Education: “it’s up to us all”

New Zealanders envisage a future in which the responsibility for education is widely distributed across the whole community, says Prof. Mason Durie, Chair of the Secondary Futures project.

“A key finding from our work is that the ‘silo’ mentality with its assumptions that learning is delivered by the teacher and is confined to the classroom will no longer be tenable in 2028,” he said.

“Instead there will be a much deeper and more vibrant interaction between the school and the communities which surround it. Achieving this will require significant changes in attitude and behaviour by all parties to the learning experience – teachers and other learning providers, students, their families and whanau.

“It will also require the development of a learning infrastructure to tie the dispersed web of learning resources together.

“Imagine a national website – LearnMe.co.nz – which lists all the learning opportunities available by skills category and geographical location.

“Imagine a new occupation – the learning broker – whose job it is to link learners with learning providers. Imagine companies marketing themselves on their investment in learning much as many seek now to brand themselves by their commitment to the environment.”

Prof. Durie was commenting on the release of Community Connectedness, the fourth in a series of five theme papers to be delivered by Secondary Futures.

“Secondary Futures’ brief is to look a generation ahead. It is impossible to be dogmatic over such a long time frame but Community Connectedness does reflect the results of our four year consultation with the public and is NZers’ preferred scenario for how schooling will evolve over the next 20 years,” he said.

Part of the brief was to initiate a discussion with a wide cross-section of NZers, including young people whose voices are not often heard, on how the education system will have to evolve.

Secondary Futures set out to engage young people in an effective and genuine way by using a tool that is familiar to this demographic – on-line gaming. Dj Battle demonstrates how the community will become more involved in education. The link is: www.djbattle.co.nz

Today’s students are an important audience for Secondary Futures’ work because they have a unique perspective to offer and because they are the decision-makers of tomorrow.