Mental Health Awareness Week. Employees can also keep up to date with current, credible information from New Zealand health experts & develop personal goals and set challenges.

Many of our offices are also equipped with dedicated spaces for wellbeing, parenting/whānau needs and/or rooms for prayer/spiritual reflection.

Our office locations

We have offices throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. Our national office is in Wellington, handy to government, while our regional offices work with schools and other education-related agencies and partners.

Training and Development

We invest in the development of our people and have a range of individual and ministry-wide development initiatives and opportunities.

We understand that no one knows your goals and aspirations better than you, so you’ll be encouraged to take an active role in your own development.

Below are some of Te Tāhuhu-wide development initiatives and opportunities we offer:

Te Tiriti o Waitangi course

This course is open for all employees to enrol, and new staff are encouraged to enrol for Te Tiriti o Waitangi within their induction period.

Te Reo Māori courses

All employees across Aotearoa can enrol for both level 1 and 2 Te Reo Māori courses as they are run online and accessible for all.

Machinery of Government course

This introduction to government course which explains how the education sector works within central government, is available to all.

Individual development plans tailored for your specific needs.

Creating personal development plans (PDP) are a shared effort between the individual and their people leader, to map a plan on providing development opportunities. These opportunities range from:

  • On-the-job training
  • inhouse courses and programmes
  • modules external training
  • seminars
  • secondment opportunities
  • mentoring

Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the workplace

We are committed to being an inclusive and welcoming place to work, where all our people feel valued, have equitable opportunities to succeed and reflect the diversity of the communities we serve


Te Tāhuhu D&I goals are:

  • Build a workforce that represents the communities we work for
  • Develop consistent policies and initiatives that support and retain a diverse workforce
  • Develop our leaders and people to encourage a culture that supports diversity and inclusion
  • Establish key metrics and common methodology to inform action and measure progress

Our priority focus areas to achieve these goals are:

Te Tiriti o Waitangi – We work in partnership with Māori to embed our commitment to Te Tiriti in our mahi

Sourcing and selection – We aim for inclusive sourcing and selection practices through mitigating bias and we hire diverse candidates, representative of the communities we work in

Learning and career development – We provide learning opportunities to all our people that increase our D&I capability and ensure D&I and racial equity is woven into our learning

Gender and ethnic pay - We close gender and ethnic pay gaps for ‘like’ roles and ongoing practices to ensure equity in remuneration

Promoting D&I and wellbeing - We promote D&I as an important priority for our organisation to enhance wellbeing for our diverse communities

Data and reporting - We collect diversity information about our workforce appropriately and provide diversity reporting about our workforce

Inclusive policies, practices and tools - We have policies practices and tools that reflect our diverse workforce.  Guidance and tools are available to enable an inclusive workplace.

Employee-led networks

We have several employee-led networks within Te Tāhuhu that our people can join. Our networks provide a supportive space for people from similar backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, and identities to connect and share their experiences. The network members work together to raise visibility and amplify the voices of our diverse communities. Our networks work together to address common issues and celebrate events and dates important to them.  

  • Māori Education Network 
  • Education Rainbow Network 
  • Pasifika Staff Network 
  • Disability Network 
  • Women’s Network 
  • Asian Networking Group 
  • Young Professionals Network