Tena koutou katoa—A Maori greeting
In October 2002, ASCD's Executive Council visited New Zealand to learn about its innovative programs and education practices and to develop stronger relationships with New Zealand's institutions, schools, and educators. Such visits help ASCD identify best practices to share with members.
During the weeklong trip, we visited 22 schools, 7 divisions of the Ministry of Education, 8 education associations, and a university. In Auckland, we hosted a gathering of ASCD members. In Wellington, New Zealand Secretary of Education Howard Fancy welcomed us at a reception at the Ministry of Education.
New Zealand's educators respond to their relative geographic isolation by actively pursuing solutions and best practices from across the globe. Our open exchange of ideas with our New Zealand colleagues revealed common goals and aspirations for young people. It also revealed day-to-day practices that are closing the achievement gaps among New Zealand's Maori, European, and Pacific Islands populations.
In New Zealand, a sense of community and an independent spirit shape education thinking and improvement efforts.
Sense of Community
New Zealand's schools have a clear sense of shared traditions and values. These traditions, coupled with strong parental involvement in the governance of the schools, have enabled New Zealand to build an effective learning community. The shared values link various partners—students, parents, schools, agencies, and organizations—and help them work interdependently. Their high levels of mutual respect reflect New Zealand's commitment to creating a world-class education system.
The New Zealand government funds local schools through distributions from citizens' taxes. Schools with the lowest socioeconomic status receive the highest level of funding; those with the highest socioeconomic status receive the lowest level. The Ministry of Education is responsible for ensuring that schools meet the specifications of their charters and continue to raise achievement, reduce disparity, and improve education for Maori and Pacific Islands students.
New Zealand's educators emphasize the importance of meeting individual students' needs in the context of building community identity. Children typically start school on their 5th birthday, regardless of when that birthday falls in the school calendar. In a country with fewer than 4 million people, 60 percent of New Zealand's primary schools have five or fewer teachers. Looping and multi-age classrooms accommodate new students, and immersion strategies and some limited pull-out programs help integrate non-English-speaking students into the classroom. Students take responsibility for one another: We overheard a primary student telling a new 5-year-old classmate that school was “for learning, not messing about.”
Celebrating cultural rituals builds New Zealand's school community and respect for individuals. Pacific Islands high school students at Tangaroa College in South Auckland gave us our most memorable experience: the spiritually and emotionally moving welcoming ceremony. The Maori culture believes that all visitors bring some form of sacredness. We participated in the hongi, the pressing of noses with our hosts. The Maori culture's emphasis on respect of one person for another is reflected in both student and adult behavior. Valuing diversity is an important part of New Zealand's education system.
Shared traditions build collegiality among the teaching staff. Morning and afternoon faculty teas provide adult fellowship opportunities. Teachers rely on sharing resources rather than on buying materials for their individual classrooms. We visited elementary schools that had communal space adjacent to classrooms to facilitate the cross-age reading buddies programs and sharing of portfolios and presentations that take place in all New Zealand schools.
Independent Spirit
The positive relationships among parents, students, and teachers set the context for powerful teaching and learning. New Zealand educators focus on developing independent learners by instilling in students a strong sense of ownership for learning. Expectations are uniformly high.
When teachers expressed concern that parents' practice of driving students who lived nearby to school was compromising students' independence, New Zealand educators created “the walking bus.” They asked parents to volunteer as “virtual bus drivers,” responsible for stopping in front of each nearby child's home to collect the student and then walking students to the next block, where another parent took over.
Each school is governed by a board of trustees, typically five elected parents, a principal, a staff representative, and—at the secondary level—a student. This board hires the principal. The trustees and principal are responsible for generating any additional funding for the school. New Zealand principals perform many of the tasks—board and facilities management, for example—that superintendents and central offices typically perform in the United States.
Considerable autonomy and power make New Zealand school principals the primary determiners of school success. New principals come from the teacher ranks and receive advanced training in leadership. The Ministry of Education funds a support program for new principals that involves face-to-face and e-mail mentoring and discussion groups.
In contrast to the high-stakes testing environment elsewhere, judgments about each student's progress in New Zealand rests with the teachers and the school. The Ministry's focus is on assessment for instruction, not assessment of instruction, and on ensuring that schools fulfill their obligation to educate all students.
The Worldview
The Maori say that the three most important things in life are he tangata, he tangata, he tangata—“it is people, it is people, it is people.” This philosophy drives New Zealand's education system.
New Zealand ties its future to creating a world-class education system that meets the needs of all the people of New Zealand. Parents, students, teachers, principals, community members, and education and government agencies share a vision of learning that focuses on student achievement, independence, resourcefulness, and personal responsibility. New Zealand benefits from its habit of examining different models from abroad before designing its own policies and practices, just as ASCD benefits from expanding its organizational worldview.
Education in New Zealand
New Zealand has a population of fewer than 4 million. The four urban centers are Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Wellington.
The school year runs from February to December, with an extended holiday for January, a summer month in the southern hemisphere.
Sixty percent of primary schools have five or fewer teachers.
New Zealand has a national curriculum that emphasizes literacy and numeracy, cooperative skills, sports, and critical thinking skills.
Primary schools may be full primary (ages 5–12, followed by secondary, ages 13–17); contributing (ages 5–10, followed by middle/intermediate and secondary); or composite (primary combined with secondary/college).
In 1960, the Maori and Pacific Islands populations were 10 percent of New Zealand's population; they are expected to be 50 percent of the population by 2050.
