Whakarāpopoto Executive Summary An Expert Advisory Panel was set up in December 2020, under the auspices of Royal Society Te Apārangi, to provide an independent source of expertise to the Ministry of Education on improving teaching, learning and assessment in the Technology learning area. The Panel met a number of times and through its deliberations reached consensus on a number of findings. Aotearoa New Zealand has a world-leading curriculum in the Technology learning area. There are clear benefits to all students of successful study in the learning area. The two big ideas – technological literacy as an enabler for people to live a dignified and successful life in the face of ever-changing technology, and multi-disciplinary, purposeful, innovative knowledge-rich practice – continue to be as relevant to the needs and aspirations of this country as they were 30 years ago. Broad-based ‘Technology education for all’ is aligned to the goals of this country to be a nation of world-leading innovators. Research evidence shows that the potential benefits of the curriculum have been realised when teachers have had sufficient professional development and support. In the more recent absence of that support, there has been a discernible drift back to technical education, with this being inadvertently supported by an overly permissive NCEA assessment matrix that allowed students to obtain 14 credits without really achieving proficiency aligned to the big ideas of the curriculum. In effect, by a series of incremental changes, largely in response to the petitions of lobby groups, the totality of the curriculum and the senior school assessment in the Technology learning area gradually lost its coherence around the big ideas and the three fundamental strands of the curriculum at the core of the Technology learning area. Learning for all students in this country will be enriched if it draws as much on Mātauranga Māori as on knowledge derived from ‘western’ science, and on methods from kaupapa Māori, such as rangahau, as well as from the technological practices framed in the western world. Technology in this country needs to be firmly embedded in the cultural and social contexts of the nation fully implementing the key principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Although relatively few in number, students studying hangarau need as much consideration as other technology students.
3 Royal Society Te Apārangi
