Stuart Middleton
EdTalkNZ
8 November 2017
I have just realised that BIM does not stand for “BLOG for the INCOMING MINISTER” but I could not resist the temptation to make one further suggestion.
It seems to me that Associate Ministers of Education should not simply be assigned to responsibilities that are in the nature of keeping the education kitchen tidy and education lawns mown. They present an opportunity to tackle reform and change where it is needed. And one of those areas might be Sector Reform.
Sectors exist simply because education systems have expanded from the traditional first provision at elementary and, interestingly, university levels, to grow down into early childhood provision and up through secondary schooling into a post-secondary environment that includes an array of institution-types making distinctive contributions to academic, technical and vocational education. Like Topsy it grew and is now topsy-turvey!
The education sectors are it seems so distinctive that they require different qualifications to work in, different pay scales for those workers, different organisations to represent them, different trade unions to fight for them and usually, different Ministers or Associate Ministers to look after them.
The sectors do not reflect how students grow and develop. The one thing you can be certain of is that the difference between early childhood and primary is a birthday, the difference between primary and Intermediate and secondary and tertiary is a Christmas Holiday and…so on.
The worst part is that once territory is won, it defended and the education system in New Zealand does just this with vigour to the detriment of professionalism and ultimately the students.
I suggest that Associate Ministers might be deployed to achieve change in areas such Sector Reform. One Assoc Min. could have responsibility for Years 0 to 10. – an Associate Minister with responsibility for Core Education. This would be the education and training that the state accepts as its clear responsibility to meet the goal of providing all students with the skills, knowledge, dispositions and aspirations to enable them to start along the pathways that will take them to employment, to family sustaining incomes, to a life that contributes to communities and to the quality of interactions between citizens required in a civilised society.
But above all there would be an assurance that all students were still in the education system and prepared academically to undertake education and training in the year Years 11-21 by which time they should have completed a post-secondary qualification, be ready for employment or further study and have the maturity and understandings required to contribute to the community and the nation. It is this second set of goals that the Associate Minister for Further Education could be responsible.
A set of principles and challenges would be given to the Associate Ministers to achieve change in the education system which would lead to a system based on multiple pathways, which seeks to manage each transition now required of a student as they progress seamlessly through the education system and, from the students’ perspective, is seamless.
Assigning Associate Ministers responsibilities in this way could lead to a qualitative lift in education generally and take it one step forward to being a student-centred, unified education system served by a highly respected and professional teaching force at all levels.
Or, will we just accept current levels at which students drop out of the education system, the extent of failure at all levels of the education system and the worries about equitable access to early childhood education? Are we happy to continue an education that has drifted over time to meet the needs of those working in it rather than the students who come into it? We could with change sort out all these issues but never with the current fragmented, system, comfortable in its silos, defending turf, out of which students simply disappear to face lives of lesser quality.
If we are tackle the root causes of child poverty, domestic violence, skill shortages, growing prison populations and so on we need some new approaches to mending the pathways.
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