Educators keen to use online platforms

THE Learning Place director Pieter van de Klundert says the impending release of NCEA achievement standards online is ‘‘gamechanging’’.

The Dunedinbased private training provider has partnered with Aucklandbased LearnCoach to create Flipped.

Through the collaboration, it would allow learners to learn online through the LearnCoach platform and earn NCEA credits through The Learning Place.

It could be used by the likes of schools wherea full range of subjects was not available or where class sizes were too big, by pupils unable to attend due to ill health, and there were also opportunities for adults to go back and complete studies.

It had been a ‘‘pretty massive’’ undertaking and was the result of three years of hard work. It was due to be released in the next couple of months, Mr van de Klundert said.

LearnCoach, which provided online teaching, was founded by Dave Cameron, who was the 2018 Young New Zealander of the Year, and doctor and former beauty queen Deborah Lambie.

The sector was ‘‘understandably cautious’’ because it was such a new initiative, but Mr van de Klundert said it was ‘‘pretty exciting stuff’’.

It went back to one of The Learning Place’s most important values which was accessibility of education. Eventually, there would be about 100 achievement standards on the platform.

The Learning Place was the single largest provider of vocational education within secondary schools, with about 6000 candidates a year.

Mr van de Klundert said the education sector was in interesting times because of the recent announcement that a new national body would take over all of New Zealand’s 110,000 polytechnic students and 140,000 apprentices and industry trainees.

The proposed NZ Institute of Skills and Technology would take over programme design and administration for all campuses of what were now 16 separate polytechnics.

It would also take over enrolling and managing apprentices and industry trainees from what were now 11 industry training organisations.

He believed the changes were good but expected there would be some ‘‘collateral damage’’ across the industry.

It would be a shame to lose the regional flavour of polytechnics but he did not think that necessarily was the goal of the changes.

‘‘I think they will still support that regional flavour . . . I think there will still be a desire to reflect the needs of the regional community,’’ he said.

The moves were ‘‘really bold’’ and the ‘‘devil is going to be in the detail’’ to see how it all came out.

The Learning Place had made a conscious decision to stay away from government funding at this time. It was running a lean but robust business model and it could do that from Dunedin.

He was enthusiastic about collaboration and partnerships, citing the example with LearnCoach and also its partnership with fellow Dunedinbased business ADInstruments. It used ADI’s kuraCloud online learning platform.

The Learning Place originally started delivering health and safety compliance for the liquor and food industries and then branched out into other areas.

It recently launched hazardous substances training as a legislation change last year meant about 150,000 people had to ‘‘come up to speed’’.