The Ministry of Education has proposed sweeping changes to our VET system. Unfortunately, it has drawn on Fordist examples from overseas for its proposed structure. However, our new system should learn from non-Fordist approaches in the Basque Country and Finland, and at Otago Polytechnic.
Basque Country
The Basque Country VET system has two key components that are relevant to New Zealand:
1. A challenge-based learning environment (ETHAZI).
2. An R&D framework where educators, companies and scientists work together on new technologies, innovation and improvement (TKNIKA).
ETHAZI is a high-performance education environment where students and staff work on challenges developed with businesses (or whole industries) looking for specific skill-sets.
This approach is currently applied to about 30% of the Basque Country's VET courses, but is set to rise to 70% by 2020.
The Basque system is very agile, in a way that a Fordist system cannot be. Challenges are typically developed and deployed within one to three months of an identified training need.
Regional and national teaching teams have high degrees of autonomy over the way challenges unfold. To this end, the Basque Country has said this approach ''does not fit the structural model as we have known it until now; elements such as schedules, assessments, classroom settings, etc in their current format are no longer valid and need a rethinking and consequent redefinition''.
Meanwhile, TKNIKA is another crucial part of the VET system. This is a future-focused R&D partnership between government, science and technology agencies (including universities), industry and business, and VET educators.
Some 200 educators from the VET sector spend half of their time working on cutting-edge applied, continual improvement and curriculum innovation projects.
TKNIKA projects lead directly to curriculum informed by the latest needs of the industry, as VET educators gain an insider's view of the real training needs. This perspective (along with the flexibility of the ETHAZI approach) creates a short-cut between technical innovation and training outcomes.
Finland
The 2018 Finnish VET reforms are based on a centralised model similar to the proposed New Zealand reforms. However, there are some crucial differences to the proposed New Zealand model.
Most significantly, students in the Finnish VET system have a highly personalised path of study that seamlessly accounts for learning in-class, in-work and from elsewhere.
This personalised learning means the focus is no longer on time-for-credit enrolments. Rather, enrolments are based on the achievement of a stated set of outcomes. As such, the system does not care how or where the skills are learned, nor does it care how long it takes. Outcomes are demonstrations of a competency in a workplace setting.
Further, when students complete their compulsory education, students who do not choose the university pathway for upper-secondary learning (the equivalent of New Zealand's NCEA) are automatically enrolled in VET study.
This enrolment remains active and the student can move in and out of the system as and when they need skills top-ups or accreditation for their work-based learning.
Importantly, this moves beyond a deficit-model of education (i.e. it does not assume that students are empty vessels to be filled up with knowledge and skills) and existing skills and knowledge count towards course completion.
It also changes the funding model for VET. As there are no minimum or maximum times for demonstrating outcomes, funding is based on educational outcomes, not a time-for-credit funding.
In order to achieve this fully flexible model, each provider is licensed to deliver specific outcomes but they can decide how they deliver the outcomes. They are measured on their ability to deliver on the outcomes prescribed in their licence by the government.
Much like the Basque Country system, this will see the development of robust regional clusters with industry, government and VET providers working closely together to deliver outcomes for students.
An approach like this would see true fluidity between in-class and in-work learning. It would also remove many of the inefficiencies of the time-for-credit model by properly acknowledging all forms of formal and informal learning.
Otago Polytechnic
Despite the constraints of the current Fordist education system in New Zealand, Otago Polytechnic has led the charge in providing VET learning that caters for student and industry needs in ways that others have not.
For example, CapableNZ is New Zealand's leader in assessment of prior learning (APL) and work-based learning. It has hundreds of learners studying in their workplaces in everything from building control to social services.
Its qualifications range from certificate to diploma and professional practice degrees and postgraduate qualifications.
The work-based approach used by CapableNZ has been adapted by other schools. For example, the bachelor of culinary arts programme has both an in-class and APL pathway, which has allowed it to customise pathways for learners with industry experience.
Otago Polytechnic is also leading the way in the field of micro-credentials (small bites of credentials designed specifically to meet in-work needs).
It announced its micro-credentialing service, EduBits, in 2018 and currently has more than 70 credentials available online.
These are developed in a matter of weeks and can be provided at all levels of study.
When implementing the proposed reforms, it is essential that the Government looks at non-Fordist approaches.
This is required to move us from a factory-production model of VET that churns out graduates with yesterday's skills to one that is future-focused and responsive, where students come in and out of a fluid system as and when needed.
Otago Polytechnic is already a long way down the track to exploring non-Fordist approaches and is well-placed to help the Government in the implementation of such approaches.
-Prof Richard Mitchell teaches on the bachelor of culinary arts programme at Otago Polytechnic. He has had more than 150 publications published over 20 years. His work explores learning in contexts as diverse as tourism, wineries, simulations and culinary classrooms.
