Rural & Remote Schools Wellington Camp 2019

Another great camp with these cool schools and their awesome kids and teachers:

Do rural communities want to be connected?

A couple of weeks ago I was pontificating on a vision for connected rural communities and the benefits it would bring, even going so far signposting a Rural Renaissance!
So it was interesting to read this article from the Taranaki Daily News about locals in the Republic of Whangamomona being divided on the need for internet or cell phone coverage in their district.

Remote rural town divided on whether to move into the 21st century 

On the flip side (& there is always a flip side) - here is what Rural Women NZ have to say in their 2014 - 2017 Manifesto

It is encouraging to see there has been some movement on extending mobile coverage but there is a lot more work to be done to make fast internet accessible for all our rural learners and their families. Access is not only about having the infrastructure available but more importantly about affordability.

With an election year is process I look forward to seeing what is in store with a new manifesto from Rural Women NZ.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

In my recent post NZ Research & Articles - Online Teaching & Learning, I commented on the similar themes coming up in the research from nearly two decades of learning online. To illustrate this, and just because history really interests me, I want to share this report.

Te Pouaka Whakaako ki te Kāreti o Ngata
Telelearning and Contexts of Awareness at Ngata Memorial College. Report prepared for Te Puni Kōkiri by Ken Stevens (1998).
This case study of telelearning at Ngata Memorial College in Ruatoria, compares students who are telelearning with those who aren't and what their perceptions were of the wider world.
Telelearning (audiographics) provides students with a connection with the world beyond school and extends educational and vocational opportunities for students and adults in remote communities.
In this report Steven's raises the government's commitment to equality of educational opportunity and how developments in ICT have  wide ranging implications for schools, in teaching & learning, and administration policy.
He unpacks in detail the differences between telelearning and distance education in relation to how each was positioned to serve the society of the times. Distance education belongs to an industrial age model; telelearning to the information age. Steven's goes on to describe the changing educational environment where:

• schools are inter-connected through ICT networks, 
• technologies are used to provide new and better ways of learning, 
• ICT skills will provide employment advantage, 
• there will be an urgent need to provide the mass provision of appropriate technologies to classrooms. 

These are key themes that are still important today, as are individualised model of teaching and learning and the changing role of the teacher, which are also discussed.

This report was written just on the advent of Tomorrow's Schools and describes a highly centralised system of education without which small schools would be challenged to provide a quality education in a increasingly competitive environment. This has been a huge change since this time and in itself has been a key driver to the growth in collaborative online networks in the decade to follow. Steven's mentions the growing reality of the virtual classroom with the development of Cantatech & TOSItech and a developing East Coast network (which could be the precursor to the KAWM Network).

There were a number of recommendations from this report to the Ministry of Education. Some are summarised below:

• Recognise their pioneering role in telelearning education and support the expansion to other NZ schools;
• Expanding links to Colleges of Education;
• Recognise the Māori cultural context and consult with the broader Māori community;
• Be recognised as a special technology school, 'a valuable educational laboratory' from which other schools could learn;
• They should no longer be considered a small school but be funded as a virtual school.

It is interesting to see the work that was pioneered by Ngata Memorial College is still very relevant today. Maybe now we are 17 years into the 21st Century we will start to see the change that the Information Age has promised being realised for NZ learners.

Fast internet drives 'Rural Renaissance'.

 In 2003 TUANZ led a National Broadband Applications Project where cross sector forums were set up regionally to discuss the potential of broadband and come up with some scenarios about what life would be like beyond dial-up. This was during the days of the roll out of Project Probe. We are now well onto the second wave of superfast internet with the roll out of fibre, 4 G networks and improved satellite service.
Those scenarios discussed in 2003 forums were published in "Survival of the Fastest"
I love the education scenario of "A Third Way at Blacksmith's Elbow" (Chapter 4) which describes a small rural community connected to broadband:

• Broadband brings everybody access to whatever resources they need;
• The community grows, instead of shrinks;
• People find it easier to be life-long learners;
• People are collaborate;
• The school is the hub of the community.

“Rural New Zealand” by Sarah Stewart is licensed under CC BY 2.0

And "A Renaissance in our Heartland" (Chapter 4)

"But perhaps among the most important were social applications. Broadband is ultimately about empowerment and decision-making. It's about access to information. It's about a change in the rural environment. No longer is it just farmers and craftspeople plying their trade in relative isolation. Give them a broadband link and any entrepreneur worth their salt can live and work anywhere. We're already seeing software design becoming a rural industry. With a video-conferencing link, people can have a virtual presence from almost anywhere.
Broadband access means the whole distribution of the population will be different as the city moves to the country. Why? Because they want to, because they can, and all because of broadband.
And if one person moves, it's likely that the family will, too. They will go to the schools, buy from the shops, use the services, and generally contribute to the community. In turn, they will create jobs, opportunities and lead to a rural renaissance."

These future focused scenarios were envisioned 14 years ago. So where are we now? How far down the track are we heading towards scenarios described here? Or are the paths we are walking different than we had earlier imagined and will they lead us to different destinations? 

Adams, G., & Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand. (2003). Survival of the fastest: a guide to how New Zealand can use broadband to lead the world, from the TUANZ National Broadband Applications Project. Auckland, N.Z.: Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand.

Review of education funding systems - Threat or opportunity for NZ Rural Schools?

Following on from an earlier post about Rural NZ - A great place to live and learn, here is some context of what is happening in the educational landscape at the moment.

We are currently going through the process of legislative change and a funding review that will have the biggest impact on NZ schools since 1989 and the introduction of Tomorrow's Schools. For more on Tomorrow's Schools see Langley, 2009; Wylie, 2013.

The Education (Update) Amendment Bill proposes a range of changes, of particular relevance to my study is Communities of Online Learning (or CoOLs), which has been the most contested and provocative part of the bill. I write about this in another post.

The Education Funding System Review, that sits alongside the proposed legislative changes, has been in the consultation phase since last year (I recommend that you read the Cabinet Paper that sits behind what is on the MoE website) There has been one change of tack to the original proposal when teacher unions pushed back on Global Funding mechanism - this was seen as another way of bulk funding schools that was so strenuously opposed in the early 2000s. The reasons given for not proceeding with the global budget was

"schools indicated that the current system of funding delivery generally works well and can provide the flexibility required"..."Moreover, it is clear that neither principals nor teachers yet have confidence in governance and management to make good choices about the mix of inputs necessary to meet the educational challenge for their students." 

That last phrase is dynamite and should be of concern if the Minister thinks that after more that 20 years of self governance school leaders lack the skills to make good choices. Without going further into the politics of the discussion in this paper - here are the key points in relation to small and rural schools:

 The Proposed Model of Funding

26.1 a core funding model in both early learning and state and state integrated schools made up of two components:

26.1.1 a curriculum-based per-child funding amount - linked to the learning expectations of children and young people at each stage of the curricula. In early learning, this involves moving to per-child funding. In schooling, this involves a review of funding levels at each stage of the curriculum;

26.1.2 additional funding for individual challenges:

26.1.2.1 targeted additional achievement allocation - for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and to replace the current decile system and better align funding to the actual curriculum-based achievement challenge; 

26.1.2.2 learning support (special education) allocation - for those learning support needs that services and schools are expected to meet from within their funding;

26.2 for small and isolated early learning services and state and state integrated schools, supplementary funding to enable the maintenance of a network of provision;

Of importance to rural and small schools is section 70 - 73:

Defining small and isolated services and schools

70 To support education provision being located as close as reasonably possible to families, I propose supplementary funding for small and isolated services and schools. This takes into account population densities in rural and provincial areas and our objectives for choice and diversity in education provision, including for Maori medium education. 

71 Small schools face fixed costs in administration and curriculum delivery, including in providing subject choice at the senior secondary level. Isolated services and schools can face extra costs related to both teaching and learning and accessing trades and services. These services and schools would not be educationally viable if they received only the curriculum based per-child funding amount and the additional funding amount for individual challenges. 

72 I am seeking to develop an approach to these services and schools that provides the minimal additional funding necessary, supports our objective of increased collaboration across  and system,  and takes into account  the potential  over  time for  Communities  of
Learning I Kahui Ako  and for Communities  of Online  Learning  to mitigate  some of  the costs in the operation of small schools, including those associated with providing curriculum breadth. 

73 The first stage of this work involves establishing a coherent basis for defining small and isolated services and schools. The second stage of this work involves determining the extra costs that these services and schools face in maintaining a viable provision and, hence, the funding that they require over and above that provided by the core funding model. There is a close relationship between this work and that related to the per-student funding amount.

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I can understand the need to simplify a complicated system, I can understand the benefits of network provision across schools, I can see a need for equity across our schooling system, I believe to move forward we need to make changes, and change is challenging. However lets make sure that we do this while retaining what is special about our small rural schools, and not just focusing solely on 'progress that can be measured at each level of the curriculum'.

If you are a supporter of our small rural schools, I would be watching this review process carefully, talking with Principals in your local schools and advocating on their behalf.

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Langley, J., & Cognition Institute. (2009). Tomorrow’s schools 20 years on-. Auckland, N.Z.: Cognition Institute. Retrieved from http://www.cognitioneducationtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/report_cognition_institute_john_langley_ed.pdf


Wylie, C. (2013). Tomorrow’s schools after 20 years: can a system of self-managing schools live up to its initial aims? The New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 0(19). Retrieved from https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/nzaroe/article/view/1555