School of last resort: how to fix NZ’s vital but ignored alternative education system
Dr. Adrian Schoone, senior lecturer in Education at AUT, has published an article in The Conversation discussing the state of Alternative Education in New Zealand.
It wasn’t surprising when last week’s Education Review Office (ERO) report found New Zealand’s alternative education (AE) system suffers from inadequate facilities, a lack of qualified teaching personnel and poor long-term outcomes.
But beyond the immediate headlines that alternative education is failing students, a closer reading of the report also reveals how successful the system has been, despite the challenges. Young people in AE told the ERO they:
- greatly preferred learning in the alternative system to their previous schools
- receive help from their educators (97% of the time, compared to 44% in their old school)
- feel safe (93% compared to 59% in their old school)
- almost never feel lonely (81% compared to 56% in their old school)
- feel cared for (84%) and that their culture is respected (87%).
These young people also reported they had developed their own learning goals, and that their schoolwork was set at the right level. Surely those are things we would wish for all young people, whether in alternative education or not.
You can read the full article here.