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The role of a school principal in New Zealand is an incredibly demanding one. Our self-managing schools model means that principals are not only pedagogical leaders, but chief executives responsible for overall school management including property, finance and human resource matters. Read more
International research shows the best education systems enable teachers to learn from each other about how to enhance student learning and lift achievement. No School is an Island is the story of a New Zealand model of this kind called Learning and Change Networks (LCN), where schools have banded together as networks to collaborate with each other. Read more
Teachers are our most important educational asset – the single biggest influence on student achievement in schools. Teaching must become a profession of status so that New Zealand can attract the best and brightest and keep them, and ensure that teachers are always improving their practice to lift student achievement. Read more
Teachers are New Zealand’s most important educational asset. This report is the second in a series of three, building on the first - World Class Education: Why New Zealand Must Strengthen Its Teaching Profession, which identified some of the main structural problems preventing New Zealand’s teaching workforce from developing further. Read more
Why is NZ shedding talented teachers? NZ has a high quality but unequal education system It fails too many Māori and Pasifika students, with wide gaps in performance Policies to attract, retain and develop talent are needed to tackle the problem This report, written by John Morris and Rose Patterson, identifies the critical junctures where teaching quality can be influenced, and the organisations that have the power to strengthen the teaching profession. Read more
Compulsory students’ association membership (CSM), as opposed to voluntary students’ association membership (VSM), is an anachronism. Students’ associations are incorporated societies formed by members with common interests and are akin to the Automobile Association, the Consumers' Institute, staff associations and sporting clubs. Read more
Despite considerable government investment in tertiary education and training, New Zealand has seen sustained and substantial shortages of skill labour. Norman LaRocque looks at the reasons behind this and outlines the policy environment necessary to address the skills deficit. Read more
The draft New Zealand Curriculum adopts an intellectually flawed ‘outcome-based’ education model. This is an approach which prevailed in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has now been largely discredited and abandoned by countries with successful education systems. Kevin Donnelly advocates the internationally proven syllabus or standards-based approaches and argues that continuing to ignore the large body of international evidence in this area will put future generations of New Zealand students at risk. Read more
The three essential elements of successful school choice policies are: the freedom to open, expand and close schools in response to increased or reduced demand; funding following the student, putting all schools on the same footing; and independent management, so that schools are free to innovate in areas such as teaching practices, teacher pay, and school organisation. The report draws on a wide range of evidence including a study of the impact of Chicago’s charter schools on the environment. Read more
Limited school choice programmes that give parents a little more choice within a system of largely unchanged, uniform schooling alternatives, should not be used to judge the effectiveness of school choice as a reform catalyst. John Merrifield looks at examples of both real and limited school choice policies from around the world and finds out why some succeed while others fail. Read more