Heather Roy's Diary

The greatest legacy parents can leave their children is to prepare them to succeed in the world they will inherit - a world characterised by rapid continuous change, and increasing complexity and ambiguity. The successful citizen not only needs a broad range of skills, knowledge and experience but also well-refined tools for continuous self-learning.

With this in mind I joined my National, ACT and Maori Party colleagues this week to launch 'Step Change: Success The Only Option' - the report of the Inter-Party Working Group on School Choice.

Born from the National-ACT Confidence & Supply Agreement, the IPWG was formed in April 2009 and consisted of National MPs Hekia Parata, Chester Borrows, and Jonathan Young; Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell; and ACT MPs Sir Roger Douglas and myself as Chair.

We were tasked with reviewing policy options for funding and regulation of schools to increase parental choice and school autonomy. For the past year we reviewed current practice here, and best practice overseas, complementing our research with visits to schools around the country. The culmination of this work was two reports: one supported by all Group members; the other written by Sir Roger Douglas and myself.

Step Change: Success The Only Option
Although New Zealand's student achievement at higher levels of literacy and numeracy compares well with other countries, our students perform poorly at the lower percentiles.

'Step Change' focuses on those most in need, and those not being served by the current education system - the 20 percent of students who are failing, and the top five percent who are gifted and talented. The report acknowledges that better educational outcomes are possible for all students, and is underpinned by four principles:

* Choice: for students to develop a personal learning plan and for them to choose a learning provider who will meet their needs, interests and goals.
* Flexibility: for providers to expand and find staff, curricula and pedagogies that match student needs.
* Quality: that is reflected in school leadership, teaching, content and student performance outcomes.
* Accountability: that sees providers measured by outcomes pertaining to student success and satisfaction.

The report recommends an eight-step programme to improve outcomes for these students. Most importantly, it emphasises the needs of the student through a personalised learning pathway. Aimed at six-16 year-olds, its goal is to shift the focus of education on to the student to ensure the primary education relationship is between the provider and the student and family. Its key elements are:

1. Student identification
2. Provider identification
3. Provider prospectuses
4. Students(and family/whanau) choose a principal provider and/or a range of providers
5. Personal learning plan agreed
6. First (of two) tranche of student performance fee paid to provider
7. Performance of student monitored and assessed, amended and supported as necessary including provider, broker/mentor, and family/whanau
8. Student succeeds - second tranche of student performance fee paid as a success bonus to provider.

Determining the logistics of putting this programme in place would be the role of a taskforce - which the IPWG recommends that Education Minister Anne Tolley appoint now, so as to have the 'Step Change' proposals ready for implementation in the 2011 school year.

A copy of 'Step Change: Success The Only Option' is available at: www.roy.org.nz

Free To Learn
Although ACT is fully supportive of the recommendations put forward in 'Step Change' we would, as usual, like to take things further.
Motivated by a deep desire for every New Zealand student to reach their full potential and leave school with the skills necessary to succeed in the wider community - 'Free To Learn' makes recommendations that would affect the entire education system and every student, rather than just the bottom 20 percent and top five percent.

There is no argument that something must be done to improve the situation for this 25 percent, but ACT understands that real and meaningful education reform cannot occur if we exclude 75 percent - the vast majority - of our student body.

Covering several areas in education - including teachers and training, information, property, and funding - 'Free to Learn' submits a case for enabling a range of providers to enter the education sector, for schools to have the independence to innovate and meet student needs, and for funding to be available to every family to take to the school of their choice.

Not only would these changes inevitably create a diverse, competitive, innovative, and accountable education system but - most importantly - it would create an equitable education system.

School choice in New Zealand is currently only truly available for those who either have the capacity to pay tuition fees, or are willing and able to make enormous sacrifices. Creating a system where choice is available from a range of options, and where money follows the student, ensures that every family - regardless of income - can select the best education.

'Free to Learn' builds and expands on ACT's existing policies. One out of every five students in New Zealand is failing - leaving school without the literacy and numeracy skills they need to survive, let alone succeed, in daily life. Clearly some parts our education system are in urgent need of reform.

'Free to Learn' proposes to do just that: create a system where schools have real incentives to raise student achievement to benefit the whole of our society.

'Free To Learn' can be downloaded at: www.roy.org.nz.

Lest We Forget - First Frozen Meat Cargo Sails From New Zealand
During the 1880s, the New Zealand and Australian Land Company decided to attempt to ship frozen meat to Europe. Shipping from Australia had been underway for 20 years, but the longer voyage from New Zealand had previously been deemed unviable.

The company built an export slaughterhouse at Totara Estate, near Oamaru, from where 95 percent of the first cargo would originate. Carcasses were transported by horse and cart to Oamaru, then by steam train to Port Chalmers, where they were frozen and loaded on the sailing ship Dunedin.

The Dunedin set sail on February 15 1882 and when the ship arrived in London three months later, all but one of the carcasses were in perfect condition.

This voyage paved the way for New Zealand's frozen meat and dairy industry. It helped lift New Zealand from the recession of the 1880s and became the cornerstone of our current economy, earning New Zealand the reputation as 'Britain's Farmyard'. The brave seafarers of this and other similar journeys are remembered with a memorial at the Port of Oamaru.

ENDS