Appendix 4

Reflections on the New Zealand Educational Environment and the Correspondence School

Sally Rawnsley - General Manager, Educational Resources

The New Zealand Correspondence school

Change seems to have been a constant theme in all sectors in most countries over the past 10 to 15 years. Education in New Zealand is no exception. Far-reaching reforms have been implemented in New Zealand over the past decade and are ongoing. The New Zealand Correspondence School has had to keep pace with this while facing up to changes in its own circumstances and the need to meet new challenges.

The New Zealand educational environment

Restructuring under Tomorrow’s Schools

The introduction of Tomorrow’s Schools in 1989 brought the concept of self-managing schools into New Zealand. Primary and secondary schools are now governed by an elected Board of Trustees, comprising the principal, staff representative, student representative (in the case of secondary schools), parents, and coopted members. Parents form the majority group on the board so that the community has the power to influence decision-making at the school, within the framework of the National Curriculum and National Administrative and Education Guidelines.

There have been some teething troubles with the new system, mainly of two types. The first is where there are fundamental and insurmountable differences of opinion or approach between the Principal and the Board leading to a complete breakdown in the Board’s ability to govern. The second is where the community simply lacks enough people with the skills and expertise required for the work of a Board of Trustees. This is particularly an issue for very small communities (of which there are many in New Zealand) or communities in poor socio-economic areas. In a situation where a Board can no longer carry out its function and has to be disestablished, the Government has the power to appoint a commissioner to tide the school over till a new Board can be established.

However, despite the occasional difficulties as outlined above, there is no groundswell of desire to go back to the old system of centralized education boards. The concept that parents and communities can and should have a say in the governance of their schools has been well and truly accepted and embraced. The New Zealand School Trustees’ Association provides support and guidance for Boards, is the mouthpiece for trustees, and liaises with and lobbies Government. Over time, the difference between management (being the role of the principal and senior staff in the school) and governance (being the role of the Board) has become better understood by all concerned and problems have become less common.

Boards feel they can have an influence over:

Decisions on how to use operational funds;

Cultural input;

Curriculum decisions;

Ability to purchase and make other similar decisions more directly / quickly / flexibly; and

Appointment of staff.

The 1989 restructuring of the New Zealand education system spelled the demise of the old Department of Education (transformed into a ‘leaner, meaner’ policy-setting organization – the Ministry of Education), and brought into being two new bodies – the Education Review Office (ERO) and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), both of which are separate from the Ministry. The role of ERO is to monitor and report on the effectiveness of schools. It asks: is this school doing a good job of educating and providing a safe and healthy environment for its students? ERO has the power to recommend changes in schools and must revisit to monitor progress towards compliance. However, what ERO is not chartered to do is to provide advice and guidance on how a school might achieve improvement. This role, which was formerly undertaken by the old Inspectorate division of the Department of Education, is now unfilled. In my opinion, that is a retrograde step and one that is not consistent with what we as educators know about the negative effects of criticism without the benefits of advice and guidance!

Changes to the National Qualifications Framework

In the last year, the role of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has begun to change. It no longer has total control of all qualifications (the Ministry of Education has taken back some of this role), but rather has a functional or administrative role. These changes have come about as a result of:

•       NZQA being seen as too powerful;

•      The functional split between the Ministry of Education and NZQA being considered inimical to progress;

•      Teacher resistance to the Qualifications Framework on the basis of workload and philosophy;

•      A community perception that the changes to the qualifications system ( a move from external assessment to internally-assessed unit standards) started in 1989 were too radical;

•      The difficulties NZQA have had in conveying the nature of the changes to the community;

•      Powerful pressure groups (often from the more traditional, academic schools) resisting change, particularly because of the pass-fail model of unit standards (no grades or recognition of excellence).

In 1999, the Minister of Education announced that substantial modifications to the Qualifications Framework unit standard system would be put in place by 2001. In February 2000, the new Minister announced that the changes would be delayed until 2002 to allow time for professional development, the development of resources, and some trialing. The 1999 initiative – Achievement 2001 – sets up the National Certificate of Employment Skills (vocational) and makes the National Certificate of Educational Achievement the sole general qualification at years 11, 12, and 13.

The new system:

         Moves to incorporate external examinations into the system. (The Qualifications Framework had been designed to assess students solely on the achievement of unit standards as judged by teachers and moderated within schools and across the country. However, the old examinations – School Certificate at year 11 and Bursary at year 13 – had not been done away with as originally intended because of lack of progress in fully implementing unit standards in part, at least, because of teacher, school and community resistance. So New Zealand has had a hybrid qualifications system for some years.) It is intended that half of NCEA credit should derive from external assessment in conventional school subjects.

         Sets up a clear distinction between unit standards (vocational education) and achievement standards (general education).

Allows for the recognition of excellence in both internal and external assessment.

Establishes a compulsory common core for both the NCES and NCEA.

Leads seamlessly to other specialist certificates and diplomas.

Allows students to tap into a range of studies within and beyond the school curriculum.

Is based on a mix of internal and external assessment.

Reduces the amount of costly, time-consuming moderation currently applied to the NZQF.

Moves to broader ‘packages’ (standards) in general education to

Minimize fragmentation of learning

Capture wider aspects of learning that were not easily captured by the check box

list approach of unit standards

Rationalize and reduce assessment workload.

There are, in my opinion, lessons which can be learned from the New Zealand experience of educational reform over the last ten years in terms of educational administration, curriculum and qualifications:

1.    The Government tried to achieve too much too fast. Even in a country as comparatively well resourced as New Zealand and with a very well-trained teacher workforce, the pace of change has been overwhelming and has resulted in resistance.

2.    Implementation of new curricula appears to have succeeded better than changes to the qualifications system. This is partly due to a significant investment by the Government in professional development for teachers in the new curriculum areas and a (just) manageable timeframe of around ten years to achieve full implementation of the seven essential learning areas. In addition, the Government has commissioned the development of some excellent support materials to assist teachers in the classroom.

3.    It is difficult to get acceptance from all stakeholders (for example, parents, teachers, employers) of a new qualifications system. The NQF has not been wholeheartedly embraced by either the education or the employer sector. This may be the result of a failure to communicate a clear vision of the new system, but it also results from a perception on the part of traditionalists that any change to the qualifications system meant a drop in standards.

4.     Reform on a scale such as that attempted in New Zealand requires a massive underpinning commitment to professional development and the development of supporting curricular materials and assessment exemplars.

5.    Government must recognize the lead-in time required by a distance education institution to implement changes to curriculum and qualifications, as revising learning materials is costly and time-consuming.

6.    Teacher workload has been a significant stumbling block. Principals, too, have had an enormously increased set of responsibilities since the introduction of the self-managing school.

7.     It is difficult to get comprehensive information coverage out to all interested parties and to achieve consensus amongst stakeholders.

Education as a commercial activity

Education in New Zealand at early childhood, primary and secondary levels is regulated by mechanisms such as:

Teacher registration standards;

Accreditation by the NZ Qualifications Authority;

National Administrative Guidelines;

National Education Guidelines;

The Education Review Office;

National Curriculum Framework; and

National Qualifications Framework.

However, the 1989 reforms of education in New Zealand encouraged the growth of private providers, particularly in the area of vocational training and teacher education. Some of these providers have been found to be offering sub-standard courses and have had to be closed down. This has undermined confidence in the structures and mechanisms that were intended to ensure quality.

Another concern has to do with growth of the Internet and education as a global commodity. Schools are encouraged to use the Internet to provide a richer learning environment for students. For this to be a successful educational strategy requires teacher upskilling, the acquisition of critical skills by students, and vigilance on the part of parents and teachers. There is, as we all know, a lot of junk out there on the Worldwide Web. There is already some resistance to the ‘Coca-colonization’ of New Zealand culture by the US media especially, and that concern is spreading to the education sector as huge global companies seek to enter the education market.

Over the last ten years, the New Zealand Government has encouraged competition in the education sector. Schools and tertiary institutions have spent considerable sums of money on marketing themselves, money which almost certainly would have been better spent on students. The recently elected (November 1999) Labour Government looks set to push for more cooperation and partnerships rather than contestability, but it is too soon to gauge the effect of this on the education sector (including the Correspondence School).

The New Zealand Correspondence School

Background

The Correspondence School was established in 1922 to serve the needs of mainly rural and isolated students at primary and secondary level who could not access conventional schools because of distance or terrain. The Correspondence School provided all their education for these full-time students.

In the 1940s, the New Zealand Government allowed adults to enrol in Correspondence School courses for ‘second chance’ education at a nominal fee (just for postage effectively). This practice continues today – there are currently about 7,000 adults on the roll. (Total roll is around 18,000, which equates to roughly 7,000 equivalent full-time students or EFTS).

An Early Childhood Service for under-fives was established at the Correspondence School in 1976 and special education services are also part of the School’s mandate. Dual enrolments for special education students in primary began in 1951, for early childhood in 1997 and in the early 1950s for secondary.

The Correspondence School has always been fully funded by the Government and seen as an integral part of the state education system in New Zealand. It has in fact, been seen as something of an icon in New Zealand – a venerable institution which has played a major role in the lives of (especially rural) families. Students have always been able to acquire formal school qualifications through the Correspondence School, and there is no sense that these qualifications are in any way inferior because they were obtained through the distance education system. However, the School has always been considered a ‘last resort’ option. Enrolment in the School is strictly controlled by criteria set by the Ministry of Education. Open enrolment on the basis of choice is not permitted.

The Correspondence School has recently pointed out again, this time to a new government, that contestability is a two-way street: if the School is expected to compete for students, it should be on a level playing field. In other words, anyone who wishes to enrol with the School should be able to do so. There is evidence of potential demand.

Currently students can be enrolled under the following categories

Full-time primary and secondary students for reasons of:

–   Being in the custody or under the guardianship of a state agency;

–   Exclusion or expulsion from school;

–   Isolation;

–   Itinerancy;

–   Medical condition;

–   Truancy from conventional school;

–   Pregnancy;

–   Psychological/psycho-social; and

–   Special circumstances, for example, elite athlete or performer.

Overseas students:

–   Children of New Zealand citizens or long-term residents travelling or working overseas and intending to return to New Zealand.

Adult students:

–    New Zealanders and Australians resident in New Zealand;

–    Aged over 16 (or 15 with an exemption certificate -Ministry of Education);

–    Not attending any other school.

Early Childhood for reasons of:

–     Medical condition;

–     Isolation;

–     Special development needs;

–     Itinerancy; and

–     Special circumstances at Director’s discretion.

Early Childhood dual enrolment:

–     Enrolled at face-to-face early childhood ut no more than two sessions weekly

–     Access to face-to-face service limited by distance or service availability.

Secondary dual enrolment in a conventional secondary school because:

*     Subject unavailable (for transferring students);

*     Very small class size (uneconomic to run); and

*     Timetable clash and no teacher available;

Primary dual enrolment:

–        Students enrolled in conventional primary schools who have special educational needs:

*     Learning difficulties;

*     Physical or intellectual disability;

*     Special ability (gifted and talented).

Fee-paying students:

–        Students who are not entitled to a government-funded place at the Correspondence School but fulfil ‘exemption from attending school’ criteria.

Impact of technology

Originally, the only means of communication between school and student was the postal system, but over the years since 1922 other means of communication have been added to the mix. School days and camps were organized in the regions so that children and their parents could come together and gain support and social experiences. Audio cassettes are used in virtually every one of the School’s approximately 300 courses. The use of video cassette is increasing, as is CD-ROM.

Telephone charges in New Zealand have dropped steadily in recent years, so the telephone has become a major tool in the area of taking the ‘distance’ out of distance education. E-mail is also being used by Correspondence School teachers and students for learner support and pastoral care, and the Correspondence School is embarking on a major initiative to put course materials online.

The ICT revolution is increasingly transforming education in general. The impact on the Correspondence School manifests itself in three key areas:

Growth of competition

Changing expectations of stakeholders;

Impact on staff.

The Correspondence School has effectively had a monopoly on the provision of distance education at early childhood and school level in New Zealand for the past 78 years. In a print-based world, it has never been economically viable for other providers to compete with the School for a market as small as New Zealand’s. However, ICT, particularly the Internet, is changing everything! Alternative providers are gearing up now to offer educational resources on-line within New Zealand and to serve overseas markets.

Even Conventional schools in New Zealand are offering online courses to other schools that are unable to offer a particular subject themselves. Of course, the quality of these offerings is not uniformly high. It is of some concern to me that enthusiasm for new technologies and the pace of change may be blinding educators to quality issues. Teachers, students, parents, and government officials (especially Education Review Officers) will all have to quickly acquire some critical skills in order to evaluate online materials rigorously.

The Correspondence School is committed to putting course materials online, while maintaining high standards of instructional design and pedagogy. To do this well is time-consuming and expensive – others may get in first with a ‘quick and dirty’ product. However, to do it badly could spell the death of the Correspondence School’s reputation as a developer of high quality learning materials.

Quality and brand are particularly important in an environment as public as the Internet. As mentioned earlier, enrolment criteria set by government control most of the School’s enrolments within New Zealand, but the Internet provides opportunities for the School to market its services and products globally, thus generating new revenue and reducing dependence on government funding.

The New Zealand Government, other schools, parents, and students all expect the Correspondence School to become a more high tech, online organization. This is despite the fact that the Government in New Zealand has actually committed very little money to ICT in education (NZ$14 million over three years from 1999 for the whole country), despite a lot of rhetoric about the need to ‘upskill’ for the new so-called global knowledge economy. No extra money at all has so far come from Government to the Correspondence School for ICT development, although the School has just submitted a business case to the Ministry of Education asking for a large injection of funds to enable it to transform itself into an online provider.

It is interesting to note that there is quite a lot of demand from other New Zealand schools that have students enrolled with the Correspondence School for it to deliver distance learning materials in alternative ways. However, when we have done trails delivering online courses into schools over the past two years we have found that schools are not actually well enough set up technologically to receive them. The same applies to many Correspondence School families – expectations often outstrip the level of skills and equipment available to make online teaching and learning a frustration-free reality.

A change in the pedagogical model brought about by new technologies means that many teachers will have to upskill and become competent in a completely new teaching environment. For the Correspondence School this is a significant issue as the majority of the 350 teaching staff have worked in the School for a long time (average around 20 years) and the average age of staff is 56. The cost of replacing staff and assisting them to acquire appropriate skills and understandings will be high.

The cost of moving to an online delivery model is, of course, very high. The School estimates it will need around NZ$45 million over the next three years to effect the transformation. This includes the cost of reversioning existing print-based courses for Web-based delivery, developing new purpose-built multimedia courses, building the systems architecture and interfaces with existing School systems to cope with demand, and retraining staff. The pressure to achieve change is increasing along with the competition. The challenge for the Correspondence School will be to maintain quality and existing services, while trying to push ahead and achieve a dramatic transformation.

Tomorrow's schools and the correspondence school

The impact of Tomorrow’s Schools on the New Zealand Correspondence School has been generally beneficial. Among the benefits are:

Freedom to select and appoint staff;

Bulk funding which provides the School substantial resources with which to work; and

Autonomy in decision-making over issues such as setting fees (for those students

who are not ‘entitled’).

After ten years of governance by a Board of Trustees constituted in exactly the same way as Boards of conventional schools, it is becoming increasingly clear that this model is not appropriate or effective for such a large, national institution.

The Correspondence School’s ‘community’ spreads throughout New Zealand and even overseas. Even with the use of technologies such as teleconferencing, the dispersed nature of the Board’s membership makes it difficult for the board to meet regularly, run subcommittees, and generally keep up the level and type of communication needed to run an institution as large and complex as the Correspondence School. There are many, very diverse student groupings on the School’s roll, some of whose interests are not reflected in the current make-up of the Board.

The budget of the Correspondence School is around NZ$30 million. Most elected parent representatives have no experience in working on this scale, and the Board is heavily dependent on members coopted from the corporate world or from high-level jobs in the public sector. These people, however, tend to be very busy and can find it hard to fit their Board work in around their other responsibilities.

For these sorts of reasons, Government is now looking at reconstituting the Correspondence School Board to better suit it to its role – perhaps along the lines of a tertiary institution council. This initiative will require a change of legislation, and is currently only in the consultation and research phase.

Funding and eligibility

Correspondence School is bulk-funded on an EFTS-based formula. The formula pays on the basis of student ‘engagement’, so it is in the interests of the School to ensure that students return work for marking. The formula pays, on average, slightly more per student enrolled at the Correspondence School than for students in conventional schools. The reason for this is unclear, but seems to be a legacy of a series of decisions made over many years in relation to the School’s funding formula.

In recent years, Government has been moving towards a more rigorous Purchase Agreement with the School, whereby the expectations of the School’s outputs and performance are spelled out and must be reported on. While Government has recently clarified criteria for Correspondence school enrolment, it has also pushed ahead with a policy of putting the provision of education closer to the local client base (for example, by setting up school-based alternative education centres to cater for alienated students). This has had the effect, albeit officially unintentional, of reducing the School’s roll in some categories. This, in turn, will lead to a drop in government funding.

Currently the School derives only about 3% of its income from non-government sources. This income is obtained from fee-paying students (those who do not meet the Ministry’s enrolment criteria) and ‘licence-to-use’ arrangements with other schools that wish to have access to the Correspondence School materials but do not require a full teaching service for their students.

Changing student profile

Over the past fifteen years, the profile of students enrolling with the Correspondence School has changed significantly. Among the reasons for this are:

•      Political and economic change leading to the poor getting poorer and rich getting richer. This has led to wealthy parents finding other options for their children’s education (for example, boarding school) and more social breakdown in poor families leading to greatly increased numbers of suspensions and expulsions from conventional schools;

•      Increased unemployment leading to more itinerancy as families move around looking for work;

•      More students presenting with psychological problems (the result of societal breakdown?);

•      Raising of the school-leaving age from 15 to 16, combined with unemployment, leading to increased numbers of non-academic students still in school.

The overall result of this is that the School needs to modify its course materials to provide:

•      More courses at lower levels of the curriculum;

•      More courses specifically aimed at students with a low reading age;

•      Courses that are more flexible and can be broken down into modules or small units;

•      Resources that are stand-alone and flexible to plug gaps;

•      Materials that cater more effectively for visual and kinaesthetic learners;

•      Materials that motivate and engage reluctant learners; and

•      More immediate and intensive feedback to learners.

The School believes that all of these challenges – but particularly the needs listed in the last three bullet points – can be dealt with more effectively by use of high quality, flexible, lively online resources. Ironically, though, the students whose need for multimedia learning resources is greatest are the least likely to have access to the technology.

Differentiated services and products

To meet the needs of students and their families better, the School has recently made some organizational and administrative changes to its operations. A centralized ‘registry’ called the Education Support Centre (ESC) has been established. This unit provides all enrolment services (which were previously spread throughout various parts of the School) and manages qualifications entries, withdrawals, licences to use, and fee-paying students.

The ESC also provides a significant level of learner support, particularly in the area of learner pathway guidance. The aim has been to provide a more customer-focused, ‘one stop shop’ service for students who previously may have had to talk to three or four different people to get a simple query answered. The School has an 0800 number which students can use to ring free for help and advice. Subject-specific help desks are also being established; the Mathematics help desk, which has been operating for a year now, has been very successful.

The next step the School needs to take is to negotiate with teacher unions to find a way of ensuring that the School can be open for longer hours and more weeks in the year. Correspondence School teachers are employed under the same collective contract as teachers in conventional schools in New Zealand. This has had the effect of inhibiting change in the Correspondence School and has put at risk the School’s ability to meet the needs and expectations of its stakeholders.

Partnerships

The School intends to enter into partnership arrangements with trusts (church and marae[1]-based), private providers, and community groups to establish centres where students can study in a supervised environment, using a mix of face-to-face and distance modes, and where access to technology will be provided.

Another way of tackling the problem of marginalized students is to regionalize aspects of the Correspondence School’s services. Computer technology now means that a Correspondence School teacher could be based anywhere in the country and be linked into all the School’s systems and databases. This would enable provision of localized learner support and teaching for students whose circumstances and background have not prepared them for independent study.

The New Zealand Government has also set up a programme entitled Schools Based Alternative Education, which involves establishing learning centres attached to conventional schools that are focused on meeting the needs of alienated students. The Correspondence School has some students placed in these programmes, and is playing a central role in providing resources to be used under licence by the centres.

Modularization and the National Qualifications Framework

Correspondence School courses have usually been written as a series of fortnightly booklets divided into eight or ten lessons and drip-fed to the student as he or she completes each one and sends it in for marking. The rationale for this is to encourage communication between student and teacher and to avoid swamping the student with a whole year’s work in several subjects all at once.

The pattern of fortnightly booklets still predominates, although course length and media mix have become much more variable. (For example, some practical courses are video-based.) There is a heavy emphasis on self-marked activities for the student to provide formative and immediate feedback, and there are usually one or two summative assessments in each booklet that are sent in for teacher marking. Learning outcomes are defined and must align with the objectives, which are clearly stated at the beginning of each booklet. Student achievement of learning outcomes is recorded in the School’s computerized student information database.

The curriculum statement for each of the seven essential learning areas in the New Zealand Curriculum Framework is divided into levels and strands. New Correspondence School materials are planned so that the strands are discrete at each level. Teachers can therefore select according to student need. For example, a child might be operating at level three in the number strand of the Mathematics curriculum, but need level two materials in the geometry and algebra strands.

The National Qualifications Framework has also encouraged modularization of courses so that students can select units of work leading to achievement of a particular standard if they wish to, rather than having to study a full year’s programme.

One outcome of this building-block approach to obtaining qualifications is the increased need for students to be able to access good guidance and advice on appropriate learning pathways so they can make sensible choices leading to a meaningful set of credits in the Framework.

In addition, teachers need to be skilled in analysing student learning needs and identifying appropriate resources to meet those needs. Education in New Zealand is increasingly expected to be student-centred, with the teacher acting as guide or facilitator rather than imparter of knowledge.

Role of materials in open learning

The Correspondence School’s resources provide individualized, self-directed learning. For early childhood and primary education, materials are directed at the supervisor (usually the mother) who works with the child. By about year nine, it is expected that the student will be working independently.Such materials can be used successfully in:

The home;

Other schools;

Informal learning centres; and

The workplace

by students working:

Individually but with a supervisor;

Quite independently;

In groups;

With a trained teacher; or

With an untrained supervisor.

The resources can be used to provide:

Parent/supervisor education;

Remediation;

Enrichment;

Extension;

Gap-filling;

Second-chance education; and

Opportunities for females who may otherwise have no access to education.

Where there is a shortage of trained teachers or, perhaps, a poor standard of teacher training, good quality materials designed for distance education (i.e. resources that are a complete guided learning experience) can be an excellent aid in the provision of quality education. As an aside, the place of the humble audio cassette in this high-tech world should not be overlooked either. Audio cassettes:

Provide for an alternative learning style;

Enhance motivation;

Facilitate language and music teaching;

Reduce barriers for non-readers or poor readers;

Are a low-tech print substitute;

Can be used in a group learning environment;

Can assist in the teaching of reading (read-along tapes);

Can reduce the amount of text required to explicate maps, graphs, charts, diagrams, and pictures.

Reputation of distance education in New Zealand

In general distance education at school and tertiary level has a good reputation in New Zealand. Certainly, the Correspondence School has been regarded with great affection and admiration by families all around the country who have had two or three generations of students educated by the School.

The fact that the School was set up as the government-funded and endorsed sole provider of distance education at school level has also lent it credibility. Also, the Correspondence School has always offered national curriculum and qualifications – it is a fully integrated part of the state education system – and the pass rate of Correspondence School students on external examinations has been (at least until recently with the changing student profile) equal to that of students studying in the face-to-face system.

Because New Zealand has a fairly scattered population outside of the main centres, there are many small primary and secondary schools in the country. For small secondary schools, the Correspondence School plays a major role in providing curriculum support, breadth, and depth, which would otherwise be beyond a small school’s means. The Correspondence School’s resources are thus seen by many professional educators all over the country, and their quality is recognized and respected.

The need for distance education is still a reality in New Zealand in 2000. It seems reasonable to assume, though, given recent political initiatives towards regionalization in the provision of services such as health and education, a centralized national institution like the Correspondence School would not be set up today (if the School did not exist). The likelihood is that Government would retain a centralized course development unit, but would localize delivery services. (Cf. the restructuring of distance education in New South Wales, Australia.) In my view, however, given New Zealand’s small population (3.8 million), decentralization would not necessarily be more cost effective or lead to better outcomes for students.

Transfer between distance education and conventional systems

As mentioned above, the Correspondence School supports the conventional system. It fills gaps in curriculum provision in secondary schools and provides Special Education to dually enrolled primary students. The Correspondence School offers national curricula and qualifications so students can move between distance and conventional education very easily. In addition, students in New Zealand schools are promoted ‘socially’ each year – there are no grades to be attained or examinations to be sat until year 11. This practice also contributes to the ease with which students can move in and out of the distance education system. The extent of roll turnover at the Correspondence School is high. For every 100 students on the roll at any given time, we will have enrolled 180. The main reason for this is New Zealand’s very mobile population, with many families shifting around within the country and travelling overseas.

Pacing and its effect on dropout and non-completion rates

Data on dropout and non-completion rates is unreliable. It is difficult to evaluate, as dropout often relates to life circumstances or reasons for enrolment rather than the success or failure of the School’s products and services.

However, the School places considerable emphasis on the provision of personalized student support and immediacy of feedback to the student, both of which are seen as essential to maintain student motivation.

Ministry funding is based on student work return so the initial posting to students (often before the student’s programme of courses has been settled) includes ‘engagement’ material designed partly as a diagnostic tool and partly just to get the student started on some cross-curricular activities. Staged internal assessment throughout the year encourages students to meet deadlines, particularly where external qualifications are involved.

The Education Support Centre monitors student work return and sends ‘pacing’ letters and telephone and e-mail reminders to encourage students to submit work.

Parents of full-time students receive a ‘payment for supervisors’ by Government as a token recognition of the important role they play in the distance education model. This payment (around NZ$700 per year for the first child and on a decreasing scale for second and subsequent children) is, however, dependent on the child submitting a certain amount of work each school term. Overall, a lot of effort goes into ensuring that course materials are pitched at the right level, that they are sent out in manageable chunks, that the learning programme is closely matched to student needs, and that the student’s progress is monitored.

Conclusion

The current round of education reform looks set to continue for some years yet. Whether the NCES and NCEA qualifications end up being implemented as currently proposed is uncertain, though likely. The Correspondence School, having already successfully dealt with massive curriculum changes in recent years and with the change to unit standard assessment, is preparing itself now to deal with further change. More testing to its ability to adapt in the immediate future will be its response to technological imperatives, tighter enrolment criteria, and the prospect of greater competition.

Footnotes

[1] Marae are open spaces with meeting houses, which are the centre of tribal life for New Zealand Maori.