The week when I was due to meet Michael Gove, The week when I was due to meet Michael Gove, England’s controversial Secretary of State for Education, New Zealand’s own Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, released a damning review of the New Zealand Teachers Council (NZTC) alongside a proposal to reform it into a more professional body.

This was timely. I was about to ask Mr Gove for his thoughts on strengthening the profession – something the proposed reform of the NZTC is aiming to do. This was also uncanny. England’s equivalent of the NZTC, the General Teaching Council, was also damned. Mr Gove scrapped it in 2010 claiming it was doing little to raise professionalism.

Broadly, the reformed NZTC would be independent from unions, more independent from government, and most importantly, led by teachers. It “would become the voice and face of the profession”.

Teacher unions in New Zealand claim to provide a voice for the profession, alongside the potentially conflicting mission of representing industrial issues. But teachers also need a platform for contributing to the debate and where they cannot be accused of acting in self-interest.

Unions are supportive; the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), for example, called for “a voice that is not constrained by political, industrial, or sectoral perspectives”.

To their credit, unions have attempted to be this voice in the absence of the NZTC fulfilling its mandate to do so. Much of this comes down to resourcing. The unions’ resource base helps turn their volume up – loud. Full-time teachers pay eight times in union membership fees as for their teacher registration fees to NZTC.

The reformed NZTC is also proposed to be more independent from government. A professional body representing those who actually teach, free from ideology and government-of-the-day policy timed with the dance of electoral cycles, is critical.

Mirroring the reform in New Zealand, there is also discussion underway in England to establish a Royal College of Teachers. But my interview with Mr Gove revealed a crucially important difference – he believes that teachers, not politicians, should lead the way.

The legal structure, governance, and funding of the reformed NZTC will determine whether the professional body is truly owned and led by teachers. This is critical because real improvement in education has to be driven by teachers.

Mr Gove said that in England, the Royal College should not be “an arm of the state or an echo chamber for discontent”. The key challenge for Ms Parata is ensuring that the NZTC isn’t either.

Rose Patterson is working on The New Zealand Initiative's project on teacher quality. She has just visited the United Kingdom as part of her research. Watch Rose talk about her findings on our YouTube channel.