The Government’s Draft Tertiary Education Strategy is a far-reaching document that has important consequences for the agriculture industry and the tertiary education and training sector in general.
Agriculture ITO supports the over-arching direction of the Strategy but has concerns about its lack of emphasis on workplace and vocational education.
We strongly support the Government’s determination to upskill the nation, and its measures to address the fundamental building blocks of learning – language, numeracy and literacy. We also support its goal of tackling the confusing proliferation of qualifications in the marketplace.
Overall, however, our concern is that the Draft Strategy focuses heavily on the more traditional models of learning through a tertiary institution, and does not appear to pay any consideration to the role vocational pathways play in improving national productivity performance. The Tertiary Education Strategy needs to reflect the fact that vocational and workplace learning is as valid an educational pathway as attending a tertiary educational institution. For many New Zealanders it is a preferable and more effective pathway.
This is particularly the case for many young people, including those who have failed to engage with the secondary school system. The Draft Tertiary Education Strategy talks of students leaving school and going into a tertiary education institute to upskill but its failure to acknowledge that this is not the only, or even the best, pathway for many is a concern.
For many students the workplace and industry-based learning is the best way to become functioning citizens, contributing to the economy and participating fully in society.
Boosting productivity
Productivity gains for a country don’t happen in a tertiary education institution. They happen in the workplace. They are made at a micro economic, firm and individual level. If we as a country are not building the capability of people in the workplace – including frontline management skills in the workplace – we won’t get beyond talking about productivity gains.
The Tertiary Education Strategy must ensure the tertiary education sector is responsive to the education and training needs of industry. This is fundamental to upskilling the workforce and driving productivity. The Strategy needs to acknowledge the crucial leadership role that Industry Training Organisations play in this area.
Defining value and quality
Another area of concern is the Draft Strategy’s strong emphasis on higher level qualifications. In industries such as agriculture, there must also be a focus on lower level qualifications to give employees essential work-ready skills. An effective tertiary education strategy, therefore, must place an equally strong emphasis on high quality, low-level qualifications, which are vital to the economy. They provide the base skills and capability needed for learners who wish to move onto higher achievement.
Certainly in our industry there is a need for more people achieving at level four and above on the Qualifications Framework, but not at the expense of those gaining vital capability skills. We need people at all levels. We need people achieving at an advanced stage, doing increasingly multi-dimensional qualifications. And, to achieve the ‘pyramid-model’ structure required, we need plenty of people taking the initial steps to be productive and effective learners in the agricultural sector.
Qualifications confusion
We support the priority which the Draft Tertiary Education Strategy gives to reducing the proliferation of qualifications. The recent Review of the Land-Based Provision identified concerns with the proliferation, duplication and gaps in the tertiary qualifications available.
It does not make sense for the Government to fund qualifications which duplicate those already available on the nationally recognised Qualifications Framework. Steps made to address this proliferation will help clear up the confusion which exists.
Timing issues
On a pragmatic level, we have some concerns about the timing of investment decisions. These decisions, to be made in 2010, will be based on past performance. Unfortunately, this approach does not acknowledge the far-reaching changes that we have made recently to raise quality and improve completion rates.
We believe the results that these changes will yield, need to be factored into investment decisions.
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