I’m very pleased to have been part of the working group looking at the Adult Literacy and Numeracy Education (ALNE) qualifications this week. These qualifications are part of the Mandatory Review of Teacher Education Qualifications that is underway at the moment.
It feels a little weird doing this after being asked to put my name forward for the governance group and then being turned down… and then not putting my name forward for the working group and being asked to join…
However, I’m happy to be involved now. Actually, I’ve been trying to get involved on the NZQA development side of things for these qualifications since 2007 when I started this work.
One of my reflections this week is that I think there has been a shift in the sector in terms of who the established experts are. I think the group we had working on the ALNE qualifications were highly qualified in terms of their experience working with the existing qualifications and that we’ve done a good job in terms of shaping this content moving forward.
I’ll post more about where I think we’re heading with the three qualifications at some stage soon, but for now the three qualifications are starting to look distinct in the following way:
- NCALNE (Voc): This will probably become the New Zealand Certificate in Adult Literacy & Numeracy Education (Vocational/workplace) or NZCALNE (Voc) for short. This is what I have a vested interest in at the moment as it represents the next evolution of what I’ve been working with since 2007. We’re not looking at too many radical changes here. The knowledge base behind this is well established now and we’re simply going to tighten things up, reduce some clutter, and give some more weight to the practical hands on teaching component. The focus here is on trades tutors and others who are embedding literacy and numeracy into specific content.
- NCALNE (Ed): This will probably become the New Zealand Certificate in Adult Literacy & Numeracy Education (Educator) and abbreviated to NZCALNE (Ed). There are were some questions around whether we actually need this qualification. However, it looks like it’s going to stay around. The focus here remains on developing literacy and numeracy specialists. One of the major changes to this qualification is that it will have an equal focus on both numeracy and literacy. There isn’t really much numeracy in the qual as it stands. I don’t deliver this one so I’m less interested in it.
- NDipALNE: This is likely to become the New Zealand Diploma in Adult Literacy & Numeracy Education and abbreviated to something like NZDALNE. I am interested in this one. I’ve spent awhile recently with my head stuck in the existing unit standards which I find a bloated and academic. This qualification is looking at the biggest amount of change – which is probably fine given that it’s not being delivered anywhere yet. We’re looking at a much simplified structure and something that lines up much better with the other two qualifications. Where the focus in the Voc will be on trades and content specialists, and the Ed on specialists, the focus here will be on developing and recognising literacy and numeracy leadership with a very approach including a couple of large action research projects.
Who is the audience for the Level 6 120 credit Diploma?
This is one of my big questions. For now it seems that we can have a wide audience for the Diploma as we’ve framed it up over the last couple of days. This is likely to include our graduates from the NCALNE (Voc) who are trades tutors developing some serious expertise in literacy and numeracy and graduates from the NCALNE (Educator) who are more traditional LN experts and specialists
But it is also likely to now include others such as programme managers and leaders or champions inside organisations of different kinds with an strong interest in driving literacy and numeracy related organisational change.
Let me know in the comments how this is sounding… Are we on the right track?
