ITE Programme Requirements
Find out what’s required to design, deliver, and maintain an approved Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme in Aotearoa.
Programme requirements
The ITE Programme Requirements cover expectations around programme design, delivery, assessment, partnerships, and entry requirements.
The Requirements were issued in 2019. At that time they were published in a document that was broken into two parts, with the second part outlining how the Teaching Council monitors and reviews approved programmes to ensure ongoing quality and alignment with the Standards for the Teaching Profession. This second part was revised in 2024 and published as a separate document, the ITE Programme Approval, Monitoring, Review and Moderation Policy, which is discussed below.
Part one of the 2019 document is still current, as amended and added to by subsequent policy changes. We will be consulting soon on updates to the ITE Programme Requirements to reflect the 2026 Standards. Following this, the ITE Requirements from 2019 and subsequent additions and amendments will be compiled into a consolidated document.
In the interim, the ITE Programme Requirement are distributed across the following documents.
| Document | Requirements |
|---|---|
Requirements 1.1 to 7.1, except as added to or amended below. | |
Changes to the ITE Programme Requirements policy (September 2024) | New Requirement 1.4, ‘Preparation to Implement the Curriculum’. Amendments to Requirement 4.3, ‘Key Teaching Tasks’ (KTTs) to provide for ‘model’ and ‘core’ KTTs. New Appendix 3 to the Requirements with ‘model’ KTTs issued by the Teaching Council on Structured Literacy and Explicit Teaching. |
New Requirement (for English medium primary programmes) on Competence in Mathematics (see also the discussion of this requirement here). | |
Addition to Appendix 3 with ‘model’ KTT for Te Ara Reo Māori programmes issued by the Teaching Council on Rangaranga Reo ā-Tā. | |
Language competency for teaching in Aotearoa New Zealand (October 2025) | Changes to English language competency provisions in Requirement 6.2 to enable applicants for entry into ITE or for teacher registration or a LAT to have primary, secondary, and/or tertiary studies completed while living in the Pacific region to be used as evidence for demonstrating ELC. |
The ITE Programme Requirements set out the standards that ITE programmes must meet, including:
- graduate outcomes aligned with the Standards
- programme design and structure, including integration of theory and practice
- delivery methods that support diverse learners
- assessment practices to ensure student teachers meet the Standards
- entry requirements and pathways into ITE
- moderation and review processes to maintain quality.
Each requirement includes:
- the standard itself
- evidence expectations
- guidance for providers.
Approval, monitoring, review, and moderation
This document details how the Teaching Council:
- approves new programmes
- monitors existing programmes through universal, tailored, or investigative approaches
- reviews programmes periodically
- conducts national moderation to ensure consistency
- performs audits and special reviews when needed.
The major changes made in 2024 are:
- Monitoring processes now includes three levels of monitoring depending on the level of support required for a programme, namely universal, tailored and investigative monitoring. Aside from NZQA’s requirements for polytechnics and PTEs, monitoring may be lighter for other ITE providers, but new ITE programmes and those needing extra support are subject to requirements that are largely equivalent to those under the previous requirements.
- National assessment moderation processes now centre on a biennial national moderation event or events which ITE providers are expected to attend. These event(s) aim at improving the consistency of the moderation of assessment judgements across ITE providers.
The approval and audit processes for ITE providers remain the same as in 2019, and the review processes are largely the same as under the previous requirements.
The annual reporting guidelines have been developed to guide ITE providers to utilise information already held by ITE providers, and information for the purpose of periodic review, to be made available to the Teaching Council.
Resources
Also see our introduction to Teaching Council ITE processes with new ITE kaimahi video.
Related links
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