Developing world-class Education for Adults in New Zealand

Thirty years ago, when I took on my first leadership role in higher education, the world was different. In New Zealand, private tertiary education was in its infancy with just a small handful of providers training local students for specific industry roles such as travel and tourism, bookkeeping, and administration. These programmes were mostly accredited by external organisations, software providers or they were offered non-accredited on the basis the courses would provide skills-based learning for specific roles. 

It is hard to know back in 1991 just how many New Zealand students were studying in private institutes as up until 1999 as the numbers are not available. Still, by 1999 181,000 New Zealand students were studying in both non-government and government-owned institutes. A significant contributor to private institutes’ demand was the changing roles in the workplace as roles became increasingly computerised and as new roles emerged driven by new technology. Almost no sector was immune as roles as diverse as bank tellers, courier drivers, retailers, signwriters, journalists, travel agents began to rely on technology, the internet and the ability to run scripts or functions through a computer interface. The government of the time saw the move as a positive one. More people in education was identified as a key economic stimulant. The knowledge economy became the aspiration for New Zealand’s future. The shift to promoting higher education became the expectation of career advisors, employers and parents.

For New Zealand, the Internet is the modern equivalent of the freezer ship that revolutionised our economy last century. If New Zealanders do not seize the opportunities provided by the knowledge economy, we will survive only as an amusement park and holiday land for the citizens of more successful developed economies.

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In the twenty-two years since 1999 the range of programmes on offer at PTE's expanded to include significantly more NZQA accredited programmes. I was there at the beginning of this journey as small owner-operators started to respond to changing training needs in different sectors by opening training institutes based upon their own practical and applied knowledge of their industry. Hairdressing schools, welding academies, photography schools, chiropractor courses and even infamous twilight golf training began popping up all over the country. The move from user-pays tuition to Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) subsidised courses further stimulated the private sector’s growth defined by their commitment to providing training that was not typically available or on offer at public institutions. 

Between 1999 - 2013 I was both General Manager and then CEO of the Media Design School I watched on and noted for every ten private institute offering high-quality education programmes there seemed to be another private institute tarnishing the sector through over-promises and under-delivery, dubious enrolment incentives and lack of quality assurance in education performance. The reputation of PTE institutes became headline stories and the sector began to self-organise to ensure the high-quality providers were not lost in the whitewash of negative press. PTE associations began to emerge, each focused on different parts of the sector-based upon reputation, sector and size. Each of these organisations had a fundamental mandate to sit as close as possible to the Ministers and education policymakers of the day to ensure that these collectives would lobby for PTEs and their students’ needs. 

From 2000 to 2012, I hosted many visits by Education Ministers and their Associates in my role at Media Design School. There was an increased dialogue about the importance of high-quality private tertiary education and the specific need for specialist skills in the film, visual effects and computer games industry. The relationship between our economic push to attract world-class companies and investment and the need to supply highly skilled talent became top-of-mind. PTE’s became an important conduit linking industry and talent needs as the future of work morphed and responded to digitalisation and the emergence of new sectors such as film.

By the mid to late 2010s the PTE landscape changed again. Many institutes closed down, merged or realigned their focus to international students. The rise of institutes focused on international students saw further quality concerns and once again the PTE sector as a whole felt the brunt of a few poor performers. The idea of education consortiums comprised of private institutes operating under common ownership or investment funds began to emerge and one by one, institutes began to be acquired. In some cases these consortiums listed on the stock exchange.

The positive impact of the PTE sector in New Zealand is enormous. The majority of the many thousands of domestic students who have trained in one of New Zealand's private institutes over the past thirty years should not be under-estimated. The majority of these students have completed certificate and diploma courses that led to the jobs we rely on more than ever. They are the front line workers, the tradies, the craftspeople, the retailers and the small business owners who underpin our economy. 

However, this article is not about the power of PTE’s but New Zealand’s absence of private highly-esteemed post-graduate schools. For example, in the 2020 index of the top 10 Global Business Schools, just three are not private. It cannot be a coincidence that the research outputs, the quality of academic rigour, the standing of the faculty and the commercial outputs are significantly higher in private institutes against those owned by government. 

What I know from thirty years at the cold-face of tertiary education, technology and business is the world needs great leaders who can look to the future with a deep understanding of new economic models, technological advancement and the massive impact that climate, populism, consumerism, globalisation and changing demographics and its influence on the current and future society. New Zealand needs institutes of higher-order thinking where hard conversations can occur and where the industry can interface with multi-disciplinary students who are not pigeon-holed into narrow fields of knowledge that have carried through from the education silos of the industrial era.

In the five years since I launched Tech Futures Lab as a Futures focused institute specifically for postgraduate studies, I have become an outlier. This learning institute is the partner of my other institute The Mind Lab, where over 5000 New Zealand professional adults have already undertaken postgraduate studies. Tech Futures Lab is my commitment to bring complex issues to the forefront of business decision making. It is the thinking-adults institute where mature students with diverse experience mingle with thought-leaders, industry icons and global innovators. It is where legacy views are challenged, debated and tested for robustness in the current world.

Not only do hundreds of New Zealand professionals study postgraduate programmes at Tech Futures Lab each year, but some of New Zealand’s largest and most influential businesses, business leaders and government agencies work directly with Tech Futures Lab to solve internal challenges from digitalisation, cultural shifts, automation and futures planning. The Lab has become the place for networking, problem-solving, deliberation and conversation. But we remain an outlier.

In the five years since our launch, no minister has visited us, no policymaker has dropped by to understand the influence or impact of where New Zealand and our industry partners are heading as the world changes around us. While we advise, support and work directly alongside many government agencies we have somehow found ourselves in a blackhole of education due to our focus on non-traditional students. To clarify non-traditional you need to understand where education priority lies. The sector is broadly divided into three areas. The first is Early Learning Years 0-6, Compulsory Education (School) 5- 19 years, and Tertiary 16+ years. Multiple sub-categories fall within these groupings including Kura Kaupapa Māori (Māori Medium Schools). Home and Distance Learning, Trade Academies, Wānanga, Institutes of Technology and Universities. The Ministry of Education’s definition of a PTE is stated as “Private training establishments offer specific vocational courses at certificate and diploma level (for example, travel and tourism)”.

Herein lies my concern. Over 5000 professionals have worked and studied hard to earn their postgraduate qualifications with either The Mind Lab or Tech Futures Lab since 2014. Not one of these students was studying for a vocation, nor did they qualify with a Certificate or Diploma. These students exclusively studied NZQA level 8 and level 9 postgraduate certificates or Masters qualifications in contemporary fields including a Master of Technological Futures, Master of Contemporary Education and Postgraduate Certificates in Digital and Collaborative Learning and Connected Environments. The blind spot in New Zealand private Tertiary Education has not moved on since the sector exclusively taught certificate and diploma courses.

In contrast to the average age of a New Zealand tertiary student falling between 20-24 years our average student is in their late 30s to late 40s. These students are also almost always in full employment, and they come from backgrounds as diverse as medicine, law, business, IT, manufacturing, engineering and education. 

We are not a Stanford or a Harvard, but we model ourselves on the quality of these private institutes and our programmes reflect the future-focused nature of some of the world’s best universities. 

Cutting a new niche in education is hard. Education in the compulsory sector (primary and high school) is rapidly changing to better reflect the needs of today’s student and their world, but tertiary education, and more specifically private tertiary education, is still positioned to fit more vocational pursuits by our education agencies - still defined by a dated view that no longer matches all realities.

Learning for life is not a catchphrase, but an absolute reality for all adults wanting to stay informed, relevant and responsive in our fast-evolving world. As a nation, we too often think of education as a front-loaded process into the first 22 years of our life. The participation rate of tertiary participation in for adults in New Zealand over 40 years of age in 2019 was 4% for females and just 2% for males. 

Our country has done itself proud in 2020. We followed science, we learnt from others, we listened and we responded. These are all characteristics of an educated and caring society. But we cannot assume that our future will continue to thrive in the absence of new knowledge and the continued inputs of new information, data and research at all stages of our life. 

In November last year Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, said New Zealand needed to have tough conversations about what it might do differently to sustainably improve its standard of living in the face of significant global uncertainty. ''We need sustainable long-term strategies for growth which extend beyond political cycles and support economic growth, social justice and the environment.”

BNZ Economist Paul Conway’s recent report stated New Zealand needs to “focus on developing a few key engines of growth in our economy. Exactly which industries or economic activities are going to set New Zealand up as a thriving 21st century economy and what can policy do to remove constraints and promote growth in these areas?

Against the backdrop of these two overarching themes, a pro-productivity reform agenda would need to incorporate policy improvements in many different areas. This includes policies that: facilitate investment in physical capital and skills; enhance economic flexibility so resources can easily move into more productive industries and firms; and encourage firms to build the capabilities they need to adopt new technologies and innovate”

It can be argued that the enthusiasm for learning and the applied knowledge of our youth will greatly determine our nation's future. If we deliver world-class education at all levels of our education system we will develop the capability to tackle the challenges of our future. However, I believe we can not exclusively rely on the next generation to develop the skills, understanding and knowledge if the business leaders, the executives and the owners of businesses are not immersed in their own learning and development. Our decision-makers and business/government leaders were generally born before digitalisation, automation, massive technological advancement and before the impact of global warming, exploding population rates, social media and fake news. Let us understand that a thinking nation, a responsive nation needs to be a learning nation. A nation where it is equally commonplace to be learning at 30, 40 and 50 years as it is at 20.

I have contemplated New Zealand’s low level of participation in formal learning of mature adults over many years and wondered why New Zealand’s rate is so disproportionally low? Is it because 98% of New Zealand businesses have less than 20 people? And therefore their focus is on business survival and serving local needs, or is it there a lack of relevance of the education programmes on offer? Or could it be there is simply not a place where mature adults can go to learn with peers? 

Most adults would jump at the chance to collaborate with other adults in an education setting, where there is the opportunity to debate, review, reflect and respond to the problems they are trying to solve. To this point, the aspirations of many professionals and government executives in New Zealand is to earn the right to have an employer-funded short stint in one of the world’s best executive programmes at places like Harvard, INSEAD or the London School of Business. Why can’t Graduate Schools of this calibre be developed here in Aotearoa, a place known worldwide for being progressive, trusted, and forward-thinking?

Imagine if we decided that New Zealand would lead the global movement offering the very best contemporary education for adults, that had professionals aspiring to learn in their own backyard surrounded by highly respected global and local experts. What if a core part of our future economy was the delivery of progressive, contextualised postgraduate and executive education that built on New Zealand’s global reputation?

I want to change the way we think about education. I want people to value private higher education in the same way many parents value private school education (another topic worthy of another article). 

 We need more commitment to learning so that we can localise our future planning to focus on Aotearoa’s specific aspirations while understanding and benefitting from global insights. 

I hope and dream that as a nation we look up and beyond the status-quo of current education priorities to see that our country’s future success can be shaped by the delivery of quality higher education options right here in Aotearoa New Zealand. If we move the dial on from the constraints and limitations of the past and contextualised in our unique place in this world we could become the global leader for postgraduate studies and programmes focused on impactful futures.