Every Wednesday, New Zealand Initiative staff meet to discuss our columns for the week. It is part of our routine. Our meeting on 23 October, though, was a little different than usual.

Former Prime Minister, Sir Bill English was in attendance. He was there to discuss policy recommendations made by our two newest researchers, both of whom had taken a day out of school to be there.

This story started a year ago, when I received an email from Thomas (TJ) Reding, a teacher at Rototuna Junior High School in Hamilton. TJ and his colleague Dean Watson had run a 'think tank’ project at Rototuna. Each student undertook research on a public policy issue and wrote it up in a report, including recommendations.

TJ attached a couple of the 2023 reports. I was impressed with their quality. He also proposed a collaboration with The New Zealand Initiative. After giving it some thought, I suggested that, in 2024, they could run the project as a competition. The two students writing the best reports would visit the Initiative office for a day and write Insights columns based on their reports.

Rototuna’s Principal and Board approved the idea, and in March 2024 I visited the school with our Adjunct Fellow, Stephanie Martin, who is also a primary school teacher. We jointly taught a class on what think tanks are and the kind of work we undertake at the Initiative. We discussed the students’ ideas for their projects and helped them refine their thinking.

In June, TJ sent me a shortlist of 12 completed projects. I selected two as the clear winners. One, by Cooper Reed, analysed the school truancy problem, and the other, by Athuryann Santharuban, proposed solutions to Hamilton’s worsening traffic congestion.

On 23 October, accompanied by TJ and Dean, Cooper and Athuryann flew to Wellington and met the team. After settling in, we held our meeting. I was impressed by the confidence the students displayed in taking our feedback. Being in the presence of a former PM seemed not to intimidate them at all.

This week’s Insights 2 is a column by Cooper on his proposals to tackle New Zealand’s truancy crisis. Next week, we will hear from Athuryann on solutions for Hamilton’s traffic congestion.

With up-and-coming young thinkers like Cooper and Athuryann, the future of think tanks is bright. We look forward to hiring them in about ten years’ time.