Visit To New Zealand 27 August – 7 September 2004

During 27 August to 7 September 2004, I undertook a collaborative learning visit to New Zealand.  The New Zealand Ministry of Education hosted the visit.  During my time in New Zealand a full programme of meetings and visits enabled me to forge links with partners and benchmark Wales’s progress as a Learning Country against a highly regarded education service.  My private secretary, an official from the Department for Training and Education, and officials from the British High Commission accompanied me during the visit.

The visit focused on collaborative learning based on the similar socio- economic patterns, and education systems in both countries, forged links with partners in New Zealand and enabled me to benchmark our own progress as a Learning Country against an education service that is dealing in an innovative manner with many of the key issues that we ourselves wish to address.  

Following the visit I intend to support the continued development of evidence based education and skill policy in Wales by exploiting opportunities for shared learning with the education community in New Zealand.  New Zealand monitors and evaluates its policy programmes as we do.  The visit allowed for facilitated discussions with teachers, school leaders, education managers, policy makers and academics.  I am actively following up opportunities for future networking between officials.

The programme for the visit was designed to develop links between education and training policy makers and providers in New Zealand, following key thematic areas of “The Learning Country”.

The visit enabled me to link Wales with best practice gained from a flexible and innovative education system, that has institutions working in challenging circumstances and shares a number of common interests with us as regards lifelong learning and community centred learning. There was a clear focus on collaborative learning in areas that would be particularly beneficial to achieving education policy objectives in Wales.

My visits to Early Childhood Education (ECE), were particularly inspiring.   This has, in New Zealand, been a key focus of reform.  In 1993 a new curriculum, “Te Whariki” was introduced.  This applies to children from birth to 5 years of age.

This curriculum focuses on developing dispositions towards learning and looks at the child’s holistic needs in terms of health, housing and welfare.  To support this, the Ministry has put in place a 10-year development programme for teachers in the early years’ sector.  Minimum qualifications have been agreed and set, and targets set.  By 2012 all teachers will have achieved the entry level qualification and be subject to registration requirements.  The teacher/pupil ratios have also been revised and are to be reduced from 1-15 to 1-13.  There has been significant investment in this initiative.  There will have been a 50% uplift in funding for this part of the sector by 2007.  It is intended that by 2007, 20 hours of education will be provided free of charge for all 3-4 years old.

There was major new funding for ECE announced in the Budget 2004.  The first instalment of funding aimed at implementing the Pathways strategy was announced in the Budget delivered in May 2004.  Of the $365mil in new funding committed to the ECE Sector, $307million has been earmarked to achieving the Pathways objective of making ECE more accessible and affordable for families, and to ensuring quality of teaching.

Whilst in New Zealand I visited two of the pilot Early Education Centres involved in the Centres of Innovation Project.  The first focused on language immersion and the second was an ICT project looking at dispositions to learning.  From the visits and discussions on the innovative approaches that they each were taking I was able to draw on similarities with our proposals for the foundation phase in Wales, and our recent initiatives to increase provision for under 5’s in Wales, where we are ahead of the New Zealand objective for 3 years old.

I was particularly attracted to the Research component that had been built into each project that included support for the staff undertaking the work from a University researcher.  This is a model I would wish to consider for our own pilot activity for the future to build on my commitment to evidence based policy making.  Both projects were keen to develop links with Foundation phase pilot sites in Wales.  

I then moved on to look at how statutory school level qualifications are approached. New Zealand has recently developed a National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).  This qualification has similarities with the Welsh Baccalaureate, which has entered the second pilot phase.  The comparison of these two contrasting initiatives at this stage of development that I was able to make was constructive and useful. This was particularly timely given the plans I have to transform learning pathways from 14-19 on a broadly similar basis.

Effective transition featured throughout the visit as a key issue needing to be addressed.  There are opportunities here for collaborative working at all stages of the education process, and New Zealand policy makers were extremely interested in our statutory proposals in this area.  They were also very interested in our assessment agenda as schools in New Zealand are provided with optional material and there was no National Assessment for leaning agenda as we are developing here.  Many schools set up their own arrangements.

I met with Ministry of Education officials to discuss the approach being taken to ICT in schools.  The objectives of the initiative are to integrate ICT into the curriculum, for all learners to use ICT to develop the skills and knowledge they will require to participate in the global economy.  There were a number of exciting initiatives that I would wish to consider in terms of our approach to ICT in Wales.

The Ministry of Education has entered into a partnership with Australian State and federal governments to produce digital learning objects that will be used by teachers and students in their learning programmes.  Digital Opportunities was established in 2001 to assist schools in low decile and/or remote areas to utilise ICT to help overcome issues and barriers related to teaching and learning, and to enhance learning opportunities for students.  In 2002, Digital Opportunities won the Computerworld Excellence Award for the Most Significant Contribution to IT.  In the 2002 Budget the government announced it planned to fund high-speed Internet access to all schools and most provincial communities by the end of 2004 Project PROBE.  This will provide provincial areas with a similar level of service to that currently available in the main urban centres.

Government initiatives in ICT  include;  Laptops for teachers (TELA), and “Computers in Homes” that provides recycled computers, training, and Internet access to students in low decile schools.  In 2001, Computers in Homes was one of 3 winners in the education section of the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Award.

I was able to have useful discussion with Ministry officials and tertiary education providers of teacher education and professional development.  

Recruitment and retention is a key issue for the teaching profession.  Officials and educators alike were interested in looking more closely at our Induction for newly qualified teachers, NPQH, PHIP and LPSH.  Like us the Ministry is looking proactively at what can be done to increase opportunities for secondment, sabbaticals and study leave for teachers.  I hope that this is an area we will be able to work collaboratively on in the near future.

I was particularly interested in looking at tertiary education in New Zealand, how it is funded and managed.  I was able to visit providers from each of the key sectors within tertiary education, a polytechnic, a work based provider, an open learning provider, a Wananga (Maori learning centre) and two universities.  The focus across this diverse sector is that learning is for all and for life.  Education is accessible to anyone who wishes to participate via a broad spectrum of methods from home, work and institution based providers.  Though fees have been introduced numbers participating in tertiary education in all its forms has continued to increase.  Officials were particularly interested in the 14 to 19 framework that I have introduced and the opportunities that affords young people.  This is a dialogue we will seek to continue to our mutual benefit.

I was able to meet with a number of Industry Training Organisations and representatives of their Federation.  I was pleased by the constructive debate we were able to have, as our workforce issues are very similar in terms of the demography of both countries. One innovative programme which has been recently introduced as part of the new national certificate for educational achievement level one (similar to Welsh Bac. Level 2) is modules for industry standard qualifications pre 16. I am keen to explore this in Wales in the context of our 14-19 agenda.

Bilingual Education was a topic that was to feature strongly throughout my visit.  The Ministry is working hard to address this as an issue from early years through to tertiary education.  Officials and practitioners alike were impressed at the inroads that had been made in Wales, and were keen to seek out opportunities for mutual learning and evaluation in each country of our strategies to date.  Immersion has featured strongly in New Zealand.

I was privileged to be invited to attend the “Hui Taumata Matauranga by the Honourable Trevor Mallard.  This was a high level meeting between the Ministry and Maori Chiefs.  I was able during the closing ceremony to speak as one bilingual country to another about the importance of the sustenance and growth of language and culture, and the critical contribution that education can make to achieving this.

The meetings and visits that I participated in throughout my visit provided an opportunity to have a productive dialogue about both the education systems in Wales and New Zealand. The meetings helped to clearly identify a number of similarities and distinctions between both education systems and emphasised the importance placed by both on outcomes rather than structures. Meetings held with senior officials focused on the school system in New Zealand including matters such as early years’ provision, ICT, teacher development, tertiary education, funding and vocational education.  It was clear from this useful series of meetings that a number of initiatives being implemented in both countries are aimed at tackling a range of similar issues and that definite opportunities for co-learning between both countries could and should exist. We have much to learn from each other’s experiences and expertise.  Schools and early Childhood Centres were keen to develop partnerships with their Welsh counter parts.

A range of issues common to higher education both within Wales and New Zealand were discussed and shared during informative exchanges. These included discussions around student fees and entry routes to higher education, widening participation in higher education, strengthening HE, FE and community links and the nature of teacher education and professional development.  HE institutions were also keen to develop partnership with their Welsh counter parts.

This visit helped reaffirm my vision for education and lifelong learning in Wales against an internationally renowned education system, one that is recognised as such by OECD.  New Zealand is a country, like Wales, which puts learners' interests first; offers wider access and opportunities for all, aspires to excellence across the board for both its teachers and students (across all sectors) and is intent on making lifelong learning a reality.

I am confident following my visit to such a well regarded education system that we are moving in the right direction in terms of meeting the outcomes that I have set out in “The Learning Country”. I am particularly grateful to colleagues within the New Zealand Ministry for Education, and the British High Commission in Wellington for their support and time in facilitating the
programme for this visit that I believe will bring tangible benefits to the education of young people both here in Wales and in New Zealand.