It didn’t work. In fact, the goal was doomed from the outset. Far from overcoming the lower status of vocational education, NCEA locked it in.
In academic subjects students can achieve higher grades of merit and excellence. Assessment for vocational education only offers one passing grade – higher grades are not possible. This, among other factors, has perpetuated the lower status of vocational education.
More than 20 years later, NCEA is being abolished. It will be replaced with the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) from 2029. Once again, improving the status of vocational education is amongst policymakers’ aims for the new qualification.
NZCE will include vocational subjects, each with its own curriculum, to be written by Industry Skills Boards (ISBs). There will be eight ISBs, each responsible for managing work-based training in a broad area of industry – construction, for example.
This is a very good start. Under NCEA, there were no vocational subjects, just disparate assessments of skills. Some schools have backed skills assessment with coherent programmes of learning; others have not.
Having a proper curriculum for each vocational subject will help ensure they are coherent. ISBs will make sure they are relevant to industry. Many challenges remain, however.
One lesson from NCEA is that academic and vocational subject results must be reported as similarly as possible. If academic subjects are reported on 100-point scales, vocational subjects should be too. If academic subjects can yield grades of A, B or C, so should vocational subjects.
The hard part will be supporting schools to teach vocational subjects. They are set up to teach subjects like English, geography and science. They simply do not have enough resources to do justice to vocational subjects as well.
Schools will need help to find work-integrated learning opportunities for their students. Dual enrolments at schools and polytechnics will need to become commonplace. ISBs will have to be in it for the long haul to help with these things.
New Zealand desperately needs high-quality pathways for vocational education. But government agencies, tertiary institutions, industry bodies and employers will all need to step up. Schools will not be able to do it alone.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
More than 20 years later, NCEA is being abolished. It will be replaced with the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) from 2029. Once again, improving the status of vocational education is amongst policymakers’ aims for the new qualification.
NZCE will include vocational subjects, each with its own curriculum, to be written by Industry Skills Boards (ISBs). There will be eight ISBs, each responsible for managing work-based training in a broad area of industry – construction, for example.
This is a very good start. Under NCEA, there were no vocational subjects, just disparate assessments of skills. Some schools have backed skills assessment with coherent programmes of learning; others have not.
Having a proper curriculum for each vocational subject will help ensure they are coherent. ISBs will make sure they are relevant to industry. Many challenges remain, however.
One lesson from NCEA is that academic and vocational subject results must be reported as similarly as possible. If academic subjects are reported on 100-point scales, vocational subjects should be too. If academic subjects can yield grades of A, B or C, so should vocational subjects.
The hard part will be supporting schools to teach vocational subjects. They are set up to teach subjects like English, geography and science. They simply do not have enough resources to do justice to vocational subjects as well.
Schools will need help to find work-integrated learning opportunities for their students. Dual enrolments at schools and polytechnics will need to become commonplace. ISBs will have to be in it for the long haul to help with these things.
New Zealand desperately needs high-quality pathways for vocational education. But government agencies, tertiary institutions, industry bodies and employers will all need to step up. Schools will not be able to do it alone.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
Oh for the return of the Technical Colleges (Techs) . Graduates of these high schools could still change their minds and go to a University if they wished.Was the stupidity of Beeby's education for everyone for equity interpreted to mean everyone should have a chance to go a University hence crazy vocational subjects like fashion and design at Universities ?
Early in 20th century my father became a qualified engineer by attending night classes and being apprenticed to an engineering firm
during the day. He had acquired his Marticulation (UE) while at a secondary school learning appropriate subjects like maths, science and English .
European education systems recognise the existence of 3 career-oriented pathways at upper secondary school level: academic, technical and vocational. There remains a tendency to conflate the tech and vocat in NZ but hopefully we will catch up with not only Europe but also places like Japan and Turkey where the distinction has been made for some time.
Some NZ institutions cottoned onto this ages ago. I published a paper in 2005 on vocat/tech educ under the NCEA system which made mention of a school that at that time was registered as both a school and an Industrial Training Provider. See Vlaardingerbroek, B. (2005) "Smoothing the secondary-tertiary education interface: developments in New Zealand following the National Qualifications Framework reforms", Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Vol. 57, pp. 411-418.
Post a Comment
Thanks for engaging in the debate!
Because this is a public forum, we will only publish comments that are respectful and do NOT contain links to other sites. We appreciate your cooperation.