Getty ImagesNew Zealand is placing big bets on science and technology, with plans to boost high-tech research funding by $120 million annually by 2030.This investment – targeting ambitious fields such as artificial intelligence, advanced materials, health, energy and space – will help the country’s brightest minds make new discoveries and turn smart ideas into commercial reality.If all of that sits at one end of New Zealand’s innovation pipeline, the other, less glamorous end lies in secondary school classrooms.This is where students build the foundational knowledge that makes those breakthroughs possible, with senior physics serving as the primary gateway into engineering, advanced manufacturing, and high-tech careers.To support this foundation, the government is updating the national curriculum to be more “knowledge-rich” – carefully sequencing concepts so students build deeper understanding over time.When it comes to physics, the case for this approach is clear. Yet the government’s proposed year 12-13 physics curriculum fails to deliver on its core principles – and risks undermining New Zealand’s wider ambitions for science and technology.What’s changing in physicsThe draft physics curriculum, released for consultation in May, represents a significant shift. Rather than outlining broad learning outcomes, the draft specifies in detail what students should learn across Years 12 and 13.It is organised into four strands — foundations of physics, mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and waves and particles — that set out the concepts, practical skills and problem-solving abilities students are expected to develop.It is also more prescriptive than the current curriculum. All listed knowledge and practices are compulsory, although schools retain flexibility over teaching order.Students would also encounter advanced topics such as relativity, quantum physics and cosmology, alongside mathematical reasoning, practical investigations and disciplinary writing.A comparison by the New Zealand Institute of Physics (NZIP) found the draft’s compulsory content load is comparable with leading overseas senior physics programmes.But unlike those curricula, New Zealand’s proposed regime provides significantly less support for teaching topics in a logical sequence – giving students time to master them – and reinforcing learning through practical work.When exams are expected to cover a long list of topics – and when every topic is compulsory – teachers inevitably focus on getting through the content. This leaves little flexibility to spend extra time on the concepts students find most difficult, or help them build the mathematical fluency physics depends on.That risk is not a criticism of teachers. A recent study found about one-third of New Zealand secondary physics teachers in 2022 were teaching the subject outside their main area of expertise, placing extra pressure on clear curriculum design. With many schools relying on teachers working outside their speciality, the curriculum should be usable in small departments and under varied staffing conditions, not only where specialist capacity is ideal.A curriculum contradictionThe underlying design problem is that the curriculum specifies content nationally while leaving much of its sequencing to individual schools.It provides no guidance on teaching time, protects no time for revision, and leaves teachers to work out for themselves which ideas need to be taught before others.Teachers should be free to choose how they teach physics, but they should not have to redesign the curriculum from scratch to make it work.Physics is cumulative. Later ideas depend on earlier models, mathematics and ways of reasoning.That is why major reviews of science education advocate a limited number of powerful ideas developed coherently over time, rather than a curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch deep”. As the US National Academies’ science-education framework points out, depth and progression – not coverage alone – produce understanding.For example, in the current draft, standing waves appear in Year 12, while simple harmonic motion and driven oscillations are studied in Year 13. Yet understanding resonance and standing waves depends on first developing oscillating systems.A second example is the extensive treatment of relativity and cosmology. The question is not whether modern physics belongs in the curriculum, but whether advanced topics are built on strong foundations or compete with the time needed to establish them.Strikingly, the draft contains no thermal physics at all – despite its being compulsory in every international programme included in the NZIP global comparison. Thermal physics is itself foundational to modern physics and its omission illustrates the broader problem: breadth has been added at the expense of essential concepts.Why a redesign is neededIf the Ministry of Education wants the physics curriculum to deliver on its own ambitions for a knowledge-rich approach, it should consider pausing work for a redesign.While its strongest material could be retained, the other areas should be addressed through an expert-led process involving experienced physics teachers, physicists, physics-education researchers and curriculum and assessment specialists.Improvements could include clearer two-year progression, more realistic guidance on teaching time, protected space for practical work and problem-solving and a clearer distinction between essential core knowledge and optional content.Thermal physics should return to the core, and the curriculum developed alongside the assessment system so the two work together. While a redesign now would be disruptive, it would still cost far less than embedding structural weakness for a generation.New Zealand’s high-tech future will not be built by asking students to race through the longest possible list of topics. It will be built by giving them the time and structure to understand physics well enough to model, question, design and invent.Ashton Bradley receives funding from The Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies. He is vice president of the New Zealand Institute of Physics.