Act on lockdown advances
The Government must now focus on the opportunities the Covid-19 pandemic has provided our country, not just the threats. In an education sense, we’ve heard about the disruption the pandemic caused to students and teachers, and its impact on assessments. We’ve heard less about just how clever our education providers and students have been in advancing their digital capability. By that, I mean successfully fast-tracking their ability to educate and learn online.
The sector now needs to make the most of this significant online uptake, with the growth of e-learning inevitable. Conservatively, by 2030 online learning will make up about 50 per cent of a secondary school student’s education time. There is nothing to fear. Face-to-face teaching at physical schools and extra-curricular activities will always play a key role in education, and so they should.
The time is ripe for greater access to online learning, something Covid-19 has shown can work better for many. According to the World Economic Forum in April, research shows that, on average, students retain 25 to 60 per cent of material when learning online, compared with only 8 to 10 per cent in a classroom.
However, for it to be effective, it needs to be real-time, live teaching with small ‘‘virtual’’ classes. Despite all the technology we have, it’s still about a brilliant teacher leading a classroom and inspiring young minds. Students at online schools can benefit from accessing the world’s best teachers in a particular field, not just the best teacher in their school or region.
Already many New Zealand students are discovering that part-time online schooling, for the likes of A-levels, is a good way to accelerate and get ahead. In addition to their existing school studies, more students are accessing international curricula recognised by the world’s most competitive universities.
This is not about being down on New Zealand’s qualifications framework. This is about providing students with choice as they prepare for an increasingly globalised and diverse workforce.
The Government has done well in recent years upgrading many school campuses. The focus must now be on the students themselves, and improving their opportunities and ability to learn.
Some secondary schools already provide choice when it comes to offering students internationally recognised papers and qualifications. Regardless of whether access to global qualifications in our state system is widened or not, let’s invest in our best and brightest.
Ideas could include students receiving acceleration credits to be used for online instruction from recognised providers. An online training academy could be established to upskill our education leaders, and perhaps the worst-performing remote physical schools, with substandard facilities or poor access to teachers, could be digitally replaced in part or whole.
In 2019, 3283 school students were suspended, up by more than 25 per cent on five years earlier. At the same time,
12 per cent of that year’s school leavers, or 7464, had no NCEA qualification, up from 11 per cent in
2018. Collectively, that’s more than
10,000 young Kiwis a year mostly off to a poor start to adulthood.
Worsening behavioural issues, and falling standards and attendance, affect wider student achievement. Today’s high achievers and academically ambitious have to work around myriad distractions that modern-day life at schools brings. Sure, streaming helps, but providing greater choice as to how they learn would be a gamechanger.
The 21st century guarantees rapid change, with adaptation vital. It will see schooling become less parochial in terms of curriculum and assessment.
Increasingly, school leavers will find themselves in an international workplace or tertiary institution, and in competition with people from other countries. Their credentials will need to have global currency.
Our education sector is at a juncture. Let’s not return to business as usual, let’s be open to new ideas and structures.