Press release below from the MOE shows that improving adult LN remains a priority
The Tertiary Education Strategy 2014-19
5 March 2014
The Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) 2014-19 has been released by the Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce today.
The strategy focuses on ensuring an outward-facing and engaged tertiary education system, with strong links to industry, community and the global economy.
The first steps to achieving these shifts are outlined in the strategy’s six priorities:
- Delivering skills for industry
- Getting at-risk young people into a career
- Boosting achievement of Māori and Pasifika
- Improving adult literacy and numeracy
- Strengthening research-based institutions
- Growing international linkages
The Tertiary Education Strategy 2014-2019 is available on the Ministry of Education website.
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Anything else would have been a great loss.
The first, third and forth are all intertwined tightly. For example, my current class is 80% Maori and requires Step six numeracy skills to be able to develop the trade skills and enter the target vocation (engineering). There is no way these guys will complete the programme and develop the skills unless they develop a whole lot of numeracy skills really fast (And they will). But if you removed anyone of these it would be like removing a taha.
As to strengthening research-based institutions the writing was on the wall. I recommend every organisation I work with to get going with this. PTE’s for example do not realise how well positioned they are to generate great research. Whether it be action research or full on quantitative research they should be aggressively pursuing this and feeding it back into their practice and advertising it like crazy.
Half the problem is the skills shortage and funding of course.
Hi Damon… Thanks, yes… I concur.
Although, it’s hard for PTEs to do the least that they need to do let alone do something like action or quantitative research. Most PTE tutors and managers don’t have enough time to deal with the demands of everyday teaching, administration, and related compliance. So this goes to funding and lack of skilled people to do this kind of work as you’ve highlighted.
I’m not sure that there’s a good solution to this either. The current drive is to greater efficiencies. This means that providers will be looking for ways to cut costs. Big costs for PTEs are of course staff salaries and buildings.
One possible way forward would be for tertiary institutions to partner with bigger organisations who can sponsor some of the infrastructure, e.g. provide a building and IT support.
Another solution is for industry to step up and take on this role, perhaps like the Google Campus in the US. Unfortunately, here in the NZ our whole country is the size of a small town globally speaking.