Speech to Trans-Tasman Business Circle, Auckland

Thank you Lex Henry for that introduction.  I’m delighted to be here talking to you as business leaders, but also as parents, and people invested in the future of our country.

Ours is a small nation with a far reach and big ambitions – and the full realisation of those ambitions relies on ensuring that we have a highly skilled workforce and well qualified New Zealanders.

We have just over 4.5 million people and we have long known that we cannot compete with economies built on mass labour. We are, however, blessed with many natural resources that form the basis of our growing economy.

And the one that I have the privilege to work with and am most focused on is the potential – the resourcefulness - of our children and young people, and the endless possibilities that a good education can give them. 

Our government is highly aspirational for our children and young people. We want every child to get the best possible education so they can be successful here at home in NZ, as well as be globally competitive.

That means ensuring that our education system delivers high quality teaching, leadership, and learning that develops the resourcefulness, resilience, and capability of our youngest New Zealanders.

As parents we all want our kids to be successful, to have skills, to build good friendships, to be confident and engaged, to be prepared to apply themselves, to personify the ‘Kiwi can-do’ attitude that characterises our nation.  As employers, that also happens to be what you want from your employees. You want them to have skills, you want them to be confident, and you want them to be successful.

The New Zealand education system can, and does, go a long way to setting the platform for these aspirations. It cannot and should not be responsible for it all, as is too often charged. 

Education is a partnership between the formal system and its communities of parents, organisations and businesses, and we all need to play our part.

As Minister of Education I welcome, indeed solicit, the involvement of employers, entrepreneurs, businesses, industry in both the shape and substance of education. I want to see this partnership strengthened and made practical.

Our government has put a lot of effort into building clear vocational and academic pathways through our national qualifications system to guide students in their choices, and to make transparent to future employers exactly what skills and competencies these young people have developed and to indicate their future capabilities.

New Zealand has a world class education system.

I find the metaphor of the smart phone really useful when describing our system. It is packed full of functionalities which navigated confidently by a competent user are effective, efficient, and fun!

However, in the hands of a 20^th century Luddite, it can make the experience of 21^st century digital natives pedestrian and painful! I know, I’m the former, parenting the latter.

So, how do we equip today’s students for tomorrow’s world? Or, probably more accurately, today’s student for their world?

It used to be that kids used pencils, teachers used chalk, a tablet was a type of medicine, and a text was a heavy book you carried in your school bag.  The pace of change nowadays is rapid.

In schools, like in the workplace, new technologies are creating new ways of learning and offer access to an extraordinary amount of information.

We want young people to be prepared for a future where digital fluency will play a huge role in their careers and everyday lives.

That’s why our Government has invested $700 million to connect schools, provide fast, reliable internet, and fund high speed, high quality, and uncapped data.

We are now running about twelve months ahead of schedule on the rollout.  Half of New Zealand schools are connected to the managed network, and we expect around ninety per cent of schools to be connected by the end of this year.

But change is not just about tools and hardware.  Our investment in 21st century technologies must be matched by new thinking that reflects the best teaching approaches and our natural cultural advantages.

Increasingly, being prepared for tomorrow’s world won’t be just about what you know, but what you can do with what you know.

In the real world, students will be expected to make connections between ideas, to analyse information and communicate effectively, to work collaboratively with others, to find solutions to problems, and to see and seize opportunities.

Of course, that’s what we also expect of their teachers and principals – and we have some of the best in the world.

We need a skilled and qualified workforce that meets the demands of business and industry; that adapts to new and changing technologies. We need entrepreneurs, innovators and investors. We don’t just need smart technologies. We need smart people.

We also need kids to be prepared for the jobs that don’t exist yet – the ones they will invent for themselves.

In a world that is increasingly global, complex, and fluid a good education gives our young people opportunities and choices.

Over the next three to five years there’s the opportunity for transformational change in the education system.  We can move beyond thinking about modern learning environments in terms of technological hardware and physical learning spaces – computers and classrooms - to developing truly modern teaching and learning practice.

Increasing the flexibility and responsiveness of the education system to encourage innovation means that kiwi kids will be more flexible, more responsive and more innovative in their businesses and workplaces of the future. 

In order to do that, we need to look at investing, transforming or better targeting some system levers, such as legislation, regulation, funding,  resourcing, professional learning, development and collaboration, and we need to invest in raising the quality of teaching and leadership.  These system levers working together can support the student-centred, 21^st century education system our young people deserve, and our nation requires.

That’s why we’re investing $359 million in the new model of Communities of Schools, underway this year.  This initiative is as much about a fundamental change to the way we conceptualise the delivery of education, as it is about keeping the best teachers in the classroom, and getting the best leadership to the schools that need it the most. 

It’s about building consistent parental and whānau engagement. 

It’s about collaboration between schools so that your child has a clear and connected pathway from early childhood through primary and secondary to their post school options.

It’s about ensuring that we get better platforms for sharing excellent teaching practice, hardware and information, and shared back office services.

It’s about getting as many of the routine but time consuming operating processes systemised or removed so the true purpose of schools – to cause learning to happen – can be their untrammelled focus.

Of course the biggest and most necessary conceptual change that we need to make is how we think about success.  It’s not the size of the school but the scale of educational change made that’s important – but that’s for another time and another speech! 

At the moment our education system is a network of 2,500 schools, loosely linked to about 5,000 early childhood centres and variably connected to the range of tertiary providers that we have at the senior secondary level. 

A recent survey by the Employers and Manufacturers Union found that most employers were dissatisfied with the work-ready skills of school leavers.  You can debate the hows and whys of this survey but if businesses want to see an innovative and responsive workforce in the future, then you need to get involved.

I encourage you to consider partnerships and relationships with your local schools.  For instance:

• supporting your local schools in designing curriculum and sponsoring related resources that are relevant to local employers and industries;
• connecting with educators to ensure that training and education is more tailored to the needs of your region and provides skilled people that meet the needs of local employers;  
• becoming part of your local youth guarantee network that connects schools, tertiary providers, and businesses;
• providing workplace internships and experiences for students
• encouraging staff to develop their governance skills by running for local school boards (regardless of whether their children attend that school, but especially if they do);
• offering your professional expertise to schools on a pro-bono basis;
• talking up the successes and practices of your local schools; and
• speaking well of the teaching profession.

As the Minister, I can work with you and schools to find ways to increase the opportunities for success.

We all want our children and young people to be successful. We need to ensure that every one of them is equipped with the values, the skills, the competencies, the knowledge to be successful in navigating the 21st century world.  It’s in their interests. And ours.