Modern Schools

1. Summary

The Internet Party will continue to support current initiatives to give schools free, fast, and uncapped Internet connections, upgrading network cabling, and wireless connectivity by the end of 2016.

We will help schools and teachers develop external networks for collaboration, innovation and resource creation.

The Internet Party will triple the amount of annual information and communication technology (ICT) funding to state and state-integrated schools to ensure further professional development for teachers, upgrades to ICT equipment, creating learning spaces, and better technical support.

We will ensure there are resources, systems, and capabilities for teachers and educators to evolve pedagogical change, taking New Zealand schooling into the future, making it student-centred, and accommodating the individuality of the ‘knowledge age’

We will initiate a review of National Standards by experts, schools, teachers, and parents/caregivers with the aim of modifying or scrapping them.

The Internet Party will immediately initiate a quick review of Novopay to confirm it is capable of delivering a stable and suitable payment system.

2. Problems identified

2.1 Capacity

School education is beginning to undergo a massive transformation because of the digital revolution.

All New Zealand schools need fast, free, and uncapped access to the Internet as soon as possible if they are to meet the basic requirements of modern schooling. Modern schools need to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach invented more than a century ago to one that will accommodate the individuality of the so-called “knowledge age”.

Basic connectivity - both physical access and an appropriate Internet connection - is well under way and no problems have been identified. Internet connections to all schools will be provided under various Government initiatives - UFB (Ultra-Fast Broadband), RBI (Rural Broadband Initiative) and the Remote Schools Broadband Initiative.

The Network for Learning (N4L) will provide schools with the option of a free and uncapped Internet connection. Over the same timeframe, the School Network Upgrade Project (SNUP) aims to complete providing network cabling and, for some, wireless connectivity within the school.

Schools still have to provide the rest of the ICT infrastructure from bulk funding, parent donations or other initiatives, including community and business partnerships. Most principals report that their school needs assistance to take advantage of the opportunities.

Most frequently this assistance will need to be in the shape of further professional development for teachers, upgrades to ICT equipment, and better technical support. The cost to schools for both upgrading and maintain infrastructure, support, and training is a significant barrier in taking advantage of digital transformation.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) provides both opportunities and challenges. While potentially providing a building block to transforming educational outcomes, it raises the notion of requiring students and their families to supply the means of engaging in school education and thereby worsening societal inequality.

Social inequalities are further heightened by the lack of Internet access at home for about 200,000 school-aged children. This issue and the Internet Party’s policy proposals in that regard are separately covered in the Cheaper, Universal Internet Policy.

2.2 Pedagogical change

The school education model is no longer suited to the digital age. It must be replaced with one designed for a different world, whose vastly improved accessibility to information and opportunities to share demands a paradigm shift in educational pedagogies.

This challenges us to think about how to deploy the resources for learning (teachers, time, spaces, technology) more flexibly to meet learners’ needs. It also requires us to think about the new resources that may be needed, beyond those traditionally thought of as part of the schooling system, and to think about how best to support learners’ access to those resources.

While personalising learning-based approaches are being implemented in a limited way, in pockets and/or at the margins of the sector, we are not yet seeing the kinds of ‘deep personalisation’ argued for by future-focused educationalists.

2.3 Capability

Change in pedagogy means reversing traditional education logic of learning centred on the teacher. It will have to be built around the student, so 21st century education will need fully trained and confident teachers with access to external networks for collaboration, innovation and resource creation.

They will need professional development, access to digital learning resources, leadership and vision from principals, colleagues and school boards of trustees, and government policy that gives high priority to supporting education professionals to adapt quickly to the digital learning environment.

Many ideas are being tested in New Zealand. The challenge is to identify successes, scale them, and share them effectively with other schools.

The ICT syllabus was overhauled and new standards introduced into the New Zealand secondary schools in 2011-2013. So far teacher training and resources to teach the new digital technologies has been almost solely a grassroots, teacher-led effort.

Some schools have not yet been able to adapt to teaching at this more demanding level, limiting the number of students who could otherwise have benefitted from learning more aligned with a deeper understanding of digital technologies.

2.4 National Standards

National Standards set expectations about what students need to meet in reading, writing and mathematics in the first eight years at school. They were passed into law under urgency in 2008 within the first 100 days of the incoming National government. The standards were implemented at years 1 through to 8 in 2010.

National Standards have been subject to controversy from the start. Broadly, the criticism have been across political, theoretical, and implementation dimensions.

National Standards threaten to destroy one of the great strengths of New Zealand’s education system, which recognises that children of the same age have different academic abilities and allows them to learn at the level of their current ability.

According to some assessments, New Zealand is caught up in a global “audit culture” in education, centred on comparisons of student achievement data, which is affecting the culture of New Zealand primary schooling quickly.

2.5 Novopay

Novopay is the name of a new payroll system for paying 110,000 teaching and support staff at 2457 schools in New Zealand launched by the Government in 2012. It has been a debacle from the start and continues to perform poorly, with problems including some teachers not being paid on time and others being overpaid.

The Government has spent $33 million trying to sort out the system and expects to spend a further $10 million by June 2014. Yet staff continued to be underpaid, overpaid and unpaid, and frustrated at the hours being spent fixing their problems.

3. Relevant data/research

3.1 Background

One indicator of the state of schooling in New Zealand is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), undertaken every three years by the OECD. It measures the abilities of 15 year-olds in mathematics, science and reading to evaluate education systems worldwide.

The latest report for New Zealand is for 2012. Thee assessment as across 510,000 students in 65 countries. New Zealand fared poorly, with the 2012 results significantly below those of 2009, slipping from 7th in reading to 13th; 7th to 18th in science; and from 12th to 23rd in maths.

Other key results for New Zealand were:

• New Zealand’s performance in these subjects (mathematics, reading and science) has also declined relative to other countries. The proportion of students at the lowest levels of achievement has increased.
• New Zealand’s average achievement remains above the OECD average. However, New Zealand is being overtaken by more countries and caught up by others.
• Compared to earlier cycles of PISA there are larger proportions of New Zealand students with low performance in mathematics and science (below PISA proficiency Level 2). The OECD considers proficiency Level 2 as the baseline level at which students begin to demonstrate the competencies that will enable them to participate actively in life situations.
• While the proportion of top performers in reading (PISA proficiency Level 5 or higher) has declined, the proportion of students at the highest level (Level 6) has not declined by much. New Zealand still has one of the largest proportions at this level among participating countries.

The report notes: “The 15-year-olds assessed in the survey started school in 2002, during a period of great change in the New Zealand schooling sector. This included a huge influx of new teachers at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, largely as a result of roll growth and increased teacher:student ratios.

“This put strain on the sector to absorb high numbers of beginning teachers, as well as overseas-trained teachers. At the same time, the system of teacher training was changing, with training becoming more academically focused.

“During the 2000s there were attempts to address inequity of achievement among students and to lift the quality of learning and teaching overall. For example, new models for leadership development were introduced and revised strategies for schooling improvement were rolled out.

“There have been some successes, and there are pockets of excellence in achievement, including in schools in disadvantaged areas. But these successes do not spread easily to other schools.

“The system as it is arranged in New Zealand does not easily support the spread of good practices between schools, and direct interventions in schools that struggle with student achievement have not always been as effective as expected.”

3.2 Capacity

3.2.1 Digital transformation:

School education is beginning to undergo a massive transformation because of the digital revolution. The majority of New Zealand schools are set to get ultra-fast broadband (fibre) connections over the next few years. The remaining remote schools will have access to faster broadband using wireless technology.

Britain’s Department of Education says: “Evidence links the use of technology to improvements in learning and outcomes for pupils. Schools with a well-developed vision for learning and which lead and manage their use of technology in support of this are more likely to reap benefits.”

At the same time, in a report in late 2013, the 2020 Communications Trust said a household ICT survey in 2012 revealed there were 69,000 households with more than 200,000 school-aged children without access to the Internet. Further information and the Internet Party’s proposal to address this challenge are contained in the Party’s Cheaper, Unlimited Internet policy.

Education faces significant change as the world moves on from a one-size-fits-all approach invented more than a century ago to one that will accommodate the individuality of the so-called “knowledge age”.

According to a key Ministry of Education report, while the rapid development and ubiquity of ICT are resetting the boundaries of educational possibilities, significant investments in digital resources have not by themselves revolutionised learning environments.

“For the most part, educational thinking has moved on from the idea that simply introducing new ICT tools and infrastructure into schools will trigger beneficial and meaningful educational change. In New Zealand, at least four strategies have been used to support educational ICT developments:

• providing enabling tools and infrastructure;
• providing inspiring ideas and opportunities to connect ideas;
• enhancing capability;
• and supporting innovation.

“Our analysis suggests that educational ICT development needs to be supported by all four strategies. The potential of new technologies to transform teaching and learning is heavily dependent on educators’ abilities to see the affordances and capacities of ICT in relation to the underpinning themes for learning for the 21st century. It is further dependent on schools having the infrastructure, inspiration, capability and opportunities for innovation to achieve these kinds of teaching and learning.”

3.2 2 Internet access:

The first step in reshaping school education is to ensure all schools have access to free, fast, uncapped Internet. Internet connections to all schools will be provided under various Government initiatives - UFB (Ultra-Fast Broadband), RBI (Rural Broadband Initiative) and the Remote Schools Broadband Initiative.

According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, “the broadband roll out will see 97.7 percent of New Zealand schools (representing 99.9 percent of students) receive access to ultra-fast broadband (capable of 100 megabits per second, or Mbps) by 30 June 2015. The remaining remote schools will have access to faster broadband (up to10 Mbps) via point-to-point wireless technology.

“As part of the roll out, state and state integrated schools will automatically receive fully-funded fibre drops [which] is the connection of their school to the fibre in the street.”

In addition to a physical connection, schools need Internet access. This will be provided by the governments Network for Learning (N4L) which is a “managed network designed specifically for schools providing safe, predictable and fast Internet with uncapped data, online content filtering, and network security services.” While not compulsory, since N4L is fully funded it is in strong demand by schools.

The N4L broadband deal includes some services – Internet connectivity, a managed router, web security, web filtering, email filtering, remote access for staff, optional firewall and real-time monitoring - but schools need to provide their own suitable internal ICT infrastructure.

3.2.3 ICT infrastructure

The School Network Upgrade Project (SNUP) aims to provide subsidised and managed “upgrades of data and electrical cabling for state and state-integrated schools”.SNUP provides a fully-funded audit of the existing network infrastructure and upgrade design as well as subsidising network cabling. The option for wireless connectivity was added for schools from June 2013.

The number of schools upgraded depends on the extent and timing of government funding. According to the Ministry of Education’s Statement of Intent 2013-2018, “the School Network Upgrade Project will complete the upgrading of all remaining schools and kura by 2016”.

SNUP takes care of network cabling and, for some, wireless connectivity, but schools still have to provide up-to-date desktop computers, ancillary ICT hardware and software, technical support and suitable learning spaces. These have to be paid for from bulk funding, parent donations or other initiatives, including community and business partnerships. School bulk funding does not differentiate spending on ICT.

A periodic snapshot of ICT in schools is provided by the ICT in Schools Survey conducted by the 2020 Communications Trust every two years. The latest report is for November 2011 and includes the following major findings:

• Most principals reported that their school needs assistance to take advantage of the opportunities that ultra-fast broadband will afford them. Most frequently this assistance will need to be in the shape of further professional development for teachers, upgrades to ICT equipment, and better technical support.
• Among primary schools, only one third of the respondents reported that more than half of their school’s computers are less than three years old. Among secondary schools, 44 percent of respondents reported that most of their computers are less than three years old.
• Forty-five percent of secondary schools reported that they have purchased or leased room-based video conferencing equipment.
• Seventy percent of primary schools and 74 percent of secondary schools reported that teachers were using interactive whiteboards in their lesson delivery.
• The majority of schools reported that more than 75 percent of all classrooms are networked.
• On average, all schools spent approximately 11 percent of their total operations grant for 2010 on ICT-related expenditure. The majority of principals report that school management has the most influence in ICT expenditure decisions.
• The barriers that were most commonly identified by schools as limiting the use of ICT included: the cost of ICT equipment, the cost of upgrades, the speed of technological change, and technical support.

3.2.4 Bring Your Own Device

When schools were surveyed in 2010-2011, tablets and mobile devices, including those brought to school by students, were starting to have an impact. Labeled BYOD (Bring Your Own device) by educators, the notion of students and their families supplying the means of engaging in school digital education raises issues of both enhanced learning as well as societal inequality.

“Of course, BYOD also means that parents - instead of schools - may end up footing the bill for computing devices in the classroom.” That’s a concern to people like educator and author Gary Stager, who thinks that BYOD may be the “worst idea of the 21st century, because it ‘enshrines inequality’”.

Stager worries, in part, that by encouraging students to bring computers from home, institutions will offload the cost of buying technology on parents rather than insisting that the public school should shoulder it. He also raises concerns about narrowing the learning process to information access and “the growing narrative that education is not worthy of investment”.

On the other hand, some schools in New Zealand are experimenting with ways to overcome scarcity of mobile devices and access to the Internet at home.

For instance, Auckland’s Manaiakalani e-learning project enables families of students at eleven Decile 1A schools to buy subsidised devices and home Internet. A similar project is under way in Rotorua, with educators wanting every student to have their own device. Other schools have implemented voluntary or compulsory bring-your-own-device policies.

The Manaiakalani project is also an example of collaboration between schools and outside organisations and companies. Its digital teaching academy was established through a partnership between the Manaiakalani Education Trust, Google, the Innovation Partnership, and the University of Auckland.

A BYOD Guide written for schools in Alberta, Canada covering policy, practices, and planning emphasises the need to see devices within the larger context of pedagogical change of personalisation of learning, participation in learning, and productivity.

Some principals have called BYOD “inevitable” but are conscious of the cost and equity issues raised.

3.2.5 Costs for schools

The New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s 2014 report shows that lack of school infrastructure is still a major problem: “… 60 percent of teachers reported that their students’ use of ICT was limited because of insufficient or poor-quality equipment, or slow or unreliable access, and 38 percent because the school system broke down too often or the school lacked a technician to deal with problems.

“Thus to get the lift in e-learning sought by NZC [NZ Curriculum], the broadband rollout and the Network for Learning, it seems likely that schools will need to invest more in equipment and technical support, as well as ensuring that teachers’ own knowledge and skills grow.”

3.2.6 National Education Network

Since 2008, REANNZ (Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd, the Crown-owned company that owns and operates a high-speed, unrestricted broadband network known to many as KAREN) has been operating a trial of a National Education Network (NEN) for schools on behalf of the Ministry of Education.

NEN is a dedicated education network that connects schools directly to a range of service providers in New Zealand and internationally. Access to NEN gives schools at least a 100 Mb/s connection. There are no usage-based charges or data caps. In its latest annual report, REANNZ said its members now include 130 schools.

3.3 Pedagogical change

The word “ pedagogy” refers to the art and science of education. It originates from Greek words for “child” and “lead”, and literally translated means “to lead the child”. This is ironic, given that educationalists have been saying for some time the traditionally didactic approach to teaching – in which the teacher and textbooks are largely unchallengeable founts of all knowledge – is seriously threatened by the Internet and ICT.

For instance, a group of education innovators who met at Waterloo University in Ontario, Canada, in 2013 concluded that even the most capable and committed teachers are sometimes struggling to prepare students for the 21st century while working within an educational model developed for the 19th century.

“The antiquated nature of this model is clearly causing problems for students. Today, about a third of the world’s children never begin high school, and many of those who do start will drop out before the end. Even those who finish often end up disengaged from learning. This represents an enormous loss of human potential – and a huge economic cost to society.”

In a seminal 2012 report entitled Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching: A New Zealand perspective , NZCER said international thinking about education began to shift to a new paradigm during the latter half of the 20th century.

“This shift was driven by an awareness of massive and ongoing social, economic and technological changes, and the exponentially increasing amount of human knowledge being generated as a result. International thinking began to seriously examine questions about the role and purposes of education in a world with an unprecedented degree of complexity, fluidity and uncertainty.

“Many significant international projects have considered how schooling might change to better match the changes that have taken place in the 21st century. Two important ideas that underpin this work are (1) a shift in the meaning of ‘knowledge’, and (2) the need to build education systems based around what we now know about learning.”

New Zealand educationalist Jane Gilbert says that in the knowledge age, knowledge can no longer be regarded as a stable body of facts or truths.

“It isn’t masterable, and it doesn’t necessarily reflect the world – rather, it is networked expertise… The network enables connected groups to take ideas further and faster than any individual could. The knowledge they create is in the collaborative space, not in individual heads. All this, if we accept it, is of course highly disruptive to most people’s ideas about education.”

In the research report Gilbert and others write that the education system now needs to be built around the learner, which reverses the conventional logic of education. They say that “it is widely argued that current educational systems, structures and practices are not sufficient to address and support learning needs for all students in the 21st century.

“This challenges us to think about how to deploy the resources for learning (teachers, time, spaces, technology) more flexibly to meet learners’ needs. It also requires us to think about the new resources that may be needed, beyond those traditionally thought of as part of the schooling system, and to think about how best to support learners’ access to those resources.

“While personalising learning-based approaches are being implemented in a limited way, in pockets and/or at the margins of the sector, we are not yet seeing the kinds of ‘deep personalisation’ argued for by future-focused educationalists.”

3.4 Capability

3.4.1 Teaching practice

Educationalist and teacher Claire Amos writes that New Zealand needs to address models of teaching practice: “As Scott McLeod highlights in his blog Dangerously Irrelevant , three educational shifts are needed which will have the most impact on our students’ future and their success within it.

“There is a need to move from low level thinking such as recall and rote learning to high level thinking and complex problem solving. We must engage shift from analogue to digital (or I would actually argue ‘blended’) and as Sugata Mitra states, ‘unlock the power of new technologies for increasingly self-directed education’. Which leads us to the final shift - teacher centred to student centred. Critical thinking, digitally rich and increasing levels of self-direction will ensure we are developing learners who can survive in the knowledge age and flourish in the age of hyper-change.”

This does not mean the teacher becomes redundant, says Amos. “Quite the opposite, as they are challenged to provide authentic relevant contexts for learners, with just enough ‘enabling constraints’ to ensure that our little chickens don’t accidentally cross the road… in heavy traffic. Our roles need to change from teacher, to facilitator and ultimately to learning activator.”

A recent surveyof New Zealand primary and intermediate schools found 38 per cent of teachers think limitations in making use of ICT being rolled out to schools are linked to their own lack of knowledge and skills. Dr Cathy Wylie, who co-authored a report on the survey for NZCER, said there is a risk that without official direction schools will waste expensive infrastructure.

3.4.2 Learning resources

One of the Ministry of Education’s most significant responses to the issue of teacher/student capabilities is the learning resources website, Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI)- the “online knowledge basket”. This offers information about the curriculums for primary and secondary education, learning material in a range of subjects, learning resources tailored for Maori and Pasifika students, material for disabled students, and guidance on e-learning.

The TKI website lists strategies educators need to consider in embracing 21st century education. These include:

• personalising learning - teachers using technologies to build the school curriculum around the learner and more flexibly to meet learners’ needs;
• building an inclusive learning environment - using technologies to engage learners, family/whanau, and communities in co-shaping education to address students’ needs, strengths, interests and aspirations;
• providing access to anywhere, anytime learning;
• supporting assessment and evaluation processes so that these are dynamic and responsive to information about students;
• developing a school curriculum that uses knowledge to develop learning capacity using technologies to enable students to create and use new knowledge to solve problems and find solutions to challenges as they arise on a “just-in-time” basis;
• rethinking learners’ and teachers’ roles creating a “knowledge-building” learning environment where learners and teachers work together;
• building a culture of continuous learning for teachers and school leaders finding technology-related opportunities to participate in and build professional learning;
• and developing new kinds of partnerships and relationships facilitated by new technologies.

A relatively new government initiative from the Network for Learning is Pond. This is describedas “a central hub for digital discovery and participation, where educational resources can be accessed and shared more easily and effectively.

“It combines the best parts of existing online tools and platforms to create a new, yet familiar, environment. Pond is independent of N4L’s managed network and can be accessed using any internet connection. Access to Pond is free for all school users.

“Pond has been built to grow and evolve with the community of New Zealand teachers, administrators, students and providers. Core Pond features and functionality have been defined based on sector studies, emerging web trends, stakeholder engagement and a touch of intuition. N4L [Network for Learning] is responding to the needs and desires of the educators who are currently in Pond to make it better, as well as our own development roadmap.”

Currently being used by “Pioneer Educator” - teachers who are recognised by their peers as having an innovative and engaging use of technology in the classroom - all teachers are expected to have access by the end of the year.

3.4.3 Trialling new ideas

Many ideas are being tested in New Zealand. For example, educators are watching progress at the Hobsonville Point Schools in Auckland, which are new primary and secondary schools taking modern approaches to meet the need for change in teacher practice.

Claire Amos, a teacher there, writesthat they are looking at delivering secondary education “in increasingly authentic and engaging ways, offering up a programme that addresses a desire to develop both personal and academic excellence through a mixture of specialised learning (in both integrated and single subject modules), learning hubs, project learning and a generous serving of MyTime.

“It is actually just a matter of ensuring that all teachers (and leaders)… engage in robust, long-term inquiry. They need to be looking to student data, getting to know their learners’ interests and needs and trialling new strategies.”

CORE Education, a non-profit organisation in Christchurch, originated in 1998 as a collaborative body working with the city council and a UK model called Ultralab to bring new ideas and strategies to education via technological advances. For example, its website has three case studies of New Zealand schools that have been developed using the latest theories on modern learning and spaces. These are examplesof “how the research into flexible, open learning spaces translates into action.”

The three schools are in Auckland- Stonefields School, Albany Senior High School, and Hingaia Peninsula School. “Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the building are a container for the learning we choose to place into them; and that curriculum, pedagogy, assessment practices, relationships and culture are just as important as the spaces, if not more important.”

One area of expanding ICT innovation is the use of video-conferencing. An Education Review articlesays “video collaboration is breaking down the traditional boundaries of school excursions and transforming the way students learn and interact. As technology in various guises ─ such as social media, live chat, and videoconferencing ─ continues to infiltrate every aspect of our social, professional, and private lives, there is an enormous opportunity to embrace the range of additional capabilities the internet affords us.

“Technology in education remains one of the New Zealand Government’s top priorities as seen by its 21st Century Learning initiative. Future focused, it aims to make young New Zealanders some of the world’s most digitally literate citizens, enabling them to be more innovative and better able to compete in a modern economy.”

The article in Education Review described the Greater Christchurch Schools Network (GCSN) as “a successful cluster of primary, intermediate, and secondary schools, with significant support and enthusiasm at school leadership level, and links with tertiary education and the business community.

“With video conferencing now integral to GCSN curriculum delivery methodologies, the network has evolved in line with technology improvements… The Christchurch earthquakes have opened up a number of learning opportunities and the chance to connect GCSN schools with fascinated students and teachers from around the world.”

3.4.4 Net safety

With fast Internet and modern ICT infrastructure being extended to some of our most vulnerable citizens, school-aged children, Internet safety and digital citizenship are crucial issues. In that sphere, independent non-profit organisation, NetSafe, plays a leading role in promoting “confident, safe, and responsible use of online technologies”.

NetSafe is a multi-stakeholder partnership that represents a range of perspectives from New Zealand’s cyber-safety community. Its partners come from a range of sectors including the Government, education, law, industry, parents and caregivers, and children and young people.

Founded in 1998, its recent projects include the creation of a National Cyber Bullying Taskforce, involvement with the government’s new Cyber Security Strategy,reactive and proactive work with New Zealand schools and community groups, advice and support for thousands of Kiwi consumers targeted by cold-calling scammers, and development of consumer advice around smartphone security.

3.4.5 Digital Technologies

In response to industry and academic concerns led by the Institute of IT Professionals (then NZCS), a new curriculum was created for senior high school students studying for level 1 to 3 NCEA qualifications. The ICT syllabus was overhauled and new standards introduced into New Zealand secondary schools in 2011-2013.

Earlier courses, focused on basic skills, were considereda “bum class” for students wanting to pick up easy NCEA credits. The new curriculum, which focuses on computer programming and web design, is much more advanced. When launched, the new courses were called “too hard for many students and teachers”.

However, an IT expert foundthat these concerns were unfounded. The real gap was the lack of support from the Ministry of Education for training and recruiting capable teachers, particularly as the new standards were introduced in a short timeframe. Change happened at the grassroots levels, led by teachers, with little support from the government or school leadership.

A significant step was setting up the New Zealand Association for Computing, Digital and Information Technology Teachers (NZACDITT), an association to create a community of IT teachers. The association is a place to share resources, communicate, and speak with one voice to get the subject area recognised and supported.

3.5 National Standards

3.5.1 Background

In December 2008, the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill was passed into law under urgency within the first 100 days of the incoming National government. The standards were implemented at years 1 through to 8 in 2010. Broadly, the standards have been introduced as a tool to address persistent disparities in New Zealand’s education system, and improve reporting mechanisms to parents/caregivers. National Standards set expectations about what students need to meet in reading, writing and mathematics in the first eight years at school.

3.5.2 Criticism

National Standards have been subject to controversy from the start. Broadly, the criticismhave been across political, theoretical, and implementation dimensions. Besides the rush in which they were introduced, one opposition view of National Standards is the concern that “at the same time [the Government] cut funding for the literacy and numeracy projects despite their effectiveness”.

National Standards have been criticised by education expert by John Hattie, the person who is said to have inspired them in the first place. Hattie “supports the concept of standards-based learning but not the system the Government has introduced.”

In fact, given the chance, he would scrap it and start again. National standards might lift the performance of a few children at the bottom of the educational heap, but the average will not change because bright children will be neglected. He thinksthe policy threatens to destroy one of the great strengths of New Zealand’s education system, which recognises that children of the same age have different academic abilities and allows them to learn at the level of their current ability.

In his book Visible Learning, which analysed the results of 50,000 educational studies covering 83 million students around the world, Hatte concluded that the most important factor that affected children’s learning is the “students’ ability to assess for themselves how well they were doing and to discuss with the teacher what they needed to do next to improve. This in turn depended on the level of feedback students received from teachers - most did not get nearly enough - and the level of trust in a classroom, which allowed students to admit out loud that they didn’t understand something.”

Further, Hattie agrees with teachers’ fears that league tables comparing schools will misrepresent the real educational achievements of both children and schools. He argues that contrary to popular parental belief, debates about “best schools” are almost irrelevant, as the biggest differences in student learning occur within schools, not between them.

Published National Standards data is available from multiple sources, including the Government and mainstream media. The latter notesthat “even if they were moderated, the standards alone could not tell you everything about how a school is doing by its pupils”.

One of the more extensive assessments done of National Standards is the Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards (RAINS) Project. Researchers found that New Zealand is caught up in a global “audit culture” in education, centred on comparisons of student achievement data, which is affecting the culture of New Zealand primary schooling quite quickly.

The report concludes: “The key message of this final RAINS report is that despite bringing some gains, the Standards approach is starting to damage the culture of schools. Unsurprisingly, this damage relates to the particular features of the National Standards approach and of New Zealand schools, and so the nature of the damage is distinctive compared to high stakes assessment regimes overseas.

“In our view the National Standards approach needs to be significantly overhauled in a way that reduces the potential for damage, while leaving in place some of the more positive features around engaging with the curriculum that RAINS teachers and principals have identified.”

3.6 Novopay

Novopayis the name of a new payroll system for paying 110,000 teaching and support staff at 2457 schools in New Zealand launched by the Government in 2012. It has been a debacle from the start and continues to perform poorly, with problems including some teachers not being paid on time and others being overpaid.

The Government has spent $33 million trying to sort out the system and expects to spend a further $10 million by June, Novopay Minister Steven Joyce revealedin March 2014. Joyce said “robust discussions” were continuing between the Ministry of Education and Novopay’s developer, Australian software firm Talent2, about who would ultimately pick up the tab for the costs, but there had been “fault on both sides”.

New Zealand Educational Institute spokesman Andrew Casidy said in March that staff continued to be underpaid, overpaid and unpaid, and frustrated at the hours being spent fixing their problems. “Just this week, NZEI’s random phone survey of 30 schools found more than 80 per cent of schools having major problems with Novopay.”

Novopay problems continueto be reported in the press, such as: “Teachers in Marlborough are still not being paid correctly almost two years after the Novopay debacle began.” The Ministry of Education purchased the system for $182 million over 10 years, with an initial $40 million outlay. Since Novopay started there have been 17,374 overpayments worth $18.3 million but the Ministry of Education still has to recover $8.9 million in overpayments.

4 Examples of global leadership

4.1 ConnectED

In the US, President Obama has launched a drive called ConnectED to lift digital education in schools, calling on the Federal Communications Commission to build high-speed digital connections to America’s schools and libraries, with the aim of giving 99 percent of American students the benefit from technological advances in teaching and learning.

“Driven by new digital technologies, the future of learning is increasingly interactive, individualized, and full of real-world experiences and information… The ConnectED initiative [also] invests in improving the skills of teachers, ensuring that every educator in America receives support and training to use technology to help improve student outcomes.”

An investment of $2 billion over the next two years to connect more than 20 million students is expected. In addition, private sector companies have committed over $1 billion.

4.2 Europe 2020 1:1 learning initiatives study

A 2013 European Union study, “Overview and Analysis of 1:1 Learning Initiatives for Education and Training in Europe”, presented 31 recent 1:1 initiatives involving about 47,000 schools and 17,500,000 students in primary and/or secondary education across 19 European countries.

1:1 learning initiatives are equipping students of a given school, class or age group with portable devices (e.g. laptops, netbooks, tablets or smartphones) for learning purposes.

The study aimed to provide an overview and analysis of 1:1 initiatives in Europe, synthesising research findings on 1:1 learning in primary and secondary schools, identifying factors for successful implementation of 1:1 initiatives, and presenting policy options that successfully promote technological, pedagogical and organisational innovation.

Based on the evidence of the analysis of 1:1 initiatives, the literature review, insights from the experts’ interviews and the validation exercise with experts in the workshop, the following are some of the recommendations that emerged:

• change must be systemic and underpinned by pedagogical values;
• a flexible framework should be created which contains objectives, guidelines and tools for system-wide transfer of innovation and incremental change of pedagogical practice;
• pedagogy that supports 1:1 learning needs to be “cultivated” or developed and incentives for teachers to “buy in” should be established;
• pedagogical learning scenarios should outline how portable computer devices can be used to support a plethora of learning strategies;
• assessment should be formative and also take into account new competencies that could be acquired by learning with technology;
• a knowledge base on informal learning spaces could include new scenarios that expand outside classroom teaching, such as activity-based learning, project-based learning and study visits;
• a variety of stakeholders should be involved in the implementation of 1:1 education programmes, such as commercial suppliers, local sponsors and the community, parents and head teachers. Exchanges between these stakeholders should be increased to encourage wider collaboration;
• students should own their devices as this helps them take responsibility for the device and is essential for the creation of personal mobile learning environments that span formal, informal and non-formal learning settings;
• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) requires a consideration of the school infrastructure, a minimum standard for software, equity issues and the use of the devices for assessment;
• effective training and support mechanisms include early familiarisation with the equipment, ongoing school-based support and training, blended learning and peer-learning among teachers;
• staff access to equipment can encourage dialogue and opportunities to share practice. 1:1 programmes should be integrated within an overall learning plan;
• training should focus on helping teachers integrate technology into their instruction;
• evaluation should be designed from the very beginning of the 1:1 initiative with a designated institution or individual taking responsibility;
• access to national evaluation results should be more commonly shared;
• research should explore new impact areas such as evidence of effective implementation strategies, learning practices or possible long-term impacts of 1:1 initiatives on lifelong learning;
• research should be more qualitative, formative, and competence- and outcome-based;
• research should involve teachers in action-based research and also observations in real classroom settings.

4.3 Project Red

US semi-conductor chip maker Intel is behind a long-term project to take ICT into US school education, one of its main initiatives being a programme called Project Red.

Research used to set up the project examined learning practice in nearly 1000 US schools and found that although educational technology best practices have a significant positive impact, they are not widely and consistently practised.

“Effective technology implementation in schools is complex, with hundreds of interrelated factors playing a part. A failure of just one factor can seriously impact the success of the project. For example, one commonly reported problem is insufficient Internet bandwidth to support the substantial increase in devices in a 1:1 implementation. This leads to student and teacher frustration and reduced usage levels.

“Project RED has identified the nine key implementation factors that are linked most strongly to the education success measures:

• technology is integrated into every intervention class period;
• leaders provide time for teacher professional learning and collaboration at least monthly;
• students use technology daily for online collaboration (games/simulations and social media);
• technology is integrated into the core curriculum weekly or more frequently;
• online formative assessments are done at least weekly;
• lower student-computer ratios improve outcomes;
• with more frequent use, virtual field trips are more powerful. The best schools do these at least monthly;
• students use search engines daily;
• principals are trained in teacher buy-in, best practices, and technology-transformed learning.

4.4 French ICT catchup initiative

A report commissioned by the French government in 2011 discovered its education system was behind European neighbours in terms of both equipment and usage of ICTE (Information and communication technologies in Education).

Its comparisons found Finland very well equipped with digital tools (one computer for every four junior secondary students versus one for seven students in France) and 100 percent of Finnish teaching staff were trained in using the tools.

The UK scored well where digital adoption in schools is concerned: one computer for three junior secondary students and 78 percent of classrooms had digital whiteboards, compared with six percent in France. “Moreover, many British schools have equipment and maintenance outsourced to private companies, access to the national resource platform Curriculum Online, and a strong focus on staff training.”

Denmark schools had one computer for every two students and 98 percent of secondary schools had broadband internet, compared with 75 percent in France.

A survey by the European Commission published in 2013 showed that only 41 percent of French schoolchildren used a computer at least once a week, compared with 53 percent for the rest of the EU.

In response, the French government drew up a list of 12 priorities and 70 measures to implement digital education, including:

• providing schools with equipment and connectivity;
• training teaching and management staff;
• creating innovative teaching material;
• rolling out digital workspaces;
• and monitoring the development of digital technologies in schools.

A year later, another report entitled “Learning in the digital age’’ focused on the teaching methods and tools required to make the transition to digital teaching successfully and encouraged the government to continue its efforts to provide digital equipment for schools and universities, roll out a nationwide basic and further training programme for teachers, update teaching methods and use digital technology as a way of promoting and valuing the role of the teacher.

In order to catch up with the rest of Europe, the French government has made a number of detailed recommendations:

• a digital education policy: nationwide coordination, by setting up a digital division within the Ministry of Education;
• governance for demand in the state school sector: a central purchasing unit, special offers, eg: tablets for $100;
• resources: access to both paid and free resources via a nationwide portal;
• working closely with the industry to establish standards for training and exporting;
• basic and further training for teaching staff;
• ensure IT maintenance by having an IT equipment and network administrator in schools;
• harmonise prices and VAT systems for digital resources and competition rules (public and private);
• clarify legal issues such as royalties and data protection;
• and apply international standards for equipment inter-operability.

4.5 Tablet use in European schools

The main phase of the Acer-European Schoolnet Educational Netbook Pilot started in the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year and ran until the end of the school year. The Netbook Pilot involved 124 schools in six countries and had a total of 245 classes of learners equipped with netbooks.

Three different evaluations were conducted: the first one targeted parents of the netbook students (April 2011), the second one the netbook students (May 2011), and the third one the netbook teachers, school heads and school ICT coordinators (June-July 2011).

“By far, the most important trend regarding the learner appears to be motivational: 71% of all respondents (students, teachers and parents) agreed that the use of netbooks for school related activities had a positive impact on learners’ motivation in school and learning. Where teachers (80%) and parents (75%) agreed on netbooks’ positive impact, students themselves were more reserved in their statements (58%).

4.6 Equinox Blueprint: Learning 2030

The educationalists who gathered at Canada’s Waterloo University in 2013 (see 3.3 above) proposed seven ways to transform education:

• Change the focus from rote learning the memorisation of specific facts and figures to the development of lifelong learners who are able to think critically and solve problems.
• Encourage learning through cross-disciplinary and collaborative projects that are relevant and useful to their community.
• Create an environment where students work in fluid groupings that combine students of different ages, different abilities and different interests.
• Shift the role of the teacher from “chalk-and-talk” orators to curators of learning, helping students grow their knowledge and skills.
• Measure learning progress using qualitative assessments of a student’s skills and competencies, rather than using high-stakes examinations.
• Ensure that all groups teachers, parents, governments and students have a seat at the table when building the framework for learning.
• Empower students and teachers to experiment with new ideas in an environment where they can fail safely and develop confidence to take risks.

4.7 UK Department for Education

Confronting the same issues, the UK Department of Education proposed the following strategies:

• Consider how technology can help when making decisions about how to deliver excellent teaching, effective school management and improved accountability.
• Think about the scope of the knowledge and resources available to pupils beyond the bounds of the classroom and the textbook, to the very best online lessons, digital resources and tools.
• Consider the scope of professional tools in the hands of teachers, so they can carry out assessment, record and access data easily when they need to.
• Ensure teachers are equipped with the skills to integrate digital technologies and new approaches successfully into their teaching, and set a clear expectation that no teacher should ignore the importance of technology in learning.
• Deliver an ICT curriculum that engages pupils and equips them with the skills and knowledge needed for further study and the 21st century workplace.
• Manage technology infrastructure and services professionally, offering access to tools and resources anywhere, anytime and achieving best value when purchasing technology.

5 Policy proposals

5.1 Steady support

The Internet Party will continue to support current initiatives to give schools free, fast and uncapped Internet connections, upgrading network cabling and wireless connectivity. We will ensure that there is effective oversight so that the work is complete by the end of 2016, is delivering high quality outputs to budget, and is responsive to feedback.

    The Internet Party will support schools and teachers to further develop formal and informal external networks for collaboration, innovation and resource creation.

5.2 Boost ICT in schools

The Internet Party believes that schools need financial assistance beyond the regular operational funding in making a step-change to prepare for the digital transformation of schooling underway.

This includes further professional development for teachers, upgrades to ICT equipment, creating learning spaces, and better technical support.

    The Internet Party will triple the amount of annual ICT funding to state and state-integrated schools. This will be an additional government expenditure of about $75 million per year.

    According to the Ministry of Education the total ICT component in 2013 operational funding to state and state-integrated schools is $34.8 million, calculated at $4782.61 per school and $31.96 per pupil. This is 2.75 percent of total 2013 operational funding.

    By way of comparison, $359 million will be spent over four years on providing the four new teaching and leadership roles in schools.

5.3 Step up capability development and pedagogical change

The Internet Party will support resources, systems and capabilities for teachers and educators to evolve pedagogical change, taking New Zealand schooling into the future, making it student-centred, and accommodating the individuality of the “knowledge age”.

We will promote leadership and vision from principals and school boards of trustees, as well as government policy that gives high priority to supporting education professionals to adapt quickly to the digital learning environment.

    The Internet Party will review Government strategies and plans for teachers' professional learning to support the effective use of digital technology in schools with a view to step it up.

    Better ways of scaling up successful new, innovative approaches by schools will be introduced, as well as ensuring that the insights from success are widely shared amongst schools. Support for teachers in the new NCEA digital technologies subjects will be designed and delivered.

    Ideas will also be invited from experts and professional bodies on ways to increase literacy of computer science related knowledge and competencies, as well as increase research into ICT-related areas.

5.4 Review National Standards

The Internet Party will initiate a review of National Standards by experts, schools, teachers, and parents/caregivers with the aim of modifying or scrapping them.

Greater recognition will be given to the value of detailed student data, getting to know learners’ interests and needs, and trialling new strategies. The emphasis will be on getting agreement on what needs to be measured to provide students with adequate feedback on their progress and data-led learning needs, as well as how the measurement/feedback systems need to be implemented.

    The Internet Party will consult with educators, schools and teachers to consider whether new national literacy and numeracy development strategies for years 1 to 8 are required. These will be implemented as a priority, ensuring buy-in from teachers and parents/caregivers.

5.5 Fix Novopay

The Internet Party will immediately initiate a quick review of Novopay to confirm it is capable of delivering a stable and suitable payment system. It will then rapidly fix the immediate problems, as well as ensure steps to ensure its long-term capabilities.

Independent reviews by a range of experts will provide recommendations on the changes needed to the way Government plans, designs, manages, governs, procures, tests and rolls out major IT projects.