Schooled has been managing elections since 1992…
(The same year the European Union was created, South Africa started dismantling apartheid, the World Wide Web was created, and New Zealand held a referendum to move to MMP voting for our parliament!) We evolved to meet the changing needs of organisations to support their elections and developed new technology to make elections easier and more engaging.
Our new election platform has been built to allow us to manage elections not just for NZ School Board elections, but also for elections for other educational organisations in NZ and internationally as well as membership organisations, professional associations and societies, unions, sports clubs, community groups, Iwi, First Nations or indigenous organisations, corporate and business organisations and many more.
Election Pilot is an exciting partnership between Schooled and Hail.
1989
We started as Canterbury Education Services (CES), a school-owned co-operative to handle the accounting work for several schools based in Canterbury.
1992
We started supporting schools and kura with school board elections. This was the same year the European Union was created, South Africa started dismantling apartheid, the World Wide Web was created, and New Zealand held a referendum to move to MMP voting for our parliament. So we have been doing this a looong time!
2020
The Education and Training Act 2020 replaced the Education Act 1989 in New Zealand. This was the first time electronic elections were allowed under legislation, and they would be available at the next triennial elections in 2022.
2022
We partnered with Hail to develop an online portal for the New Zealand triennial School board elections and managed elections for 468 schools and kura.
2024
This was a big year for us. Wayne Jamieson retired as General Manager after almost 30 years with CES. CES went through a legal restructure, and our shareholding schools gave up their ownership in CES, and this was replaced by the CES Foundation, which is the owner of Schooled. (We are still a registered charity and dedicated to supporting education.)
2025
We rebranded our election services to Schooled Election Pilot. We also built an entirely new election platform in conjunction with Hail to deliver a better user experience for voters, candidates and election managers while not compromising on security or election integrity.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eThe 2025 NZ triennial School Board elections were our biggest yet! We supported almost 1,000 schools, running over 1,600 elections. We had more than 8,000 candidates and about 755,000 registered voters, and all of those elections ran within a three-week window in September!
2026 and beyond
Our new election platform has been updated to allow elections for not just NZ School Board elections, but for almost any organisation wanting to run an independent and secure election. Our election platform is open to educational institutions, membership organisations, professional associations and societies, unions, sports clubs, community groups, Indigenous peoples' organisations, corporate and business organisations and many more.
