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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Monday, August 04, 2008

Waipareira buys The Learning Post

Former Labour MP John Tamihere is highly critical of the Government's Maori education policy and services.

The CEO of West Auckland based Te Whanau O Waiparera Trust says to fill the void left by the government the Trust has spent more than $2 million buying a private training establishment - The Learning Post - which specialises in distance learning.

Waipareira was forced to close many of its own courses during its financial crunch in 2005, about the time Mr Tamihere rejoined the organisation.

"We've made a decision to go back into (education) despite present government policy which is really against private entry into education. We've determined the state doesn't have all the answers. It's obvious. 86 percent of all Maori children haven't moved forward to a tertiary qualification over the last four or five years," Mr Tamihere says.

He says people with a tertiary education earn 70 percent on average more than those that don't and Maori are being severely disadvantaged by the present policies.
 
TRIMMED DOWN WANANGA IN HEALTHIER STATE

Meanwhile, the chairman of Te Wananga O Aotearoa says the organisation has benefitted from a government review of its services, which resulted in many uneconomic courses being cut.

Richard Batley says although student numbers are down by nearly half the 63,000 who were enrolled in 2003,  the wananga is now in a healthy state and looking positively to the future.

"I think we needed to look at our business and also admit that certain things had to be fixed. It was a good period where we could stocktake and attend to things that needed be fixed," Mr Batley says.

Te Wanaga O Aotearoa posted a 5.4 million dollar profit for the last financial year.
 
KAHUI NEEDS TIME TO SETTLE IN ALL BLACKS

Televison rugby commentator Ken Laban says a number of Maori rugby players including midfielder Richard Kahui deserves time to settle into life as All Blacks.

The specialist centre played wing for the All Blacks in their resounding 39-10 win over the Wallabies at Eden Park on Saturday night.

Mr Laban says there are a number of talented Maori players waiting in the wings for a call up by Graeme Henry, and like Kahui have a lot to offer.

"I hope the public give him some time to warm into that role of international footballer because he's a class act and a very good player. He's not a winger, he's a centre. Another player I have an enormous respect for at the three quarter is Jose Gear. He's an international player in the waiting," he says.

Mr Laban says Piri Weepu deserved his recall to the national squad after strong form for the Maori in the Pacific Nations Cup.
 
HARAWIRA BLAMES ELECTORAL COMMISSION FOR APATHY OF THE YOUNG

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira says the electoral commission is failing Maori by inadequate measures to get young Maori on the electoral rolls.

47,000 Maori voters have dropped off the rolls in the past three years having changed address, moved to Australia or failed to respond to voter information packs.

Mr Harawira says that equates to nearly 10 percent of the Maori population, and if the same percentage of non Maori were lost from the roll you wouldn't hear the end of it.

"If there was 470,000 Pakeha dropped off the roll, there would be hell to pay. It would be on the front page of all the newspapers, it would be item one on the television news," Mr Harawira says.

He says Electoral Commission staff in high visibility waistcoats on intersections don't do it for Maori, and door to door is the only way to ensure they get the message.

A total of 380,162 who identify as being of Māori descent are currently enrolled to vote - 164,962 on the General Roll and 215,200 on the Māori Roll.

HOPE HELD OUT FOR MAORI SERVICE PROVIDERS BY NAT

The co-spokesperson on Maori affairs for the National Party says Maori social service providers are well poised to play a part in key areas if there is a change of government later this year.

Georgina Te Heuheu was at the party's annual conference held in Wellington over the weekend.

She says John Key's indication that private sector experience will be sought to improve academic performancec in New Zealand schools opens the door for Maori.

Mrs Te Heu Heu says the success of Maori health providers is a worthy template.

"The potential for private enterprise like the Maori health providers that developed in the in the 1990s under National is significant. There is a lot of non-govrnment agencies in the private sector, and Maori are some of those, who have garnered a lot of experience over the last two decades in delivering services to he community. We will certainly want to engage with them in some of the key policy areas," Mrs Te Heuheu says.
 
AWATERE-HUATA TAPPED FOR TOP SPOT IN WAIPAREIRA EDUCATION COMPANY

The CEO of Te Whanau O Waipareira Trust says Donna Awatere Huata is the right person to spearhead the organisation's latest education initiatiave.

The West Auckland based Trust has just spent more than $2 million dollars The Learning Post, a private training establishment that specialises in distance learning.

John Tamihere says Mrs Awatere Huata, a noted academic and former ACT MP, will head the Trust's training arm, Waitech which will manage The Learning Post.

"You know regardless of what anyone says about Donna, no one in academia or anywhere else can fault her intellectual and academic qualifications and capacity to do a very good job, and so we are very happy about that," Mr Tamihere says.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

FARM GATE INTELLECTUALS!


CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ASSUMES THAT OUR PARTICIPATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION IS A NECESSARY COROLLARY OF EXCELLING IN INTERNATIONAL ARENAS IN A GLOBALISING WORLD, HOWEVER NATIONS WITH VERY FEW UNIVERSITIES ABOUT 8 AT THE LATEST COUNT REALLY AND WITH LOWER HIGHER EDUCATION PARTICIPATION RATES FOR LOCALS FEELING THE SQUEEZE FROM CHINA AND USER PAYS AND RESTRICTED ENTRY 2009 AND COMPETITION CANNOT ADEQUATELY COMPETE IN THE NEW KNOWLEDGE OR GLOBAL ECONOMY OF AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND.THIS HAS HAD A GREATER IMPACT ON INTERNATIONAL ARENAS THAN ITS SIZE OR LOCATION WOULD ATTEST BUT THOSE WHO EXCEL ARE RARELY PRODUCTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION ALONE, INSTEAD THEY ARE FARM-GATE (OR SELF EDUCATED) INTELLECTUALS; AND THEIR PURPOSE IS NOT MAD BUT IS TO CHALLENGE THE NOTION THAT EXCELLENCE REQUIRES EDUCATION THAT IS SO AVERSE TO PLAGIARISM FOR EXAMPLE THAT STUDENTS ARE BRANDED AS CHEATS AND MADE TO SUBMIT TO ELECTRONIC DATABASES OVERSEAS LIKE TURNITIN.COM IN AMERICA.THESE WEBSITES REFER STUDENTS ONTO LINKS WHERE YOU CAN PURCHASE AN ESSAY ONLINE IN YOUR CHOSEN SUBJECT OF CHOICE, BUT WE TUMEKE.BLOGSPOT.COM BLOGGERS PREFER TO LEGITIMISE THE ANARCHIST-UTOPIAN TRADITION IN ADULT EDUCATION POSTING ANONYMOUSLY ON BLOGS INSTEAD WITH NO THOUGHT TO GETTING CAUGHT OUT BY CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY OR UNIVERSITY AUTHORITIES.ADULT EDUCATORS CAN BENEFIT FROM UNDERSTANDING HOW AND WHY FARM-GATE INTELLECTUALS GO ABOUT LEARNING, AND NEW ZEALAND EDUCATIONAL "REFORM" OR FORMAL EDUCATION IS REALLY JUST SELF DIRECTED LEARNING AT HOME ONLINE ON A COMPUTER BLOGGING WITH AN ANARCHIST UTOPIAN ETHOS WHICH FIRST SHOWED UP IN ATTEMPTS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT LIFELONG EDUCATION (AND THE LEARNING SOCIETY) WOULD MEAN IN A NEW ZEALAND CONTEXT.AFTER THE 1984 NEW ZEALAND EMBRACE OF NEO-LIBERALISM, SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC NOTIONS IN LIFELONG EDUCATION WERE SHOVED ASIDE BY LIFELONG LEARNING AN INDIVIDUALISTIC AND MARKET DRIVEN OECD RESPONSE TO GLOBALISATION.THESE TWO TERMS ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE AS POINTED OUT ELSEWHERE THE MARKETISATION OF EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND WAS DONE IN THE NAME OF LIFELONG LEARNING AND EFFICIENCY AND LED TO A PROLIFERATION OF NON-FORMAL EDUCATION PROVIDERS BUT ALSO MUCH UNHAPPINESS AND DISCONTENT AS A CULT OF FINANCE OVERWHELMED EDUCATION AND OUR OVERALL SOCIETY.EVERYTHING WAS EXECUTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE 'TINA' PRINCIPLE AND EDUCATION WAS CONDEMNED AS PART OF THE "NEW ZEALAND EXPERIMENT' (JANE KELSEY, AND AT THE CROSSROADS ARE BOTH WORTH A LOOK) PROBLEM AND, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE WERE PLACED ON THE FREE MARKET.THE POST-1984 RESTRUCTURING OF NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION CONTAINED SOME ELEMENTS CONGRUENT WITH THE EXPANSION OF PLACES TO STUDY OFFERING MORE CHOICE TO CONSUMERS ONLY WHO HAD THE MONEY TO PAY FOR IT.MASSEY AT ALBANY AND FORMER TECHNICAL INSTITUTES LIKE AUT OR ATI OR AIT WERE GIVEN DEGREE-GRANTING STATUS AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE MAIN BIG CITY UNIVERSITIES WAS THEREBY CHALLENGED.THESE CHANGES WERE MADE PARTLY THROUGH A DESIRE TO FOSTER HIGHER LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION BY GROUPS TYPICALLY UNDER-REPRESENTED IN FORMAL EDUCATION LIKE FOREIGN STUDENTS FROM CHINA BUT THIS WAS NEVER THEIR GOOD-WILLED INTENTION, MERELY A SIDE EFFECT OF DECADES OF RADICAL ECONOMIC CHANGES AWAY FROM OFFERING A FREE EDUCATION TO NEW ZEALAND CITIZENS AS A WELFARE RIGHT OR ENTITLEMENT.NOW, THE MOSTLY FOREIGN OR CHINESE USER PAYS "THROUGH THE NOSE".PHIL GOFF WAS EDUCATION MINISTER IN THE LATE EIGHTIES AND BACKED THE NEO-LIBERAL REFORMS AND ALSO STEVE MAHAREY VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED THE GRANTING OF UNIVERSITY STATUS TO AUT BY THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

It was Sir David Lange who bought in Tomorrows Schools however, with elected parents on boards of trustees or devolution while he was ducking for cover from rogernomics, or does anyone else remember the glory days during the nineties when the foreign students were storming the barricades we were all bathing in the warm sunshine of 'bulk funding' from National and N.Z First downloading up to $3000.00 at a time over the phone and maxing out your daily eftpos limit of around $800.00.No wonder we were so distracted from what was really going on, ah the good old days; hey.

IT LOOKS LIKE WE WILL BE GOING BACK THEIR AGAIN WITH RESTRICTED ENTRY 2009.

Or significantly fewer foreign graduates with a more manageable limit or QUOTA of say 15% like exists in Christchurch currently.Mike Moore would be opposed to this sensible suggestion rejecting any limits to growing the "FREE" market under the F.T.A with China; that loophole has already been sealed up with the end of Open entry this year.So that is why Private Training Establishments like AUT and UOA should be forced to offer new opportunities to increase participation of foreigners from China under the fta in higher education in a non-formal setting ONLINE LEARNING namely, Farm Gate learning once again.These sorts of places offer learning before and after school because that is where you are supposed to learn the most from experience or distance learning or even lifelong learning for example.In other words they are frauds and anti-intellectual and offer very little by way of a real in school type education.They might even Trespass you once they have siphoned off your fees and prevent you from sitting your exams or attending lectures by physically banning your arse from the campus.Those who excel are rarely products of any kind of formal education setting whatsoever.They are in effect self educated, and opinionated as well.So the conventional wisdom of our fourth biggest export earner the $2Billion a year EXPORT EDUCATION INDUSTRY as Moore and Co like to go on and on about is really just educating foreign students here and overseas and is also to increase their participation in higher education worldwide to excel in a rapidly expanding, changing faces and a globalising world.Yes we split the atom, made LOTR, and climbed Everest but what else do the home spun achievers want us to believe.Hillary hated his elitist Grammar school and spent 2 years without success at Uni.Others brag about dropping out or working when some of us have very little choice about attending school.The alleged benefits of higher education are expressed in theory like Mike Moore's about human capital, and building with an apt surf beach metaphor a knowledge wave economy.Despite the depth of the 1984 restructuring, and the pervasiveness of market forces and dominance of a cult of finance in education circles; exemplary learning was occurring in farm sheds and garages far from the gaze of officials.This commitment to figuring things out for yourself was the theme of books like Blokes in Sheds followed by Blokes and Boats and another fascinating analysis No.8 wire:the best of kiwi ingenuity.Farm gate intellectuals are an anarchist utopia in adult education and it seemed as if the authorities couldn't be trusted anymore.Official education was dismissed as irrelevant and largely a tool to perpetuate the privilege of foreign elites.Formal education was deadening oriented towards failure rather than open critical minds for democracy or the ability to flourish in a globalised world.These changes were not made partly by a desire to foster higher levels of participation particularly by Maori, Pacific Island and other groups typically under represented in formal education.Everything was executed in accordance with TINA there is no alternative or TINAA as Chris Trotter put it; there is no acceptable alternative.Free Education was condemned as part of the Aotearoa/New Zealand problem and like everything else was placed on the market.This gave birth to the government wasting millions on research top ups for salaried staff like the multi-million dollar Marsden fund headed up by a retired prof with a limp.In a similar vein the university has sold us locals down the river mate and to the highest bidders with open chequebooks or credit cards.Do they even accept cash anymore at the tellers in the clocktower or did they have too much loot on the premises from foreign hands to feel secure.So they should.The Ministry of Social Development Social Well Being Indicators Report online for 2007 has a few glaring inadequacies.First of all under Knowledge and Skills it says that this should cover everyones 'Basic Needs'.Also they mention that Lifelong Learning and Education are one in the same thing when quite clearly they are not.As pointed out above, that is no longer the case within the OECD.Our tertiary participation rates are much higher than the rate of our students educational qualifications.With the introduction of more than a basic level of computer literacy at tertiary level for Other groups with very low incomes and the further enhancement and development of students "distance education" like 'Cecil' or online lecture notes downloaded at home, this new aspect of continuing with adult education, and not lifelong learning for vocational training alone should be encouraged more often.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC NOTIONS OF COMMUNITY WERE SHOVED ASIDE BY AN INDIVIDUALISED AND MARKET DRIVEN OECD RESPONSE TO THE GLOBALISATION OF FREE EDUCATION.WORKING INSTEAD ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE AND THE MARKETISATION OF EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND DONE IN THE NAME OF LIFELONG LEARNING AND EFFICIENCY FOR JOBS IS REALLY JUST A CON BY THIS LABOUR GOVERNMENT.

This marketisation of education was started under the last labour government as well in the name of lifelong learning and efficiency or work and has produced much unhappiness at the University and was an overwhelming source of discontent as a cult of finance overwhelmed our education system.These sorts of places should now offer only distance learning for example?

Free Education proponent in Nepal Sir Edmund Hillary hated his elitist Grammar school and spent 2 years without support at Uni.Others brag about dropping out or working when some of us have very little choice about attending school.So much for supporting Education?

11:58 am  

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