Time to make CPR and first aid training compulsory in New Zealand schools

Every year in New Zealand, thousands of people experience sudden cardiac arrest outside hospital. Survival depends almost entirely on the speed and confidence of bystanders. Yet far too often help comes too late. Too many New Zealanders watch helplessly while lives are lost, simply because they never had the chance to learn even the most basic skills of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or first aid.

This need not be the case. These are not complicated medical procedures reserved for professionals—they are straightforward, teachable actions that can be performed by anyone. If every teenager left school already knowing what to do, the impact would be immediate and measurable.

Why schools? Schools are the one environment that touches every young New Zealander, regardless of background, location or family circumstance. Introducing compulsory CPR and first aid training from the age of 14, with annual refreshers, would ensure that by the time they graduate, every student carries these essential life-saving skills. The training need not be elaborate or time-consuming. One or two sessions a year, reinforced annually, would suffice.

It is practical, affordable and achievable. The cost is minimal compared to the enormous benefit. Providers such as Hato Hone St John and the Red Cross already have the capacity and expertise to deliver such programmes.

International precedents

New Zealand has a proud tradition of leading social change, from granting women the vote in 1893 to public health initiatives that set global standards. Yet in this area we are falling behind.

• In Denmark, mandatory CPR training was introduced in schools in 2005. Within a decade, survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest tripled.^1,2
• In Norway, CPR is compulsory both in schools and as part of obtaining a driver’s licence, resulting in near-universal CPR familiarity.³
• In the United Kingdom, first aid (including CPR) became compulsory in the national curriculum in 2020.⁴
• France, Belgium, Italy and Portugal have also mandated school-based training.⁵
• In the United States, more than 38 states and Washington DC require CPR training for high school graduation, with millions of students trained every year.⁶

The results speak for themselves: where training is mandatory, more lives are saved.

Why New Zealand must act

In New Zealand, bystander CPR rates remain too low, and survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest remain poor compared with countries that have adopted compulsory training. Every day that passes without action represents more preventable deaths.

This is not an abstract problem. It is an everyday reality—cardiac arrests happen in schools, on sports fields, at workplaces, in homes. They happen to friends, parents and children. When they do, the single most important factor is whether someone nearby knows what to do.

Some will argue that curriculum time is too tight, or that the cost is prohibitive. But 1 hour per year is not an extravagance—it is a necessity. It is less than the time spent on many optional activities, and the value of that hour may be the preservation of a human life.

Call to action

The solution is clear: integrate compulsory CPR and first aid training into the school curriculum from age 14, reinforced with yearly refreshers.

Within 5 years every young adult leaving school would be equipped to save lives.

If we fail to act, New Zealand will continue to lose lives unnecessarily, likely on a daily basis. If we succeed, we will build a generation of confident, competent citizens who know how to step forward in a crisis.

New Zealand has the chance to lead again. We should seize it.