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Charter schools set to launch

Phillipstown: Taking on the Ministry ‌ and winning

Why have university rankings slipped?

The Novopay nightmare:

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TWITTER FEED About 730 new graduates have successfully found places on state-subsidised new graduate programmes Proposed tougher standards for overseas nurses rejected as discriminatory 28 January 2013 The Nursing Council has rejected its proposal that nurses trained in India and the Philippines sit an exam and face tougher English language requirements to nurse in New Zealand.

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Ed’s letter

Since news of the Roast Busters scandal broke, there have been new threads emerging on an almost daily basis. Anguish and criticism has spilled over onto the police, radio talkshow hosts, and schools. But people’s disgust is generally directed at the handful of deplorable young men at the heart of this story.

It has brought rape and all its ugliness not only into the stark glare of the media spotlight, but also into political discussions. Prime Minister John Key says rape prevention education could be on the cards, but it is not so straightforward when it comes to deciding what can and cannot be taught in schools.

It’s hard to know where to draw the line between whose responsibility it is to discuss such issues. By bringing more information, attention, and debate into the classroom on a subject as sensitive and significant as rape, would schools be trespassing into conversations that should remain with parents?

There is a large camp of parents who feel that the more awareness, the better; there are others who are horrified at not being the ones to lead such discussions; there are yet others who think schools should be steering well clear of things which happen outside of school hours. Whose responsibility is it?

I recently visited a classroom that participated in Child Matters’ ‘Buddy Day’, which involved Year 7 and 8 students creating ‘buddies’ – cardboard cut-out 3D children – that were then distributed to local workplaces in an effort to generate discussion and awareness of the prevalence of child abuse.

The buddy-making fitted nicely into the class’s ‘keeping ourselves safe’ module, a nationwide child protection education programme rolled out by the New Zealand Police. The programme starts from Year 0, covering things such as saying no and getting help, right through to Year 13, where it addresses sexual harassment, cyber safety, and domestic violence, among other topics.

Teachers I have spoken with say they feel well-equipped to deliver the programme, thanks to the advice from the police, the professional development available and support from parents.

It seems there is already a good platform in schools for discussing these issues and many feel the scope could be broadened to discuss rape and rape prevention in more depth.

The Buddy Day initiative, by bringing the student-made buddies into the community, is all about showing that child abuse is everyone’s problem. Discussion and awareness about rape deserves the same treatment it is everyone’s responsibility; there can be no passing the buck.

Editor, Jude Barback Editor, editor@educationreview.co.nz Twitter: @EdReviewNZ

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Taking on the Ministry: what happened at Phillipstown School Boys behaving badly?

Sun sets on Teachers Council The Novopay nightmare - when will it end?

Venturing into un‘charter’ed territory Acronyms of opportunity Failing to keep up: New Zealand universities slip down the rankings PBRF gets ready for shake-up The teacher supply and demand see-saw Rethinking deciles

Editor Jude Barback production Barbara la Grange Aaron Morey Advertising Michael Conner Publisher & general manager Bronwen Wilkins EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Shane Cummings Contributing writeRS Gray Cleveland Nick Hyde Robert Mangan Tony Simpson IMAGES Thinstock

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School mergers

Taking on the Ministry

What happened at Phillipstown School GRAY CLEVELAND and TONY SIMPSON give the full story behind their David and Goliath court battle with the Ministry of Education and how unwavering community support kept them going.

hillipstown School is an inner city Christchurch full-primary school with one of the largest technology centres in New Zealand.

On 22 February 2011, the school received the first of many shocks, some not of the seismic kind! More about that later…

The children went through a variety of ordeals of having to remain in the school grounds, which was undergoing continual aftershocks, buckling of asphalt areas, spewing liquefaction, and dust clouds from collapsed buildings around the city – they showed remarkable resilience.

The school was forced to remain closed until 17 March. After a stunning clean-up by volunteers from the wider community and from throughout New Zealand, we re-opened with 55 pupils. Subsequently, the roll began to grow (somewhat erratically) as families returned or left.

On 13 June, our roll stood at 93 when the second earthquake struck. It wasn’t until 4 October that we returned to our pre-earthquake roll. Many children were experiencing the ravages of hardship and poverty and were often living in sub-standard conditions through structural damage to dwellings.

There was a huge out-pouring of support from as far away as Australia and England.

Through the generosity of Malvern School (Melbourne), we were able to purchase windproof jackets for every child. The money was raised by making and selling ‘Cup-Quakes’. The Tsu Chi Foundations of Buddhists generously provided food parcels, warm blankets (made from recycled plastic bottles), and Vulcan Steel supplied thermo underwear and socks to each family – these were but a few of the many individuals who stepped up to support us. This was humbling to say the least and highlighted the deep feeling of community spirit.

The school continued to operate despite limited Ministry support to upgrade our physical environment. As a result, during the winter months, 80 per cent of our play area was unable

2 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

to be used by our growing roll. We haven’t played a game of netball or padder tennis since February 2011! Running amongst gravel and puddles is the new norm here now.

Despite earlier predictions, the school roll continued to grow as people moved into Christchurch from all over New Zealand and the world. Our ESOL teacher was confronted with children who spoke fluent Portuguese and Spanish.

The Minister of Education’s announcement of 13 September shattered our soul. In this process, the school was proposed to ‘rejuvenate’ – this meant a merger, but in real terms, it meant closure.

We were asked to consult our community on the proposal to merge Woolston and ourselves on the Linwood College site in 2018.

The rationale for change was given under several headings: people, land, and buildings.

According to the Minister, land and buildings had been damaged and warranted this change.

Vast amounts of time and energy were spent by the board of trustees and staff detailing a submission in response. In short, the community rejected the proposal and asked ‘why us?’

The Minister countered this with a new proposal – the merging of the two schools would now take place on the existing Woolston School site in 2014 with a Minister-appointed board. This galvanised our community into action. Once again, we had support from the wider community but on a larger scale, many of whom gave us advice and support, free of charge.

We were recommended to contact Chen Palmer Public Law, which was able to give us sound advice as to where we stood in terms of the legality of the merger. They believed in our cause and saw that there was a case to be answered.

Our board made the brave decision to proceed with legal action on the basis that they owed

this to our children, community, and to future schools facing a network review.

This started us on a path that was stressful and not for the faint-hearted. Simply put, we were taken from our core focus of teaching and learning and placed in a web of legal proceedings and media attention.

We could not have achieved a successful court ruling, coped with the public spotlight, or won this case without the guidance of Mai Chen and her team. Mai’s support was akin to that of a guardian angel and mentor.

It was clear that there was a story to tell, that facts were inaccurate, incorrect, and even invisible! It seemed that no matter how hard we as a board tried, we couldn’t dispel the feeling that this was predetermined or in fact the true agenda was not being made clear to Christchurch and New Zealand. There was huge public interest in our school’s plight.

A rally was organised and the motto of ‘We Are Phillipstown’ encapsulated our peaceful philosophy. Moral and financial support

The Minister of Education’s announcement of 13 September shattered our soul. In this process, the school was proposed to ‘rejuvenate’ – this meant a merger, but in real terms, it meant closure.

poured in from people of all walks of life, many completely unknown to us, but all with a strong sense of fairness and community.

Having presented papers in the High Court to initiate proceedings, we faced the wrath of the Ministerial muscle. Everything was thrown at us: a well-resourced and powerful legal team, numerous affidavits, and an ever-diminishing timeline.

Throughout all of this, there was the concern for the health and wellbeing of staff. It created an additional burden placed on staff, many of whom were facing house, insurance, and EQC issues.

This created an unhealthy cocktail of anxiety, uncertainty, despondency, and gloom. This had a negative effect on morale. Some questioned, ‘what is happening to us?’; others just asked, ‘why?’ These questions remain unanswered.

Justice Fogarty’s decision was received like a Lotto win. On 10 October this year, the High Court judge declared the process behind the Minister’s decision to merge Woolston and Phillipstown schools in Christchurch to be unlawful. On 1 November, the Ministry announced that it would not appeal the High Court ruling and would instead continue with consultation.

The David and Goliath battle that others had talked about in the media had become a reality.

Our fortunes were given a mammoth tonic and another chance. We realise we have only won a battle and maybe not the war, but we are committed to work for the ultimate decision that Phillipstown will be allowed to continue to serve the community as it has done for the past 136 years. 

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Boys’ education

Boys behaving badly?

This year, the annual ‘undie run’ at Tauranga Boys’ College took an ugly turn, prompting a letter bemoaning the recent bad behaviour of boys in general. Principal Robert Mangan’s response below gives an insight into the complex and multi-faceted process of turning boys into fine young men.

Letter to the editor (abridged):

Tauranga Boys’ College recently had its annual end of year undie run. It is an event that has been going on for generations and one which generally is done in good spirits. It involves the boys stripping down to their underwear and running through nearby Girls College. They come with more than just a g-string and a grin though, they are usually armed with eggs or rotten fruit to hurl at the girls as they sprint past. The staff and students at Girls College seem resigned to having to put up with this event each year which is largely seen as just some harmless fun.

But this year was different. A number of girls made preparations for what was to come.

They bought plastic ponchos to protect themselves from the eggs and rotten fruit. They armed themselves with water pistols and super soakers. They planned to ambush the boys and give them as good as they got.

The boys, however, had plans, too. This year was going to be different from all that went before. They came with eggs and rotten fruit but their arsenal of weaponry also included solid lumps of vegetables, petrol, excrement, dead animals and, incredibly, at least one animal foetus.

As the girls waited in anticipation, little did they know what they were in for. When the hordes of boys descended on the school they cornered small groups of girls and laid into them.

Many of the boys are well known to the girls having been in primary and intermediate school together. They have also participated in sports together and gone to each other’s school balls. But none of that mattered in the frenzy of the attack.

Neither the girls’ tears nor pleas for mercy had any effect on their attackers.

When it was all over the girls were coated in foul smelling liquid, some were bruised and streaked with excrement, others had animal blood and god knows what else pasted all over them.

There has been much talk recently in the media about boys abusing girls particularly in relation to the Auckland boys who call themselves “roast busters”. What concerns me in particular about that group’s awful conduct is their complete lack of human empathy. It is as if they have either not learned or somehow they have unlearned what it is to be human. There appears to be no shame, no guilt, no embarrassment and no understanding of the pain they have caused. This is the hall mark of psychopathic behaviour.

And what is particularly scary is the fact that there appears to be an ever growing number of young people that share at least some of these characteristics.

Boys must be taught that being stronger or faster does not make you better. They must be taught to love and respect girls as equals. They must be taught that the bridge to the future is built on the difference between boys and girls.

We must deal with the issue head on today otherwise we face an uncertain future.

N BURKE

4 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

Response: ROBERT MANGAN, Principal of Tauranga Boys’ College

“It takes a village to raise a child”: a phrase often used to describe the journey a child experiences and the various societal factors that influence the child’s development from birth to adulthood. It is an acknowledgement that the adult is a result of the combination of the cumulative experiences and influences they experience throughout this journey to maturity.

It raises the question of the role of secondary schools in that journey and their responsibility in influencing the development and the character of the adolescent who leaves the school. No longer is educating a child, ensuring that they have the skills, knowledge and educational qualifications to succeed in the 21st Century, sufficient. Schools are increasingly being held responsible for character development, for social, emotional and behavioural development and being held accountable for adolescent behaviour, despite the well-documented changes occurring in society, not least of which is social media.

Secondary schools understand their responsibility to manage and guide adolescents on this journey to adulthood and will modify their approach to meet the challenges presented through the formative years of 12 and 13 years to the young adult of 18 years.

At Tauranga Boys’ College, our vision is to grow boys into good men and to support them as they experience the hormonal and emotional roller coaster of adolescence. We focus on the qualities of good men: trusting, loyal, harmonious, honest, motivated, hardworking, generous, humble, compassionate and respectful.

We use a variety of forums to emphasise the importance of these qualities, from Principal’s assemblies, administration assemblies, to the classroom, the sports field and the cultural arena.

Through programmes such as “Positive Behaviour for Learning”, we emphasise our respect code, incorporating – respect for self, respect for others, and respect for the school – with “acting like a gentleman” underpinning respect for others. Expected behaviour is taught explicitly then reinforced and recognised.

At Year 9 and Year 10, our boys require greater guidance and support. Consequences and discipline is more frequently required to ensure the boys understand the expected behaviour. As they journey through the school the vast majority modify their behaviour and their personal responsibility grows,

so less intervention is required to guide them in modifying their behaviour. They increasingly take responsibility for their actions and take on a role of influencing the behaviour of younger boys in the school.

By Year 13, the vast majority are able to control their behaviour without the need for disciplinary consequences. They understand the expectations and require minimal intervention from staff members to conform to the rules of the school and the expectations of society.

In recognition of reaching the milestone of Year 13 at Tauranga Boys’ College, boys are allowed a different uniform to the rest of the year groups, in the form of a white shirt. This recognition is given to those who reach an expected level of academic achievement and/or behaviour. Along with this recognition go certain responsibilities and privileges that the vast majority of boys embrace in a positive manner. These young men respond to being treated as young adults, being challenged to self-manage their behaviour. They understand the responsibility they have as role models to the younger boys at the college and how influential they are on the climate of the college.

As the maturity of these boys increases, so they modify their behaviour to meet the expectations of the school. Some, however, will still require intervention and discipline to guide them in making the right choices about behaviour. For some the likelihood of consequences will still be a significant factor in guiding their behaviour, just as there are a number of adults in our society who require a deterrent to modify their behaviour in the form of a fine or prison sentence, rather than social disapproval. A prime example of this is the need for testing of drivers to identify those driving while drunk, and the imposition of a consequence on those who choose to break the law.

These young men respond best to being treated ‘reasonably’, by having rules justified and appealing to their sense of loyalty to be worthy role models and representatives of the college.

This reasoned approach is aimed at empowering these young men to use self-discipline to guide their behaviour, rather than need externally imposed discipline. This is in preparation for leaving school and home, away from the watchful eyes of parents, into flats or university halls, where they have the freedom to make choices about behaviour for themselves with the resultant consequences.

Throughout the journey through the college, the boys experience a number of rituals. As they first enter at Year 9, they are challenged by the rest of the college to be worthy representatives of Tauranga Boys’ College, to be proud of the college and maintain its reputation. They sense that they are part of something bigger than themselves and have a responsibility to maintain the same level of achievement as those who are at the college and the old boys who have gone before them.

For those who are in Year 13, the year begins with a breakfast with teaching staff, where they are challenged to lead the rest of the boys, to maintain the expectations the teachers and the rest of the college has of them, to model the values of respect and good men, and to respond to the privileges

that go with the senior uniform. They grow to understand the influence they have on the culture of the college and the importance of the legacy they will leave. During the year, those who respond to the expectations are given additional privileges, showing their maturity and ability to self-manage their behaviour. For some, this proves a difficult task and punitive measures are required, including the removal of the senior uniform and the associated privileges, until they show they are able to exhibit the self-control expected.

The social highlight for the Year 13 boys is the college ball, made more appealing as a Year 13-only function. This provides an opportunity to experience a more formal occasion than most will have had previously; to dress in a tuxedo and share a sit-down meal with a partner, before enjoying an evening dancing in the function room of Mills Reef Winery. Expectations of behaviour are made clear and the boys and their partners respond and welcome the opportunity to show the self-control of which they are capable.

As their five years at college draws to an end, all students look for the opportunity to mark the end of an era. For the boys of Tauranga Boys’ College, the final day is marked with a Leavers’ Assembly to enable a final farewell from the boys and staff to be made. The leavers sit facing the rest of the school while final words from the principal and the head boy are delivered.

An award is presented to the Year 13 boy who best displays the qualities of a good man, judged by his peers. This “Wade Norton Memorial Award”, commemorates a young teacher who died of cancer whilst teaching at Tauranga Boys’ College: a young man who exemplified the qualities of a good man.

Then the 1,500 boys who remain students at the college perform a powerful haka, acknowledging the leadership and contribution the leavers have made to the college and challenging them to carry the reputation of the college with them, as they become old boys of the college. The leavers then depart to a standing ovation, carried out of the assembly by the ringing applause of the school before they gather for a shared lunch hosted by the Tauranga Boys’ College Old Boys’ Association, an event that marks the transition of the boys from present students to Old Boys of the College.

As well as the school organised traditions and rituals, the Year 13 boys seek informal ways to mark the milestone, as do other Year 13 students in secondary schools across New Zealand.

Throughout the year, they have interacted with the girls from Tauranga Girls’ College; many of them enjoying the ball together, sharing in cultural activities, the fashion show, the joint college production, and musical groups. A number will have close friends at Tauranga Girls’ College, separated during school hours but socialising outside school hours together or via social media. So it is natural both the boys and girls want to mark the milestone together in some manner: to engage in friendly rivalry as boys and girls of all ages have done for centuries.

Over the last couple of years, this behaviour has amplified to a level where there has been real concern for health and safety by the senior staff of

both colleges. The behaviour has been reciprocal with the favourite activity being the egging of cars belonging to students from the other college. Boys and girls have run, scantily clad, through each other’s schools, with both schools being targeted with material which requires hours of cleaning to remove. This year, two weeks before the Year 13s were released from both colleges, the first action occurred. One group targets a student’s vehicle with eggs, flour, fish oil, and animal offal, followed by retaliatory action from students of the other college. Prompt action follows by senior staff at both colleges, with individuals being identified and consequences put in place to ensure that others understood that discipline would be applied where individuals identified did not meet the level of expected behaviour.

For a number of the boys, the desire to do the “undie run” remained. For the vast majority, this presented an opportunity to be daring, to engage in friendly rivalry and interact with their friends from Tauranga Girls’ College, and to follow in a tradition that Year 13s from both colleges have engaged in over the last few years.

However, a small number engage in totally unacceptable behaviour, going to extremes, showing a lack of self-control well below that expected, forgetting their responsibility to retain the reputation of the college, letting themselves, their peers, and the college down through their actions. Believing themselves to be anonymous in the crowd, they behave as if unaffected by their five years at the college, where the focus has been on the values of showing respect and traits of good men.

These boys appear influenced more by changing external factors such as the media and social media, which contribute to the normalizing of this type of irresponsible and disrespectful behaviour.

Factors adding to the challenge for secondary schools as they have no power to control either.

Through their lack of self-control and actions, they are also leaving both colleges with the challenge of managing this behaviour in future years. The challenge to somehow guide the young men and women of both colleges to find acceptable ways to acknowledge the milestone, ensuring the health and safety of all, whilst also providing the excitement, challenge and interaction desired through some form of event or ritual. For as a society, there will always be those who push the boundaries, overstep the mark, break the rules, and consequently, spoil events for others. Our adolescents will continue to mark milestones, follow traditions, and have rituals to signify significant events whether we as secondary schools manage them or not.

At Tauranga Boys’ College, we will continue to focus on supporting boys on their journey to manhood with rituals and traditions to mark milestones. Focusing on respect as a core value, we know the vast majority of our boys leave the college as “good men”, going on to be great mates, boyfriends, brothers, partners, husbands and fathers, and certain in our knowledge that it is easier to grow a boy than repair a man. 

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Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013

5

Governance

Sun sets on Teachers Council With the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand set to replace the New Zealand Teachers Council next year, teachers are anxious that their new independent statutory professional body truly is independent.

JUDE BARBACK looks at how things are evolving.

“

The committee concluded that the Council “as it is currently structured, governed, and positioned, can’t effectively set and enforce standards for entry, progression, and professional accountability with the full support of the profession. It lacks a distinctive brand or effective public voice.”

“

6 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

he sun is setting on the New Zealand Teachers Council, with a new organisation, the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, poised to become the new professional body for Kiwi educators.

The Teachers Council was established following the disestablishment of the Teacher Registration Board, at a time when New Zealand education underwent major reforms, shaking up what was then a very fragmented system.

Now, change is afoot once again. Plans for the new council were announced by Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, at the beginning of November, including a controversial governing body appointment process and some predictable changes to the disciplinary framework.

The review process

The new council is the result of a “three year process of development”, according to Parata.

It all began with an Education Workforce Advisory Group’s report to the Ministry of Education in 2010, which recommended a review of the Teachers Council, calling into scrutiny the Council’s capability and capacity to effectively carry out all of its functions.

The group’s report, A Vision for the Teaching Profession, suggested that a “culture change” was needed to help bring stronger educational leadership focused on teaching and learning to the teaching profession. In order to support this change, the report recommended the Teachers Council needed to be refocused as the professional body. The group recommended strengthening the Council’s ability to take responsibility for entry into teaching, ongoing registration, professional development, ethical accountability, and promotion of the teaching profession.

The recommendations of the group’s report were coupled with those of the Ministerial Inquiry into the employment of a convicted sex offender. The

inquiry brought about some immediate changes in August last year, such as tougher employment checks and improved information sharing, but of the inquiry’s 38 recommendations, 11 were directed at the Council, adding to the scrutiny of the Council.

The Teachers Council Review Committee – which comprised Pauline Winter (chair), Dr Judith Aitken, John Morris, and Robyn Baker – had the task of investigating a number of aspects of the Council’s capability and capacity to lead the teaching profession. The team had to examine the Council’s powers and functions, its structure, and its status as an autonomous Crown entity, as well as taking into account the relevant recommendations from the sex offender inquiry.

The committee took into consideration 177 submissions, interviews with individuals and groups from throughout the education sector, input from the Ministerial Cross Sector Forum on Raising Achievement, and New Zealand and international research. It also looked at similar professional bodies in other sectors.

By the end of its investigation, the committee had made 24 recommendations, categorised into four key areas: a new professional body, the regulatory framework for teachers, the disciplinary framework, and resourcing to support a strong, professional body.

The overarching message was that the status quo isn’t an option going forward. The committee concluded that the Council “as it is currently structured, governed, and positioned, can’t effectively set and enforce standards for entry, progression, and professional accountability with the full support of the profession. It lacks a distinctive brand or effective public voice.”

Consequently, the Ministry released a document for a Ministerial Advisory Group, headed up by Dr Graham Stoop, entitled A 21st Century Body for the Education Profession, outlining the proposals based on the recommendations of the review committee. In May this year, the Ministerial Advisory Group led consultation on the proposed changes to the Teachers Council and reported to the Minister of Education at the end of July.

“Independent” – or is it?

The result is a council that the Minister says will raise the status of the teaching profession, establish a specific focus on education leadership, and “forge a new relationship between the profession and the Government to deliver on the public interests in education”.

The sector has been keen for the “establishment of a new independent statutory body”.

Teachers Council chair, Alison McAlpine says the formation of an independent statutory body is the next step in building on the current Teachers Council.

“Independence from Government will enable us to build on the significant gains we have already made to enhance professional leadership and establish strong regulatory and disciplinary processes for teachers in recent years.”

However, some feel the Government needs to step back from the appointment process of the new council’s governing body if it is to be truly independent.

The new council will comprise a governing body of nine members appointed by the Minister through a mix of direct appointments and appointments following a nomination process. However, there has been some uncertainty as to what the board appointment process would entail.

New Zealand Principals’ Federation president, Phil Harding, says there needs to be clarity on the selection criteria and process if the Ministry is to win the confidence and support of teachers.

“The profession funds the Teachers Council and would continue to support it only if the board was dominated by appointments that have professional knowledge and credibility, enjoy the respect and confidence of the profession, and are not politically determined,” he said.

Harding believes confidence will grow if the number of professionals on the governing board makes up the majority and if the profession gets to nominate who represents them.

Similarly, teachers union NZEI says the sector wanted members directly elected out of the profession by the profession, along with appointments made in the public interest but it notes there isn’t even mention of a requirement for the majority of members to be teachers.

“They have created a council which they claim is going to provide leadership to, and is owned by, the profession, but in fact, the Minister gets to make all the appointments onto the governance body,” says national secretary Paul Goulter.

(At the time of writing this article, the Ministry of Education had advertised in Education Gazette that information about nominations would be advised through a New Zealand Gazette notice).

The PPTA has also expressed its dissatisfaction with the new council. The union says it wants to see a majority of registered teachers on the council, elections of teacher representatives, the right of teacher unions to nominate representatives, and statutory authority status. The new council, it claims, fails to meet all of these requirements.

The PPTA annual conference paper Teachers Council: Teacher Ownership or Government Takeover? suggested that the purpose of the government’s review of Teachers Council was actually a takeover of the Council, with the intent of turning it into an agency designed to control the teaching profession.

Minister Parata confirms that the new teachers’ professional body should be independent of Government, but she says the Government still needs to be accountable and therefore balance is needed in establishing the new organisation.

“The education of our babies, infants, children, and young people – the Government of the day will still be held accountable for that public interest.

In making that body statutorily independent, the Government of the day has to have some levers to ensure they can be accountable for that public interest,” says Parata.

As it currently stands, the council’s governing body consists of 11 members; the Minister of Education appoints four members directly as well as a further three members nominated by the NZEI, the PPTA and the NZSTA; the remaining four are elected by registered teachers to represent early childhood, primary, secondary and principals respectively.

Lind thinks it sensible to keep the number of members on the professional body relatively low, between eight and 12 members. He points out that the General Teaching Council of Scotland has 37 members, and as a result, has councils within councils making decisions.

Other key changes

Parata says the new council will broaden its scope to invest in leadership as well as teaching, and ensure that “professionals in the early childhood sector are also fully embraced”.

Among the other key reforms introduced with the new council will be the separation of registration from the issuing of practising certificates, which currently certify the ongoing competence of teachers. This change will place more emphasis on renewal of the practising certificate as a way to assess the continued competence of teachers.

The Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) will also now be able to be issued to a person as well as a position, in order to better meet more “studentcentred pathways”.

There have also been changes made to the disciplinary framework, following criticism of the Teachers Council disciplinary tribunal, which some believe has been too slow to act in cases where

teachers had been convicted of serious offences.

The council recently moved to disclose teachers’ names in disciplinary tribunal reports and was in the process of consulting on a shift to opening up hearings to the public.

Under the new council, it will be compulsory to refer serious misconduct complaints to the disciplinary tribunal. Disciplinary tribunal proceedings will also be opened up to the public unless there is an order preventing it.

There will also be the introduction of a code of conduct for the profession.

Next steps

So now that it has a name, and the key points of difference from the current Teachers Council have been announced, the real work in establishing the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand can begin.

A new board has been appointed to manage the transition over the next year. Chaired by John Morris, the board will include Nancy Bell, Hon Steve Maharey, Paul Matthews, Hoana Pearson, Richard Newton, Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Dr Margaret Southwick, Arihia Stirling, Linda Tame, and Allan Vester.

In addition to ensuring continuity between the existing and new councils and keeping the Ministry in the loop, the transition board are responsible for developing the vision and mission for the new council, as well as proposing its strategic plan. The board must also recruit an interim chief executive.

Parata has confirmed that a bill will be introduced to Parliament to make relevant changes to the Education Act, which is expected to come into effect during next year. The current Teachers Council will continue until legislation is enacted to establish the proposed new council.

Meanwhile, teacher unions and organisations are preparing to fight hard to have teachers fairly represented on the new council via the appointment process in an effort to ensure their new professional body is truly independent. 

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Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013

7

School support

The Novopay nightmare –

when will it end?

The Ministry of Education’s troubled payroll system is allegedly on the mend, but at what cost? JUDE BARBACK reflects on Novopay’s painful journey so far.

year ago, Novopay was making headlines for the sheer number of errors being made in teachers’ pay. Stories emerged from every corner of New Zealand of teachers being underpaid, overpaid, or not paid at all. There were tales of trained teachers paid as untrained teachers, staff paid for work completed at the wrong school, fulltimers paid as part-timers, and so on.

Now, a year on, the question has to be asked whether we are any closer to putting the Novopay nightmare behind us.

One would certainly hope so. There has been a Ministerial Inquiry, senior jobs lost at the Ministry of Education, and an enormous amount of time, money, and energy spent on fixing the beleaguered payroll system.

Life before Novopay: a simpler time

Prior to its implementation, Novopay was flaunted as a 21st century payroll system with many benefits. It was proposed to reduce the amount of time spent by schools on managing their payroll and increasing the accuracy of pay for staff. Many schools looked forward to the promise of features such as the ability to easily change personal bank account details, tax codes, and email addresses in a seemingly streamlined digital process.

Plans for Novopay to replace the previous payroll system began years ago, with information released to schools at the beginning of 2009, with an intention to roll out the system by mid-2010.

However, the Ministry released a review in November 2010, explaining that the delay for the implementation of the Novopay service was to “ensure that the system has been fully tailored to meet the complex needs of the [old] payroll and

to allow sufficient time for extensive and robust testing to take place”.

Given the volume of problems that have since ensued, it would appear that more time was needed. Or perhaps a different system should have been considered. Of course, what we now know, with the benefit of hindsight and the Ministerial Inquiry, is that these alternative paths are exactly what certain Ministry officials knew should be taken … yet they proceeded with Plan A regardless.

When did it all start to go wrong?

Publicly, the Novopay nightmare began when it was launched in August 2012 and the mistakes began. However, since the Inquiry, we now know that warning bells had been ringing in certain Ministry ears for a long time prior to the launch.

When the collective roar of disgruntled principals and teachers was eventually heard in the Beehive, action was finally taken. In January this year, Craig Foss lost his role as associate minister for education in a cabinet reshuffle and Steven Joyce, dubbed ‘minister of everything’, added Novopay to his portfolio. A Ministerial Inquiry into Novopay began shortly thereafter.

The Inquiry, carried out by Sir Maarten Wevers and Deloitte chairman Murray Jack, discovered that Ministry staff advised the launch of Novopay in spite of knowledge that the system was not yet functioning adequately.

“The go live decision was confirmed even though it was clear that not all testing had been completed,” reads the report. “The service centre had failed some of its test and was not fully ready.”

The report found the State Services Commission did not conduct its monitoring role properly and the Government chief information officer was not involved to the level he should have been. The role of the Government chief information officer has since been expanded as a result.

Choosing to run with a less-than-perfect system proved to be catastrophic for some. Two senior Ministry of Education staff members resigned over the findings of the inquiry.

8 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

Heads roll

The inquiry report also found that “Ministers were not always well serviced” and that reporting to ministers was “inconsistent”, “unduly optimistic”, and most damningly for those involved, “sometimes misrepresented the situation”.

A memo in April 2012 from the Ministry of Education’s chief information officer Leanne Gibson provides an example of this. It gave detailed problems with the development of Novopay, and recommended options including terminating elements of provider Talent2’s contract and moving to a hybrid system incorporating Novopay and the previous Datacom system.

A further paper from Gibson in June 2012 recommended proceeding with the system but stated there were 147 software defects which hadn’t been solved. Testing also revealed 6000 errors.

Choosing to run with a less-than-perfect system proved to be catastrophic for some.

Two senior Ministry of Education staff members resigned over the findings of the Inquiry. Their resignation followed that of former Secretary for Education Lesley Longstone who also resigned during the course of the Novopay fray.

Why? Why did those in the Ministry plough on with their advice to launch Novopay, even though they knew it wasn’t ready to go? Did an element of “she’ll be right” underpin the green light to the Ministers? Clearly they were under pressure to deliver on this – after all, it had been years in the making and already delayed and delayed. And of course, they couldn’t have foreseen the extent of the damage the system could do to the education sector.

Teachers fight back

Secretary for Education Peter Hughes has taken the findings on the chin, saying in his foreword of the Ministry’s annual report that he fully accepts the findings and recommendations of the Inquiry, and that as a result, “leadership changes have been made, including the establishment of a dedicated Ministry group to give the Novopay service the focus and resource it needs”.

“We’ve been fixing the issues with Novopay, and we are making steady progress.”

Millions at stake

It may indeed be steady progress, and Minister Joyce did warn that it could be up to two years before the system was completely fixed, however, it appears to be taking too long for many teachers.

Some teachers are showing their mistrust and disdain in their slowness to repay money that has been overpaid to them via Novopay.

The Ministry of Education revealed that it is still chasing thousands of school staff for $10.4 million in overpayments resulting from Novopay blunders.

Over 15,000 overpayments have been made totalling $13.6 million, of which approximately $3.1m has been recovered so far. While the Government hasn’t ruled out the use of debt collectors, Minister Joyce says they are prepared to be “generous about the timing and the process”.

The reluctance of some teachers to pay back the payments is in part due to the fact that problems still persist with Novopay.

The Post Primary Teachers Association’s (PPTA) Blackout day in September revealed that many teachers are still experiencing problems with their pay.

“In the same week we hear that the backlog is gone, the Ministry released statistics showing that as at 30 August, 9487 pay and service issues were still being dealt with by their soonto-be closed backlog clearance unit,” said PPTA

president Angela Roberts in her speech at the union’s 2013 annual conference.

The PPTA have staunchly contested Novopay. In February this year, shortly after the Inquiry began, and just as teachers, fresh from their holidays, were subjected to more payslip blunders, the union launched group legal action over Novopay mispayments. The action, filed in the High Court at Wellington in June, was against Secretary for Education Peter Hughes for failing in his statutory duty to pay teachers.

“We need justice for members and PPTA must ensure there is no repeat of the Novopay omnishambles ever again,” said Roberts.

The PPTA’s submission into the Novopay inquiry said that they felt there was “a dismissive view taken of stakeholder input” and that “the focus seems to have been on cost effectiveness at the price of relationships”. They felt the Novopay system left no room for any personalised relationships, despite the devolved nature of New Zealand’s school system, where many small and isolated schools need support.

“It is easy to see the appeal for Talent2 of a system that replaced expensive employees with software and free data entry at the school level but it is hard to understand why Ministry officials couldn’t see the risk in such an optimistic expectation. How has the Ministry of Education become so unfamiliar with the day-to-day operations of schools?” read the union’s submission.

Novopay was indeed supposed to be a cost saving exercise – but it has ended up costing millions more than expected.

Reports reveal the system cost just under $30 million to develop and then another $20 million to date has been spent on trying to fix it. In March, schools received $6 million in compensation for extra hours spent administering Novopay, and now the Government intends to spend another $6 million on technical support and training to ensure school payroll runs smoothly for the end of year/ start of year process.

The extra end of year/start of year funding comes from the $8 million contingency set aside in Budget 2013 to ensure the stability of the payroll system.

The Ministry of Education says it will enter into contractual discussions with Talent2 once Novopay is stable and they know how much has been spent on bringing the payroll system up to standard since it went live in August last year.

Minister Joyce has made clear that the focus is on fixing Novopay as soon as possible and that the issue of who pays what in relation to the additional costs and remediation will be settled at the end of the remediation process.

Talent2 has been rather quiet throughout the whole debacle. The public are largely in the dark about the details of the 10-year contract with the Australian company. In November last year, chief executive John Rawlinson revealed that the company was aware of the challenges Novopay could present when they took on the contract with the Ministry of Education.

“We knew the job was dangerous when we took it,” Rawlinson told NBR, but also suggests the Ministry moved the goalposts, too.

He cited the complexities involved in customising the system as reason for the significant delays in getting it up and running but there is no clear explanation for the glitches in the system. Of course, part of the initial problem was the lack of training; Rawlinson says “sector readiness” was the Ministry’s responsibility.

At the end of the day, blame sharing and finger pointing are not going to resolve the problem, and it is a good thing Joyce is so doggedly pursuing an end to the fiasco.

Joyce is also focused on the long term. Based on the recommendation of the Ministerial Inquiry, he says work needs to be done to examine the school payroll service delivery model to make sure it is sustainable and affordable.

“While good progress has been made in remediating Novopay, there is still a lot to do in the months ahead to maintain the stability that has been achieved and ensure the payroll system performs to expectations.” 

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Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013

9

Education models

Venturing into

un’charter’ed territory

The opposition to charter schools intensifies with the announcement of the first five partnership schools in New Zealand. JUDE BARBACK weighs up the arguments as the new schools prepare to open their doors.

T

he announcement of the first five partnership schools in October was met with both groans and cheers – depending on which side of the fence you’re sitting.

Charter schools have certainly divided a nation during their contentious path to inception. Broadly speaking, supporters are in favour of trialling an alternative approach to help address the languishing problem of underachievement, largely concerning those students from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Meanwhile, opponents see the scheme as a risky experiment and a threat to public education.

Like it or not, Kura Hourua O Whangarei Terenga Paraoa, The Rise UP Academy, South Auckland Middle School, Te Kura Hourua ki Whangaruru, and Vanguard Military School are set to open their doors next year to a new era of education for New Zealand.

International evidence – a duplicitous thing

Much of the criticism directed at the partnership schools programme stems from other countries’ experiences with similar models.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries have forged ahead with their respective versions of charter schools, with mixed results.

Partnership schools, charter schools, free schools – call them what you like, whichever corner of the globe they can be found, they are all shrouded in controversy.

Opponents here have clung to opponents elsewhere – the PPTA’s courting of Karen Harper Royal a good example – and pounced on the failures in an attempt to bring New Zealand’s scheme to its knees. A common criticism, particularly of the US charter school system, is that selective retention, whereby students are cherrypicked to ensure those most likely to succeed are educated, while those that don’t maintain grades are quickly weeded out. At the PPTA’s annual conference in October, executive member,

10 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

Austen Pageau, spoke of a Washington DC charter school having an expulsion rate 28 times as high as local public schools. He also suggested corruption was rife and gave the example of one American principal paying himself a salary of $5 million.

Further condemnation of charter schools was found in a recent UK report, which described a free school in Derby as being “in chaos” and “dysfunctional”. British politicians have received similar criticism to that faced by ours, the British shadow education secretary describing the British Free School programme – similar to New Zealand’s partnership school programme – as “a dangerous free-for-all: an out of control ideological experiment”.

The international evidence and anecdotes can certainly be alarming, but similarly, partnership schools proponents here have found allies abroad.

Catherine Isaac, chair of the Partnership Schools/ Kura Hourua Working Group points out that the Stanford University CREDO study that is regularly quoted by partnership school sceptics also shows that American charter schools deliver better results for students from low income households nationwide. There is apparently evidence from

Sweden that shows that achievement is higher in districts with more free schools. A similar story has emerged from Alberta in Canada.

While the negative international evidence is touted regularly, there is no shortage of the positive stories as well, leaving us to ponder who is right. In any case, should we really be paying so much attention to what is happening in other countries? The Partnership Schools/Kura Hourua model is different to comparable systems overseas, and our education system is different.

It seems the apparent successes or failures in other countries are not indicative for whether partnership schools will thrive or dive here, so why the constant need for affirmation from abroad?

Ingenious solution?

But without drawing on international evidence, what else do we have to go on in these early stages?

While the Government has certainly not been forthcoming with the word ‘experiment’ – favouring ‘small pilot’ instead – this is essentially what the partnership schools initiative is: an attempt at something new to address the old chestnut of underachievement.

Partnership schools, charter schools, free schools – call them what you like, whichever corner of the globe they can be found, they are all shrouded in controversy.

Voice of a partnership school

Vanguard Military School chief executive, NICK HYDE, describes why he believes his new partnership school will be a success.

Vanguard Military School has been driven from our past 13 years of experience as a private training establishment (PTE), where we have worked extensively with students who for one reason or another have not grasped the first opportunity they had at a secondary education. Usually in the form of our military prep schools, we have generated a culture of success and achievement that has consistently worked for this demographic and assisted them in achieving where they had previously failed.

State schools have been using us to deliver Gateway and STAR programmes for them for many years, and the demand to attend our Auckland PTE had grown so much that we were having to turn hundreds of applicants away.

So who are the students who wish to attend? They are the middle two rows in most classes, they are the teenagers who don’t cause any problems but never get the attention or checks on them that they need. ‘Give them an inch and they will take a mile’ is the saying, and for teenagers, once they realise that they don’t

actually have to produce the work, they don’t – and consequently they don’t achieve.

They are the victims of bullying; they are the children who have had to move around a lot and never settled; they are the students who desire structure and discipline in their lives; they are the ones that want a second chance – in some cases, they haven’t achieved at first through their own mistakes; they are the students who require small classes, high direction, and a safe learning environment that is brought about by a tight structure and level of discipline; they are the ones who make a choice to give education another shot.

Since the day we were announced as a partnership school, we have had to listen to arguments that partnership schools don’t have qualified or registered teachers, they won’t teach the curriculum, and they won’t release any information to the public, so before we look at what Vanguard is, maybe it’s a good time to be clear about what we are not.

We will use registered teachers to teach all of our NCEA core

subjects, including maths, English, physical education, science, biology, and Māori. The only non-registered teachers we will use are for engineering, defence force studies, and our physical training and military drill. Our rationale for this is that qualified engineers and ex-NZ Defence Force staff are a better fit for this.

We will be teaching The New Zealand curriculum. We will be delivering NCEA Levels 1 to 3.

We will be releasing information to the public. We wish to publish our results and we are happy to let people know of our policies and introduce people to our staff. It is a hard ask indeed to attract students and interest their parents if you have nothing to show them.

What makes Vanguard Military School different from other schools is the military ethos that we base our learning around; the ideals of teamwork, honour, integrity, and the expectation placed upon all the students to succeed. To accomplish this, students belong to a section; sections are made up of 12

students who all attend the compulsory classes together and only spilt for their electives. It should be noted that the school provides a teacher for every 12 students, which allows for greater time with each student, and therefore, a better academic level of achievement. Most students who join us never mention which school they previously came from, but we find that our students are very proud to mention their section and school.

To assist in maintaining an academic approach, we do require a high level of discipline to be maintained; attendance is rigorously checked, parents always informed, consequences are always listed should a student step out of line – and these consequences are consistently applied by all teachers at the school. Our approach may not suit everyone, but it is a choice to attend and all students and parents are given a thorough orientation before they apply.

Most importantly, our partnership school now offers parents and students a choice. With no zone, we welcome all.

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Education models

It has often been reported that our education system is not working for a proportion of Kiwi students. We are all familiar with New Zealand’s “long tail of underachievement” by now, and the Ministry of Education sees partnership schools as a potential solution to this problem.

While Isaac says it is “not a silver bullet”, she believes the scheme is worth trying.

“No one can reasonably argue that the current rate of educational underachievement in New Zealand is acceptable or that some new approaches to the problem aren’t worth considering”.

She cites the 31 per cent of young New Zealanders, including 52 per cent of Māori and 41 per cent of Pasifika students who currently leave school without achieving NCEA Level 2, which is considered the gateway to the workforce and further study. She also cites the PISA results, which, when broken down, show New Zealand European students ranking second in the world and New Zealand Māori students ranking 33rd.

Across the new schools there appears to be a nod to The New Zealand Curriculum and registered teaching staff and a clear step towards providing education aimed at helping Māori and Pasifika students and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

… Or mad experiment?

However, opponents have described this “different approach” as an “irresponsible experiment”.

“Surely, Catherine Isaac can come up with a better reason for going down this dangerous track than her often repeated mantra that ‘it’s worth a try’?” questioned Ian Leckie, past president of the NZEI Te Riu Roa in Education Review last year.

Leckie berated the partnership school model for allowing private profit-driven or special interest groups to use taxpayer money to run schools with no public scrutiny, no need to employ qualified teachers, and no need to stick to the national curriculum.

His concerns are shared by many, particularly members of fellow teachers’ union, PPTA. PPTA junior vice president, Hazel McIntosh, says the partnership schools scheme reflects the Act Party’s desperate attempt to ‘unleash the forces of the market’ in the education sector.

“Handing students over to untrained teachers who don’t have to offer The New Zealand Curriculum is a social experiment driven by ideology, not research.”

At its annual conference in October, PPTA members voted to support a paper demanding the $19 million set aside for charter schools to be returned to the state school sector to fund programmes that raise achievement for at-risk students.

The union has also said its members will refrain from all professional, sporting, and cultural liaisons with the sponsors, managers, and employees of charter schools.

Ultimately, the PPTA perceives partnership schools to be a threat to public education, by their potential to take valuable funding and resources away from state schools.

However, others believe the union is shortsighted. Controversial right-wing blogger Cameron

Slater has criticised the PPTA for failing to see choice in our education system as a positive thing.

“Why would anyone choose [to move to a partnership school] if their local school is world class? But – if parents believe that their allocated state school is not working for their child, the PPTA say they are not allowed a choice. Could their patch protection be more obvious and odious?” Slater states on his blog, Whale Oil Beef Hooked.

The new kids on the block

Interestingly, the five new partnership schools do not appear to have attracted much individual criticism. Aside from Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei’s dig that the standard of the applications was “poor”, details concerning the new schools appears to have allayed the concerns of many.

Across the new schools there appears to be a nod to The New Zealand Curriculum and registered teaching staff and a clear step towards providing education aimed at helping Māori and Pasifika students and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

It does not appear to be these five individual schools that PPTA members and other opponents find so offensive, rather, it is what these schools represent that is the cause for concern – that is, the tip of the iceberg.

The fear among charter school critics is that charter schools are set to grow exponentially, as they have in other countries. Pageau described it as an “invasion of public education”.

Those in support of the partnership schools programme will be hoping that the new schools opening their doors next year will prove to be successful and quash the concerns of those who fear them. 

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New Zealand’s first Partnership Schools Name of school

Sponsor

Location

Type

Size

Target group

Teachers

Kura Hourua O Whangarei Terenga Paraoa

He Puna Marama Trust

Whangarei

Coeducational secondary school, Y7-13

Opening roll of 50, maximum roll of 300

Māori students

All core NCEA subjects will be taught by registered teachers or holders of Limited Authority to Teach. Nonregistered teachers will be used to teach supplementary subjects.

The Rise UP Academy

Rise UP Trust

Mangere, Auckland

Coeducational primary school, Y1-6

Opening roll of 50, rising to 100 by 2016

Māori and Pasifika students

All teaching staff will be registered

South Auckland Middle School

Villa Education Trust

South Auckland

Coeducational middle school, Y7-10

Opening roll of 90, rising to 120 by 2015

Māori, Pasifika and students from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Core curriculum will be taught by registered teachers

Te Kura Hourua ki Whangaruru

Ngā Parirau Mātauranga Trust

Whangaruru

Coeducational secondary school, Y9-14

Opening roll of 71, rising to 128 by 2015

Young people disengaged from schooling system with a focus on Māori and Pasifika.

Core curriculum will be taught by registered teachers or holders of Limited Authority to Teach. Nonregistered teachers will be used to teach supplementary subjects.

Vanguard Military School

Advance Training Centres Limited

Albany, North Coeducational Shore senior secondary school, Y11-13

Opening roll of 108, rising to 192 by 2017

Young people who are disengaged from the schooling system with a focus on Māori, Pasifika and low socio-economic students.

Core curriculum will be taught by registered teachers. Non-registered teachers will be used to teach supplementary subjects.

12 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

EDUCATION REVIEWseries READ ABOUT THE ISSUES THAT MATTER Partnership schools: in-depth look at both sides of the debate The new Teachers Council – can ‘EDUCANZ’ deliver for teachers?

The teacher supply and demand see-saw Rethinking deciles

MORE FEATURES, OPINION & NEWS Online now www.educationreview.co.nz Connect with Education Review on Twitter @EdReviewNZ Facebook (search ‘New Zealand Education Review’) Belle Hanrahan, Sales & Marketing Manager * Phone: 04 915 9783 * Email: belle@apn-ed.co.nz

Technology

Acronyms of opportunity UFB, BYOD, N4L, SNUP – techy acronyms are littering the education world, but each brings exciting new elements of change and innovation to teaching and learning in New Zealand schools. range road cones, men in high-vis jackets, holes in the ground, and giant reels of cable are a familiar sight around suburban New Zealand these days, and a good sign for schools; once the fibre is deployed, the fibre drop – the connection to the fibre running along the street – will be fully funded for state and state-integrated schools. Following fibre drop, schools just need a service connection and they’re away.

UFB and RBI

The roll out of high speed internet to all schools, either by ultrafast broadband (UFB) or the rural broadband initiative (RBI), is well underway, but still a long way from completion. It is a five-year process, with all schools expected to have access by 2016.

The five-year process involves multiple rounds of negotiations, which are overseen by the Ministry of Economic Development and Crown Fibre Holdings – not the Ministry of Education, as many mistakenly assume (although the Education Ministry is responsible for contacting each school once a provider has been selected and a timeframe confirmed for their connection).

For some, five years is a long time indeed. However, those schools connected to fibre already are delighted. Ultrafast broadband typically enhances performance of high bandwidth services such as streaming TV and allows schools more opportunity to collaborate through online learning communities.

Trevor Storr, director of e-learning at Waimate High School, says his school has only been connected for a few months, but they are already noticing the difference.

“We’ve already been able to use services that previously would not work on ADSL. New Zealand is a small country a long way from anywhere else. The economic arguments for the roll-out of UFB (access, equity, opportunity, and enterprise) also apply to education. Fast internet opens up literally a world of opportunity for teachers and students.”

Similarly Brendon Henderson, principal of Tawa Intermediate, says that although it is early days, “it has definitely helped everyone’s ability to access online resources and learning opportunities.”

Dairy Flat School was one of the earlier schools to be connected up via the rural broadband initiative and principal Debbie Marshall says high speed internet has made a huge difference to staff and pupils.

“Students are able to access the internet simultaneously without it affecting speed. We are able to use teacher dashboard and collaborate on documents in the cloud. For us, it has been magic.”

SNUP

Hand-in-hand with the connection to UFB is the SNUP, or the School Network Upgrade Project, which was launched in 2005 by the Ministry of Education. It is aimed at getting schools to get as much out of their UFB connection as possible. The SNUP subsidises and manages upgrades of schools’ internal cabling infrastructure and provides schools with high-quality data infrastructure allowing for future network expansion and for the use of ultrafast broadband in teaching and learning programmes.

An upgrade includes a complete and fully funded audit of a school’s existing network infrastructure and designs for upgrading to Ministry

14 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

standards. The Ministry also subsidises a cat6 network cabling solution and switching. In terms of which schools are selected for the SNUP, preference is given to schools that are either already connected to fibre or about to receive a connection.

In April this year, 80 more schools were invited to upgrade their IT networks through SNUP, bringing the number of schools involved in the project to just over 1400 – more than half of all eligible state and stateintegrated schools.

Troy Smith, head of ICT at Te Aroha College, believes the more prepared a school can be when the SNUP engineers arrive for a site audit, the better the school is likely to do out of the project. He says if funding is set aside, the opportunity exists for schools to undertake far more significant upgrades than what is offered under the SNUP guidelines.

In the earlier stages of the SNUP and UFB roll out, there were some concerns raised over exactly what schools should be doing with their enhanced internet capability and technology infrastructure.

“It’s not about technology for technology’s sake,” IT consultant John Holley told Computerworld.

“How does the money you’re going to spend on new infrastructure support and enhance teaching and learning? If you’re not going to get improvements in national standards or NCEA then why would you spend the money? That’s the Return On Investment question.”

Holley also points out the importance of professional development, of training staff so as to get the most out of new technologies.

However, if schools are still not quite sure what to do with their speedy internet yet, there appears to be plenty on the horizon to make good use of all the bandwidth.

N4L

UFB and SNUP pave the way for N4L, the Network for Learning. The Ministry of Education is working with Crown-owned company The Network for Learning Limited to develop and operate a managed network for New Zealand schools. It will run over the best mix of ultrafast, rural, and remote broadband available to connect schools to secure, uncapped, reliable, and fast internet. Connection to the network is also fully funded and completely voluntary.

The first schools to climb on board the network this year will soon be followed by the others who have registered their interest so far.

N4L chief executive, John Hanna, says that a broad mix of schools will be connected this year to allow the company to build up a range of knowledge from different school environments before connecting more than 700 schools by the end of 2014. All schools will be able to connect to the managed network by the end of 2016 when they will have access to fibre and upgraded internal IT networks. Telecom has been selected as the network services provider tasked with helping N4L build the managed network.

N4L’s education sector lead, Caroline Stuart says the introduction of N4L couldn’t come at a better time for teachers, who are using digital technology more and more in the classroom.

Trevor Storr agrees. “As a teacher, I will be able to use tools that need high bandwidth such as Google hangouts to communicate with colleagues and share ideas. In general terms, the N4L will act as a great leveller of opportunity and access where physical location becomes less relevant.”

Storr says using applications such as Google apps for education and other online services allow teachers and students to access school work at home.

“We are also now able to begin exploring formal BYOD options as our connectivity will support a far greater number of devices.”

Of course, merely putting a digital device in the hands of every student will not ensure a more enhanced learning experience.

University of Auckland’s Professor Stuart McNaughton recently voiced his concerns on the matter.

“The first type of digital divide is people who have laptops and people who don’t, or people who have broadband or don’t. A second digital divide is the netbooks; laptops are used differently in different schools and continue the disparities that we have.

That is a risk,” he told the Herald.

“Just providing laptops or digital devices, in and of themselves, will not necessarily produce more effective learning. A laptop, a digital device, can be used like an abacus or a piece of paper – it’s just a tool. And if it’s not used in a way that capitalises on what it offers, then it’s sort of irrelevant, almost.”

The ugly side of BYOD, and indeed, prolific internet accessibility in general, is that it opens up more avenues to cyber-bullying.

The new surrender and retain rules emerging from the Education Amendment Act may go some way to help curb such abuse of technology, as will the harsher penalties in place for cyber bullies.

Change will always bring with it a period of adjustment and there will undoubtedly be teething problems and unanticipated difficulties as schools adapt to this new era of ultrafast broadband, managed networks, and classrooms filled with students tapping away on their own digital devices.

It will, however, bring unexpected opportunities as well.

Of this, Trevor Storr is certain. “I’m certain that there are many yet-to-be-thought-of opportunities waiting to be discovered,” he says. 

www.educationreview.co.nz

Challenges and opportunities

Go to

BYOD

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and 1:1 programmes are fast becoming ubiquitous in New Zealand schools.

The debate seems to have moved on from whether 1:1 device/ student ratios are the way forward or not, to whether schools should dictate what device students used, or if students can choose their own device.

Obviously, there are merits to both. Some have questioned the difficulties of a classroom full of different types of iPads, netbooks, and Android tablets. Many feel uniformity is the best approach, allowing an even playing field for all students.

When introducing its 1:1 strategy, Queen Margaret College in Wellington decided on a uniform approach for students, selecting laptops on the basis of performance, price, weight, and battery life.

The ‘even playing field’ card is not to be underplayed – it is a strong argument for a standardised approach to student devices.

Some schools have noted that the ‘tech envy’ – the sort that eventuates when one student has the latest iPad and another has a second-hand netbook – is something that can hinder a BYOD initiative that allows students the flexibility to bring whatever device they like.

However, some critics liken the request for students to bring the same device to asking students to bring the same pen or exercise book – an unnecessary demand when the infrastructure at most schools allow for any hardware.

Although schools may still store some resources on a local server, most are moving toward cloud-based learning. It appears to be a matter of when, not if, schools are making the move to Google Apps or Microsoft’s Office 365 for Education for providing email, calendars, and blogging capabilities for students. Learning management systems like Moodle are becoming increasingly prolific. E-portfolios are seen to pave the way for lifelong learning.

To access these requires a device, any device, and the feeling among many schools is that as lots of students now have their own device anyway, why make them purchase another, likely inferior, device for the sake of standardisation?

Epsom Girls Grammar is an example of a school that invites students to bring their personal internet capable devices to school, regardless of whether they are a smart phone, an iPad, or a netbook. The school offers advice and a link to the Cyclone Online website for students to make the most suitable purchase to suit their needs.

Yet other schools, particularly those from low socio-economic communities, feel that asking families to provide their children with a device for school is placing undue pressure on them. A popular criticism of personal devices, and apps in general, is that they increase the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ and some have expressed their fears that this would become evident in schools if some students were able to bring devices and some were not.

However, the famous Manaiakalani Programme provides an impressive example of a cluster of decile 1 Auckland schools that have not allowed socio-economic barriers to prevent each of its 1500 students from having their own device. The computers are gradually being paid off at around $15 per month. With the average income in Tamaki $19,000 per year, the most affordable repayment scheme was $3.50 a week for four years.

Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013 15

Tertiary

Failing to keep up

New Zealand universities slip down the rankings New Zealand’s universities took a dive in this year’s QS World University Rankings.

JUDE BARBACK considers whether global university rankings really matter. he release of this year’s QS World University Rankings was met with mixed reaction in New Zealand.

The ‘glass half full’ camp chose to take pride in the fact that despite a dip in rankings, the universities’ scores remained largely the same or better, and furthermore, with Lincoln University’s inclusion, our little country’s eight universities all hold a place in the top 500.

However, it was the collective slide in rankings that has many concerned about the quality of New Zealand’s universities, or more accurately, the level of funding driving that quality.

Rankings on the slide

The 2013/2014 QS rankings saw the University of Auckland slip from 83rd to 94th position; the University of Otago from 133rd to 155th; the University of Canterbury from 221st to 238th; Victoria University of Wellington from 237th to 265th equal; Massey University from 308th to 343rd equal; University of Waikato from 374th to 401st–410th; and AUT from 451st–460th to 471st–480th (those ranked over 400 are placed in groups of 10). Lincoln University debuted at 481st equal.

Casting the cynical view aside for a moment, it is certainly laudable that all eight New Zealand tertiary institutions have made the top 500.

“With Lincoln University on the list, it means all eight of New Zealand’s universities are now in the top 500, and I doubt if there are very many countries – if any – that could claim to have all their universities on that list,” Universities New Zealand chairman Professor Roy Crawford told the Herald.

However, Lincoln’s inclusion does little to detract from how New Zealand universities are competing with their overseas counterparts.

Closer inspection of the QS results shows that many of New Zealand’s universities are actually maintaining or increasing their scores. However, universities in other countries – notably Asian countries – are increasing their scores at greater rates, forcing New Zealand universities to slip down the rankings.

“On the plus side, it is the first time that all eight New Zealand universities are ranked in the top 500

16 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

in the world. On the other hand, some universities have had their scores improve but their rankings decline,” said Tertiary Education Minister, Steven Joyce.

“Overall the rankings reflect the increased competitiveness of the international university market.”

Crawford agrees. He said New Zealand universities’ slide was more the result of other tertiary institutions making big strides forward rather than our universities deteriorating.

Why aren’t New Zealand universities keeping up?

Ben Sowter, head of research at QS, said this year’s results showed that New Zealand’s universities had collectively seen a drop in academic reputation, faculty student ratio, and international students.

According to Tertiary Education Union (TEU) vice president, Sandra Grey, in New Zealand staff/ student ratios have risen from 17.5 students per academic in 2007 to 19 students per academic in 2012.

“We are moving in the wrong direction,” she says. “New Zealand academics are highly regarded and are involved in world class research and teaching. But falling government funding means they face larger lectures and tutorials, more administrative workload that takes time away from research and teaching, and stagnant pay.”

While Grey acknowledges that the international competition is fierce, she is scathing about recent levels of government funding for tertiary education in New Zealand.

“With more universities, and particularly, more East Asian universities, spending large amounts of money to increase their research, quality, and reputation, it is no easy task for New Zealand universities to hold their place. But that task is made near impossible by a Government that has cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of tertiary education in the last five years.”

University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor and Professor Stuart McCutcheon told One News that New Zealand’s universities operate with the lowest income and expenditure per student of any of the top universities in the world – and the rankings reflect this.

“What we seem to have tried to do in this country is have low student fees, low levels of

Government investment, low levels of research funding nationally, and high numbers of students in universities. We have to decide in this country whether we want cheap universities or whether we want highly ranked universities because I think it’s very clear ... you can’t have both.”

Meanwhile, Minister Steven Joyce points out that the Government has increased its investment in universities by 16.5 per cent over the past four years and student fees are increasing. However, he does concede that a significant increase in investment into New Zealand universities is unlikely.

“As a country, we are not likely to be able to afford sudden big increases in resources, so the challenge for New Zealand universities from these figures will be to respond more quickly and effectively to the competitive challenges they face. That includes attracting more international students, expanding research links, and investing more in disciplines where they have a competitive advantage.”

However, some are sceptical whether New Zealand can attract more international students when rankings are falling.

“The Government has a goal of doubling the number of international students and the revenues that New Zealand generates from that export education industry. But it simply isn’t going to achieve that if we’re in a situation where the rankings of the universities continue to decline,” says McCutcheon.

Rising student fees are also increasing the annual incomes of New Zealand’s universities.

However, Ben Sowter of QS says increasing tuition fees are becoming a growing concern for universities around the globe.

“Tuition fee hikes and student debt are becoming a growing concern for both students and the New Zealand Government. The decline in affordable publicly funded education worldwide means many students risk being priced out of a world-class education,” said Sowter.

It’s not just New Zealand; the QS results revealed that the average undergraduate tuition fees in the top 10 are up to a record high of around US$34,000 per year, nearly double the 2007 average of US$18,500. QS researchers say austerity measures in the wake of the recession have contributed to an “affordability crisis” for students at leading international institutions.

What are university ranking systems?

The QS World University Rankings is one of three major university ranking systems, the other two being the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) or ‘Shanghai Ranking’ as it is better known.

They all measure universities in different ways and based on different things. QS place more emphasis on information derived from surveys, while THE looks closer at teaching quality and Shanghai focuses on the standard of research.

Unsurprisingly, the universities emerge in different orders on each ranking list, although the usual suspects – among them, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford – appear on the top 10 of all three lists.

In the latest Shanghai ranking, the universities of Auckland and Otago rank in the 201-300 grouping, while Massey, Canterbury, and Victoria all rank in the 401-500 grouping, a relatively static placement for all five. Waikato, AUT, and Lincoln do not appear to have ever made these rankings.

Meanwhile, the recent THE rankings for 2013/2014, released in October, saw the University of Auckland placed at 164th (a slight drop from 161st the year before) with Otago, Victoria, Canterbury, and Waikato lagging some way behind.

Massey had dropped off the THE charts and neither AUT nor Lincoln appear to have ever made these rankings.

Between 2004 and 2008, the QS and THE rankings were one and the same, before THE broke away to form its own tables.

The QS Rankings currently considers over 2000 institutions and ranks over 800. The rankings are made up of six indicators: academic reputation (40 per cent), employer reputation (10 per cent), faculty/student ratio (20 per cent), citations per faculty (20 per cent), international students (5 per cent), and international faculty (5 per cent).

This year, 62,094 academic and 27,957 employer responses contributed towards the results.

Meanwhile, the THE performance indicators judge universities across the core missions of

teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

The Shanghai Ranking, which originated in 2003 with Chinese Government backing, was designed to provide a global benchmark against which Chinese universities could assess their progress. With a focus on Chinese universities’ need to catch up on scientific research, the Shanghai Ranking system relies largely on performance indicators such as the number of articles published in prestigious academic journals, rather than teaching quality or other factors.

Each ranking has its particular audience. QS aims its rankings primarily at students, while others are focused more at university leadership. Any list only highlights a small percentage of the world’s universities, and as a result, many institutions, particularly in developing countries, are at a distinct disadvantage.

Online correspondent, Igram Mahmud, states, “The whole ranking system should be abolished until the whole world gets developed. Newer universities can never beat the top hundred with the current ranking system. With this ranking, these top ones suck all merits in the world and the equal balance of merit distribution never happens.”

Incidentally, the QS and THE rankings both have a separate section on newer universities, ranking those under 50 years old. The measures are typically similar to those used to score all universities, but generally with less weight given to subjective indicators of academic reputation.

Do rankings matter?

Like them or not, global university rankings look set to stay. Not only that, they appear to be playing an increasing role in influencing students, universities, and governments.

For example, the Brazilian Government’s national scholarship programme, Science Without Borders, aims to send 100,000 students and researchers to some of the world’s best institutions, selected based on their position in the QS and THE rankings.

Similarly, India’s University Grants Commission also

requires any foreign university wanting to partner with Indian universities to be ranked among the top 500 in the world.

The rankings are also impacting the recruitment of academics and researchers in many countries.

Denmark and the Netherlands are among those countries to have changed their immigration laws to favour those who have graduated from top global universities. In points based systems, graduates from the highest ranked universities in the QS, THE, and Shanghai Rankings are awarded more points. Russia now recognises degrees from foreign universities that are among the top 300 in these rankings.

The rankings are also affecting the way universities operate, with many now operating in accordance to rankings performance indicators.

Following an independent audit in Russia, 15 universities were selected to receive special grants to improve their compliance with rankings criteria. Similarly, Germany, France, Japan, and Singapore are also seeking to improve their higher education systems based on global ranking systems.

Looking forward

In New Zealand, the pressure continues for more investment to improve the rankings of its own universities. The Government is currently seeking feedback on the draft Tertiary Education Strategy 2014–2019, which guides the Tertiary Education Commission’s investment decisions.

The draft strategy document discusses the climate of international competition, particularly from developing countries across Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, which are investing heavily into tertiary education and increasing the international demand for academic research and teaching talent.

“New Zealand tertiary education organisations (TEOs) need to further lift their efficiency and competitiveness to maintain and enhance their position in that race for talent,” the document states.

The document appears to place more emphasis on achieving efficiencies and finding a creative new delivery model than on increasing public investment.

While this may be to the dismay of many, it is certainly true that in the wake of a global financial crisis and the rise of technology and the internet, the ground underneath global tertiary education is shifting. Adapting to the changing environment is par for the course, and New Zealand universities need to prepare to do so without the windfall they need if they are to remain competitive. 

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Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013 17

Funding

PBRF

gets ready for shake-up A review of New Zealand’s tertiary education funding system, the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF), looks set to place more emphasis on commercialised research, a proposal that has attracted some criticism. Will this and other changes result in a new and improved funding process for tertiary education organisations?

The strict boundaries that are placed on researchers working within the confines of their college or department restrict and inhibit the real potential that is in effect untapped, and until there is some allowance for crosscollegiate collaborations to occur, this unsatisfactory situation will remain.

18 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

he Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) is undergoing a spring clean.

The tertiary education funding process, which is based on the research performance of tertiary education organisations, is currently under review. The Government says it plans to increase investment in the PBRF scheme from $250 million to $300 million per annum by 2017 and to ensure it gets “the best value possible for this investment” a revision of the current PBRF system has been outlined.

The proposed changes include a clarification of the objectives of the PBRF as well as simplification of the research assessment process in order to reduce costs. There is also more attention given to recruiting and supporting new and emerging researchers. Particular emphasis has been placed on attracting research income from non-government investors and commercialising research.

Public consultation on the proposed changes ran from 26 August and ended 4 October, with 127 submissions received.

A spokeswoman for Tertiary Education, Skills, and Employment Minister, Steven Joyce, says the Minister is currently considering the results of the public consultation on the PBRF review and next steps will be announced in due course.

The origins of PBRF

Time flies. The PBRF, introduced in 2002, is nearly 12 years old. Since its inception, tertiary education organisations have undergone three rounds of the PBRF’s Quality Evaluation: in 2003, 2006, and in 2012 – enough to have given institutions, researchers, the Government, and other parties a

chance to draw breath and evaluate what is good, bad and ho-hum about New Zealand’s system for incentivising high-quality research in the tertiary education sector.

Prior to the PBRF, tertiary education organisations received research funding based on the volume of equivalent full-time students (EFTS) at degree level and above. The lack of incentives for research excellence and private sector research funding, and the lack of public accountability for research funding were, in part, why this system gave way to the PBRF. The original objectives of the PBRF were to increase the average quality of research, to ensure that degree and postgraduate teaching is supported by research, to make funding available for postgraduate students and new researchers, and to improve the quality of public information on research outputs.

Research performance through the PBRF is assessed on the Quality Evaluation – essentially an individual peer review assessment, accounting for 60 per cent of the fund – as well as the number of research degree completions and the amount of external research income, accounting for 25 and 15 per cent of the fund respectively.

Problems with the PBRF

In its consultation document, Review of the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) the Ministry of Education points out a number of measures that indicate an increase in tertiary education research quality since the first PBRF round in 2003, such as the increase in the number of research degree completions and the rise of PBRF-eligible external research income. It also points to the increase in citations to research publications produced at New Zealand tertiary education institutions.

Agenda for change

However, in spite of the apparent success, a number of concerns have arisen over the past decade.

Despite the consultation document highlighting the increase of inter-institutional collaboration in indexed journal publications, many have expressed concerns that the PBRF Quality Evaluation has had a negative impact on collaboration between researchers in New Zealand tertiary education organisations.

In recent years Education Review has been following this aspect, and prominent voices from different institutions have echoed this fear that the current funding environment hinders collaboration.

Among them, University of Auckland’s Dr Trevor Thwaites: “The ominous presence of ‘the next PBRF round’ has, I believe, seen a growing tension between tertiary institutions and former colleagues in other institutions who now seem less willing to discuss their research and especially to divulge their research outputs.”

Russell Taylor from University of Canterbury agreed. “The strict boundaries that are placed on researchers working within the confines of their college or department restrict and inhibit the real potential that is in effect untapped, and until there is some allowance for cross-collegiate collaborations to occur, this unsatisfactory situation will remain.”

Other problems with the PBRF revolve more around reporting. Under the current reporting mechanisms, there is the opportunity for institutions that submit fewer evidence portfolios from high-performing staff only, which can give a poor reflection and comparison of the research quality in different organisations. The consultation document also notes that “collecting staffing data at a single point in time may also have unintended consequences for tertiary education organisation hiring decisions”.

Cost is also a key concern. The Quality Evaluation is expensive to administer for the Government, tertiary education organisations, and even the individuals involved. Universities New Zealand estimated the total transaction costs for universities and the Tertiary Education Commission associated with the Quality Evaluation for the six-year period between 2007/8 and 2012/13 to be over $52 million, borne mainly by universities.

Richard Blaikie, Otago University’s Deputy ViceChancellor of Research and Enterprise, agrees that the PBRF rounds are time-consuming and costly.

“For the Quality Evaluation, the time required for academic and general staff to prepare evidence portfolios, enter and verify research publication data and meet other submission requirements has also grown in recent rounds, so we support the principle of the current review to seek ways to reduce both the financial costs and timeconsuming nature of the exercise,” he told The Critic.

In addition to cost, another problem is that, despite its objective of ensuring funding for postgrads and new researchers, the PBRF appears to be creating disincentives for tertiary education organisations to recruit new and emerging researchers. Newer researchers typically attract lower quality scores for their research than more experienced researchers, which means the latter group is favoured in an attempt to increase the amount of funding received. This means organisations are focusing on current research performance rather than future performance.

Another concern recognised in the consultation document is that the PBRF may not adequately reward organisations for attracting research income from non-government sources or engaging in research commercialisation.

These concerns have collectively provided the rationale to review the objectives and policy design features of the PBRF. Consequently, the revised objectives proposed by the Government place an emphasis on reducing costs, increasing the average quality of research, supporting researchled teaching and learning, increasing university world rankings, increasing transparency, supporting the commercialisation of research and research that benefits New Zealand, as well as supporting the development of postgrad, new, and emerging researchers.

Among the suggested changes is the introduction of financial incentives to encourage the recruitment of new and emerging researchers.

Other proposed changes focus on simplifying the Quality Evaluation to reduce transaction costs, and on strengthening reporting on research performance.

However, the proposed change to place more emphasis on the commercialisation of research is what has angered some in the academic world.

Dr Sandra Grey, Tertiary Education Union vice-president and co-chair of the newly founded Academic Freedom Aotearoa, says the Government’s plans to make commercial research the top priority for universities is a threat to their mission and undermines academic freedom.

Grey believes that while commercialised research is valuable to New Zealand, it needs to be balanced by research that questions and challenges business or government.

“Research for commercial interests already brings institutions the reward of additional research funding. There is no need to double the incentive by skewing public funding to favour private research too. Public monies should be concentrated on research that is for the public good, not only the private and commercial good,” says Grey.

The public good was also at the heart of open access proponent Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand’s submission. Its submission stated that while external funding is important, “it is essential that research outputs remain accessible to the wider New Zealand public, including commercial organisations that are better suited to benefit from those research outputs”.

“There is a risk that, unless the PBRF include a provision incentivising the free dissemination of openly licensed research outputs, the redefinition of eligible research outputs to include commercialisation income — and not commercialisation by New Zealand companies that do not provide a direct payment to the researcher or institution — will have the perverse effect of closing off New Zealand research to the companies that helped to pay for its production.”

These are just some of the concerns raised in the 127 submissions made during consultation, which now lie with the Minister for consideration.

While no specific timeframe has been given, it is hoped that the PBRF will emerge revised and improved in 2014. 

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Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013 19

Teacher education

The teacher d n a m e d d n a ly p p u s see-saw S

ince Education Review published an in-depth feature on the oversupply of teachers earlier this year, more and more hard luck stories have emerged of new teacher grads struggling to get jobs. Yet research shows more teachers will be needed in just a few years.

The Ministry’s move to bolster the teaching profession with the introduction of postgrad ITE supports might support future demand, but is it going to help with the current oversupply situation?

The fluctuating job market

Given the current oversupply of teachers, it certainly seems hard to believe that merely a decade ago secondary school and early childhood teaching were listed on Immigration New Zealand’s longterm skill shortage list. Harder still to fathom is the need for a $1500 loyalty bonus as an incentive to keep young secondary school teachers in New Zealand classrooms – an idea that was tossed around at the time. And then there was the $19 million teacher-bonding scheme established in 2009 to help overcome a teaching shortage and prevent teachers from being lured overseas upon completing their training.

Just four years later, we have tales emerging of teaching graduates whose study has been funded by Government scholarships yet have been unable to find employment, stories of newly trained teachers applying for hundreds of jobs, and anecdotes of schools receiving over 600 applicants for one job.

Di Davies, manager of the Ministry of Education’s TeachNZ, says the recession has contributed to the situation.

“As in other countries experiencing the impact of the global economic recession, we’ve recently seen some significant changes to teacher supply and demand in New Zealand.

“This shift in teacher supply has emerged over the last two or three years. It is impacting on new teacher graduates who were studying to become a teacher before the change became apparent (approximately 2800 graduate each year), and on teachers who have been out of the workforce, in short-term or relieving roles.”

Yet, research suggests that the sector could be facing a shortage again in just a few years’ time, due, in part, to a boost in the national birth rate.

Ministry of Education figures show primary school

20 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

JUDE BARBACK reviews the tricky business of managing teacher supply and demand. enrolments will increase steadily until 2019, when there would be 44,500 more students than in 2011.

An additional 1150 primary teachers will be needed to cope with the increased enrolments, based on an average class size of 27. The knock-on effect for secondary school student numbers will start in approximately 2019, reaching a peak in 2024 with about 22,000 more students in the system than in 2011.

The implication of these forecasted trends for teaching students is that those who begin their studies this year, are likely to have improved job prospects in New Zealand primary schools by the time they have graduated.

Taking action

Perhaps the fluctuation from feast to famine is an indication of why the Ministry of Education and the teacher education providers have been reluctant to take any strong measures on limiting the number of teacher students.

Davies says the Ministry is taking a proactive approach in monitoring teacher supply and demand and has improved the accuracy of analysis, forecasting, and modelling of the teacher workforce. The Ministry produces the Monitoring Teacher Supply report each year, which provides a snapshot of the number of vacancies in schools on the first day of term at the start of each school year and identifies recent trends from that information.

Since the current oversupply situation has emerged in recent years, the Ministry has also scrapped contracts to recruit overseas teachers and has removed teaching from the immigration skills shortage list.

But the Ministry draws the line at restricting the number of teachers that can be trained, as it

“does not and never has had the role of directly influencing demand”.

Teacher education providers we spoke with took a similar stance. They were confident that a teaching qualification opens doors to many different occupations, and therefore appeared reluctant to match available jobs for course places.

Associate Professor Sally Hansen of Massey University says that they do not set caps on their teaching qualifications to reflect the New Zealand teaching job market.

“We strongly believe that a teaching qualification is an excellent qualification for a diverse range of career opportunities. Determining a cap on selection related to the teaching job market (particularly one that is prone to shifting) could have the potential to be limiting and short-sighted.”

Mary Simpson, Associate Dean of Education at University of Otago, agrees.

“A teaching qualification does provide a very sound background for work in other areas and applicants are often very aware of this. It is noticeable how many people working in diverse fields have a teaching qualification. Additionally, many students, for a variety of reasons, do not intend to teach immediately.”

Gary Downey of University of Canterbury says their programmes offer “rigorous professional preparation”, which can lead to a diverse range of employment opportunities both within and outside the education sector.

Hansen says an effort is made to manage applicants’ expectations, but they are careful not to be too prescriptive.

“We accept we have a duty of care to applicants regarding their employment expectations. This needs to be balanced, however, by an awareness

that we should not be making decisions for our students, some of whom will wish to use their qualification and skills in locations other than New Zealand and in settings other than the secondary school classroom.”

Similarly, Mary Simpson, Associate Dean of Education at University of Otago, says they review their student enrolment numbers each year taking into consideration, among other factors, what is known of the employment market.

“We do our best to monitor both national and local trends, and we endeavour to track our students as they move into the teaching workforce.

We know there are both regional and subject area trends, and we recognise the challenges in matching the number of graduates with the likely number of positions that will be available.

“When we receive an application, if it is in a subject area where there is an oversupply of teachers, we always discuss this with the applicant. Applicants for secondary programmes are prepared to teach in more than one curriculum area. The combination of subject areas is important to consider,” says Simpson.

Subject shortage

Teacher education providers are very aware that while there is an oversupply of teachers in some areas, like physical education, for example, there is a shortage in others, such as Maori–medium, maths, and science.

The New Zealand Initiative report, World Class Education? Why New Zealand must strengthen its teaching profession, released in October, showed 19 per cent of vacant teaching jobs in secondary schools were for maths.

The report also examined the link between teachers’ mathematical abilities and students’ grades. It looked at Laura Goe’s research, which showed that a mathematics degree was strongly and consistently related to student achievement in mathematics.

However, the problem appears to be that those with a mathematics qualification often have a wide choice of careers open to them and teaching is not necessarily at the top of the list.

“The possibilities outside of teaching for people with maths and science qualifications is much greater than it used to be,” Naenae College principal, John Russell, told the Dominion Post.

Indeed, the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) revealed that around two-thirds of Year 9 mathematics teachers had a mathematics major.

The Ministry has acknowledged evidence showing that students’ achievement, particularly in mathematics and science, is influenced by their teacher’s previous study in those subjects, along with the teacher’s pedagogical knowledge.

Postgrad ITE finally here

The Ministry has welcomed the New Zealand Initiative report and its emphasis on raising the profile of the teaching profession. In support of this, Education Minister Hekia Parata recently announced that the Government is partnering with the Universities of Auckland, Waikato, and Otago to provide new postgraduate level initial teacher

education qualifications from next year. Further providers may be contracted to start in 2015.

The path towards postgrad ITE has been plagued with uncertainty. The Ministry has had plans to support providers in the implementation of postgraduate teaching qualifications for some time, based on advice it received from the Education Workforce Advisory Group in 2010.

While Minister Parata’s Budget 2012 announcement declared that a shift to a postgrad focus was on the cards for teacher education, it was another aspect of the Education Ministry’s budget proposals that would scupper these plans.

The proposal to increase class sizes and reduce teaching staff at intermediate and middle schools provoked intense backlash from schools around the country. Under immense pressure from the public, Parata confirmed a complete policy u-turn of no teacher cuts or increases to class sizes.

The Ministry had hoped to save some $114 million through the unpopular proposals, which was to be channelled into strengthening teacher education and professional development, among other initiatives. At the time of the back-down on class sizes, Parata said the shift to postgraduate initial teacher education would still go ahead.

However, in the aftermath of the fray over class sizes, the Ministry appeared to push away from the idea. A report released under the Official Information Act cited teacher supply and demand trends as a reason that moving to a postgraduate qualification will deliver limited results in the short term.

The fact that the Ministry has now regained traction with postgrad ITE, in spite of the current oversupply situation, is perhaps a sign of the Government’s commitment to raising the profile of the teaching profession. It also appears to support the prediction that in a few years time, more teachers will be needed.

“The Government is focused on strengthening the teaching profession as a central part of a larger strategy to lift overall education system performance,” said Parata upon announcing the initiative in October. “Improving the quality of ITE provision is an important element of that strategy.”

Teacher education providers will unsurprisingly be pleased by the move to postgrad. The news is less pleasing for those grads already struggling to find work.

Newly qualified early childhood teacher, Brent Amer, told the Dominion Post that he fears one year postgrad diploma courses are turning teaching into a fallback profession for graduates who don’t know what else to do.

“Universities are in competition with each other.

They can easily fill these courses. It’s flooded the market big-time,” he said.

So while the shift to postgrad ITE is perceived to be in the future interests of the teaching profession, newly qualified teachers currently facing a fiercely competitive job market are perhaps a little more reluctant to celebrate the Government’s move. 

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The push-pull for Kiwi teachers teaching overseas The lack of teaching jobs currently available in New Zealand is pushing many new teacher graduates to look for employment in other countries. In our last issue, we met Christian Brienesse, who found employment in the UK through an overseas teaching agency after having difficulty finding a teaching position in New Zealand. His experience is echoed by many Kiwi teachers.

Last year, an Education Ministrycontracted speaker suggested to a group of teaching diploma students at Victoria University that they may have to seek employment overseas as there would only be jobs in New Zealand for 20 per cent of them. While this caused a furore at the time, it does appear to echo, anecdotally, what many grads are being told by their providers upon finishing their courses.

Yet Kiwi teachers need to be cautious when seeking employment abroad, as it appears New Zealand’s current oversupply situation is echoed in many parts of the world. Australia is experiencing a similar outcry, with new teacher graduates out of work. The Commonwealth Contrarian suggests that the situation is currently much the same in many countries, notably Canada, where graduate unemployment in Ontario is now running at 68 per cent. The BBC reported in late 2011 that up to 95 per cent of new qualified teachers had been unable to secure full-time jobs in Northern Ireland.

The other obvious deterrent for the newly qualified student heading overseas is the hefty interest they have to start paying on their student loans.

Then there are the Government’s measures to clamp down on overseasbased borrowers.

“Surely, any campaign to get tough on debtors needs to be dwarfed by a much more important campaign to get tough on the causes of debt,” states Alistair Shaw, Executive Director of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations in Eduvac, of the sanctions introduced this year.

“There needs to be a focus on the lack of proper jobs that enable graduates to pay back their loans and simultaneously addressing high fees and students borrowing to live that causes the debt in the first place.”

That aside, teaching abroad is offering many New Zealand teachers valuable experience and opportunities at a time when work may be hard to come back home. Kiwi teachers are typically wellregarded overseas, a testament to the teacher education programmes in New Zealand.

Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013 21

School profiling

Rethinking

deciles

Suburban competition

The thing about the Papamoa schools is that they’re all good; they all have good reputations – you can’t really go wrong, and yet, such tension prevailed among the parents of soon-to-be fiveyear-olds. It got me thinking: if a relatively small and easy-going community like Papamoa can

22 Education in Review 2013 Education Reviewseries

produce such competition, then it must be tenfold in city suburbs.

An Auckland friend with young children confirmed this. The tactics employed to get out-of zone placements, the gossip, and the comparison of deciles, national standards, and others’ anecdotal experience all played a part in “choosing” where to send your five-year-old, she said.

There is nothing wrong with a parent wanting to make the best decision for their child, but when that decision is made on the socio economic profile of the school, rather than zone, performance, and other factors, it is worrying.

A parent interviewed by the Bay of Plenty Times recently admitted that she sent her daughter to Otumoetai Primary rather than a nearer lower decile school because she thought a higher decile school would be a “better-run school with less bullying”.

A Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) paper, produced for the union’s annual conference, outlined several problems of the decile system, including the criticism that deciles were being misused by parents as a measure of a school’s quality and a way to compare academic performance.

“The belief of parents that high decile means better education exacerbates the divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in our education system. Some schools deliberately seek to influence their intake so that their decile is raised and the school is seen as more successful,” the report says.

Indeed, the oft-mentioned “white flight” – the exodus of Pākehā/European students from low decile schools – is supported

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Until recently, I hadn’t given too much thought to which school my children, aged four and three, would attend. The one “down the road” would suffice, I’d always thought.

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P

apamoa is a growing coastal suburb in the Bay of Plenty. It’s a fairly under-the-radar sort of place, sandwiched between its touristy big brother Mount Maunganui and more rural Te Puke. A lot of young families live there, including mine. Lots of young families mean lots of schools; there are four primary schools – one newly built – and a high school, also new.

Until recently, I hadn’t given too much thought to which school my children, aged four and three, would attend. The one “down the road” would suffice, I’d always thought.

However, after my son and his peers turned four, it became apparent that other parents weren’t taking such a relaxed approach.

Despite strict zoning in place, my mummy friends all scheduled meetings and tours with most of the schools, then compared notes, eager to know where others were sending their children.

Out-of-zone ballot dates were well known, but it transpired that connections with staff were just as valuable for securing an out-of-zone place.

Most alarmingly, it was the decile ratings of the schools that appeared to sway most opinion.

National standards were discussed, briefly, but being somewhat harder to obtain – and for the first-time school parent to understand – the focus turned to decile ratings. While there is little difference between the deciles of the Papamoa schools, it became clear that most parents had a bias towards the higher decile schools. The argument that the lower the decile, the more funding the school received, did little to change their minds.

Despite unrest around the current school decile system, the Ministry of Education says there are no plans yet for a formal review. JUDE BARBACK considers what’s in a number.

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The Ministry actively monitors and assesses the impact of the different components of school funding, including decile funding, but there is no formal review underway.

by Ministry figures showing that the number of Pākehā /European students at decile 1 secondary schools dropped from 60,000 to 30,000 between 2000 and 2010.

Last year, the Education Review Office (ERO) made the decision to scrap decile ratings from its school reports in an effort to “correct the stereotype that a school’s decile equals performance”. The Ministry of Education supports ERO’s stance.

A few years ago, visiting Fulbright scholar, Christopher Lubienski, researched this subject and found that many schools are aware of this conflation, and many play on it in their marketing to parents who perceive it as a measure of school quality.

Obviously, the better the decile, the better positioned schools are to gain from any confusion on the matter. Lubienski’s research found that lower decile schools tend not to note their decile ranking on their homepage. Higher deciles have a much greater tendency to trumpet their rankings, “even though it provides parents with virtually no direct information about the quality of education at the school. Instead, it apparently tells parents about the ‘quality’ of their child’s potential peers at a given school.”

It is rational to expect school leaders to promote higher decile ratings if it will help their school, but Lubienski says these patterns also suggest a systemic perversion of the purpose of the decile system, which is designed to offer advantages to schools serving poorer kids but has apparently been turned into a marketable indicator of affluence.

Proposed changes

Under the current system, schools are assigned a decile rating based on the household information of a random sample of students. Decile 1 schools are the 10 per cent of schools with the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic communities, whereas decile 10 schools are the 10 per cent with the lowest proportion of such students. Decile ratings are then used to account for about 13 per cent of all operational funding.

However, the PPTA wants to replace the single decile figure with a more detailed socioeconomic profile of each school using a wide range of data. It is not the first time calls for change have been made. Last year, the New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) said clear information about the social and economic context of schools should be published in place of decile ratings. The union suggested that data on student transience, the number of children with special needs or English as a second

language, and the number of children attending breakfast clubs would potentially be more use than a mere number.

The report claims that the system is too narrow and does not measure the average wealth of the school community: “Two schools in the same decile may have significant differences in the socio-economic mix of their students. A large school in the middle decile may have just as many students requiring special assistance as a small lower decile school.”

Many support this view; among them, Dave Randell, principal of decile 8 Otumoetai College.

He told the Bay of Plenty Times about a quarter of his students were from well-to-do areas but a large chunk were also from low-income areas.

“We need to look at the whole profile of a school. There’s got to be a better way of doing this. Our decile rating doesn’t address our school’s needs. The system is archaic and needs a major review to address inequitable funding.”

Linton Camp School in Palmerton North has also been protesting its decile 10 rating on the basis that transient army parents don’t earn enough on average to warrant the high decile, which results in less government funding.

However, the Ministry of Education told Education Review that there were no plans to change the decile system just yet.

“The Ministry actively monitors and assesses the impact of the different components of school funding, including decile funding, but there is no formal review underway,” said deputy secretary for student achievement Rowena Phair.

Some have also expressed their caution about replacing the decile system with anything new.

Waikato Principals’ Association president John Coulam said that while he supported a review, he did not necessarily think the current system was “broken”.

“If there is a better system, we should be open to it,” he told the Waikato Times. However, he said there was not a “bottomless bucket” of money for education and any redistribution of funds would create “winners and losers”.

Parents continue to draw the wrong conclusions from the number stamped on each school and some schools continue to feel aggrieved that their funding doesn’t accurately reflect the socio-economic demographics of their school community. A formal review may not be underway just yet, but it would seem there is enough dissatisfaction with the current system to warrant one in the next few years. 

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Education Reviewseries Education in Review 2013 23

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