Search results

This paper aims to analyse how learning levels differ within and between degrees and diplomas with specific application to the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business, which are delivered at a New Zealand polytechnic.

A literature review and content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks was conducted to analyse how learning levels differ within and between degrees and diplomas with specific application to the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business which are offered at a New Zealand polytechnic.

A literature review and content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks reveals that learning levels are differentiated by level of complexity, degree of abstraction, depth in a major subject, research competency, learner autonomy and responsibility, relative demand placed on students and increasing complexity and unpredictability of operational context. This analysis failed to find any difference in learning level between Bachelor of Applied Business Studies and New Zealand Diploma of Business papers nominally at the same level on the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework. The degree comprises a portion of papers at a higher learning level than the diploma and it is at this level that the difference is realised.

Future research should investigate learning level differences between disciplines, qualifications and institutions.

This paper provides a framework on which to base course design, delivery and assessment of the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business and credit transfer between them.

This case study addresses the increasingly important issue of the compatibility of learning levels between different qualifications. As many economies acknowledge the necessity for increasingly skilled workforces, credit transfer to enable seamless transfer between qualifications is becoming a focus in seeking to facilitate lifelong learning. There are few studies that focus on National Qualifications level descriptors and the implications for different qualification types.

A range of educational reforms were implemented in the 1980s and 1990s. These reforms were underpinned by a fundamental assumption that education, in a similar way to any other service, can be traded as a commodity in the marketplace. This chapter identifies the shifting priorities of the state and explores the impacts of these educational reforms on the teaching profession. It traces the emergence of new forms of schools and schooling that are ostensibly part of the ongoing privatization of public education. Conclusions on future directions for both schools and the education of teachers are offered.

In 1996, there were about six hundred and fifty overseas‐trained medical doctors who had immigrated to New Zealand but were unable to practice their profession even though the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) had assessed their medical qualifications as equivalent to similar qualifications in New Zea land. These immigrants were subjected to structural discriminator practices of the medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ) by which qualified medical doctors from non BASIC (Britain, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and Canada) countries were not allowed to register as medical practitioners in New Zealand. The privilege conferred on the MCNZ by the 1968 Medical Practitioners Act allows it to be selective in re cognising medical qualifications. As a consequence of this discriminatory practice many of the foreign trained doctors were unemployed while others worked as process workers, taxi drivers, petrol pump dispensers and pizza deliverymen in the period covered in this article (Selvarajah, 1997). This article provides a case history between 1995 and 2000 on the concerns and conditions of a group of foreign‐trained medical professionals (doctors and specialists) whose application to settle in New Zealand was processed by the New Zealand government prior to June 1995.

This chapter describes an alternative model to out-of-the-classroom learning which has been highly successful in assisting students in New Zealand to make the transition to either the workplace, or to higher qualifications.

The final paper within the New Zealand Diploma in Business is ‘Applied Management’ in which students work in groups to design and implement a semester-long research inquiry with a host organisation. The authors discuss the challenges and strategies associated with delivering this paper and reference three current studies which relate to this student cohort: the first about students’ perceptions of cooperative learning in groups, and the alternate selection and assessment techniques the university has been trialling; the second about a Māori mentoring pilot pairing students with mentors in the workplace; and third, examining students’ experiences and expectations of the Diploma as a pathway into degree study.

Our story offers an example of how a focus on quality and accountability to local business stakeholders has created a successful co-curricular learning environment, and suggests the value of combining the three strands of research, teamwork and co-curricular projects.

While the context is of a small, regional institute, many of the elements of good practice will be transferable to other higher education providers.

This paper aims to explore the work experiences of ethnic minority migrant Indian women and their reasons for entering entrepreneurship in post‐colonial New Zealand.

Over a period of five years, in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 45 Indian women migrant entrepreneurs in New Zealand. A total of approximately 50 hours of interviews with 200 hours of transcription and member checks contributed to the understanding of these women. The interpretations were enhanced by congruence of ethnicity and gender of the researcher‐author.

The qualitative interviews surfaced issues of being non‐white, exclusionary employment practices and negotiating post‐colonial New Zealand in order to follow the migrant dream despite the prevalence of softwares of colonialism in the mindset of the host country.

The study was conducted in one country (New Zealand) on one ethnicity (Indian); hence, there needs to be caution in generalizing the findings for other ethnic minority women and in other post‐colonial countries.

The research focuses on the experiences of educated ethnic minority women who are often marginalized based on their visible diversity discriminators, despite efforts by the New Zealand Government to create an equitable non‐racialized society.

The paper is a powerful reminder of the need to understand the layered reality of ethnic minority women and to reduce the gap between policy and action.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and develop appropriate responses to the workforce development needs of Aotearoa New Zealand Therapeutic Communities (TC).

Matua Raki took a workforce development design approach using principles of participatory/co-design.

A scoping exercise undertaken to explore the workforce development needs of Aotearoa New Zealand TC concluded that there was a shortage of addiction practitioners ready, willing and able to work in the TC environment and that a workforce development solution was desired by stakeholders. Following the scoping exercise a demand analysis found that there was a need for a TC training programme to be delivered in the Aotearoa New Zealand context. Outcome: a culturally appropriate TC training programme was developed in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. The training programme was then piloted with a group of 23 practitioners. Evaluation of participant engagement and satisfaction indicated that the training programme was appropriate to both the needs of the workforce and the TC context.

The TC training, developed as a result of this workforce development design approach provides unique content and processes to meet the needs of the TC workforce in the New Zealand context.

This article examines how the three ‘mythic’ elements (public aspiration, flexible language and practical guidance) of these Labour government education policy texts were operationalised in the forms and structures of secondary schooling from 1939. The period of analysis is from the early 1940s to the mid 1990s. The decade since 1994 has seen the trial of various forms of standards based assessment (i.e. unit standards and achievement standards) in the senior secondary school. Moreover, from 2002, a timetable has existed for the replacement of the three terminal national examinations that prevailed for most of the second half of the twentieth century, with the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).

One of the features of the New Zealand secondary schools system is that achievement closely reflects the taught curriculum. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) directly assesses student achievement on the secondary school curriculum through a combination of criterion‐based internal and external assessments. The nature of NCEA means school‐level results not only reflect student achievement but also the ability of leaders to organise, deliver, and monitor a relevant curriculum for students. This paper aims to describe how NCEA data were used to develop a simple but fair system to assess the relative performance of secondary schools.

No standardised measures of performance prior to Year 11 are available in New Zealand. Nor are student‐level data available. In the absence of these, multiple indicators of gross performance, added value and improvement over time were analysed using a schools‐of‐similar‐type methodology.

Results indicated that schools in the low and middle SES communities were more likely to be improving than others, but these improving schools were also more likely to be already high‐ or mid‐performing. Low‐performing schools were least likely to be improving.

Some advantages of this methodology are its ability to be utilised with any publicly available standards‐based achievement data, its validity as an indicator of leadership and organisational performance, and its ability to track school performance trends over time.

Stakeholders groups in the educational community are not immune to wider socio‐political events when responding to educational concerns and the purpose of this paper is to use a case study approach to examine how questions over teaching, learning and assessment can become the focus of wider political debates. In particular, this article focuses on the New Zealand Education and Science Parliamentary Select Committee investigation into the 2004 history examination, that was set up in the wake of increasing dissonance over the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand and the newly‐implemented senior secondary school standards‐based assessment system.

The contestation of the curriculum is a highly political process that works to reproduce social class patterns and keep particular elite groups in control of the official curriculum. This paper draws on a range of documentary sources to provide a socio‐historical perspective, as well as interviews with key participants in this process.

It is argued that while the educational community’s response to this investigation was varied, all shared aims that were largely educational in orientation. Political debates however are typically polarized and in this case politicians were able to use the contested nature of the school history curriculum to manipulate this educational issue (and the media) to their own political advantage.

This investigation saw history education in New Zealand come under unprecedented public and political scrutiny and as such it provides a rare glimpse into the nature of history curriculum matters in New Zealand in the first decade of the twenty‐first century.