I've begun my year with my traditional online forum discussion using the forum tool embedded in our Intranet software package Moodle. The course I teach is NCEA Level 2 Economics, a course that requires deep thinking, and a lot of analytical writing. The literacy expectations of the course are well expressed by the fact that the three external standards all provide UE literacy (Writing) credits, while the internal standard we offer provides UE literacy (Reading) credits.
The topic I choose is a discussion of the issue of the free market. It almost invariable ends up as a discussion of the libertarian paradox as we embrace issues such as power imbalances and inequality associated with markets.
My approach is always the same, The boys post in response to my fundamental question about the benefits or otherwise of the free market. As they post, I respond individually to every post written by every boy. However my response is NEVER to give answers, ALWAYS to pose further questions. My response to every boy is unique, asking questions that are specific to that boy's post, steering and guiding in a way appropriate to that boy's current knowledge (as revealed by his post) and the specific angle that the boy appears to be taking in the discussion. I think that this is a fantastic way to differentiate learning.
This year's result is strikingly more sophisticated than in previous years. I have been more careful about my responses, trying to make sure that I even more appropriately tailor each response to each boy. Regardless of the medium (online, on paper, face to face) this has always been true.
The result has been a significant amount of learning, created by constant (socratic?) questioning. At no stage have I given any of the bis specific knowledge/content, yet the learning has been apparent and significant. I asked the boys if they had learned much, and they universally agreed that they had.
Course to discourse? I'm not sure that I necessarily understand what that means, but I hope so.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
Secondary schools and the work force
... a class-based theory of how and why we have a fundamental labour force imbalance.
In this post I want to describe some thinking that has been 'brewing' in my mind for some time about the work of secondary schools in New Zealand for the past four or five decades.
My parents were 'great depression' children. They were born in the '20's (the 1920's) and grew up in the 30's. These were times when unemployment was high, when families struggled to feed their children, when children went to school without food or shoes (some of that seems a little too familiar at the moment). My mother would tell me stories of what it was like to grow up in a working class family at the time, and these were common themes in her stories. This continued into my own childhood, we were a working class family.
The one thing my parents held to be true (if I remember correctly) was the value of education. They did not want us to lead the lives that they had lead. They believed that better eduction was the key to avoiding the poverty that they experienced as children, and so they pushed us to attain the highest possible levels of education that we could. Their own experience had been to be forced to leave school at the end of their Standard 6 (Year 8 in our terms) in order to get a job to help support their families (or maybe to be less of a burden on those families). They suggested that this was common at the time.
To them, a university education was the ultimate, and they pushed us in that direction. Now for our generation they were probably right. I gained a university degree and went on to teach, beginning my career in 1979. We were a generation of new teachers who possibly came from those working class origins, the product of a generation who held this aspirational belief in a university education.
I 'm not suggesting that these attitudes were unique to working class parents (whatever that may mean), but I think that they had a significant impact on attitudes towards education.
This is relevant background to what I believe to be the root cause of a significant labour market condition in New Zealand.
This situation has been exacerbated by the EFTS based funding formula for universities. More students means more funding. This incentivises the recruitment of more and more students.
In my opinion we now have too many people equipped with inappropriate degrees, and too few people trained in what 30 years ago might have been called the trades. The result is that I pay anything between $100 and $200 an hour for a plumber, or an electrician or .... you get the picture. These charge-out rates to some degree represent a skills shortage, one which we have seen exacerbated with the massive increase in housing demand driven by Auckland's growth and Christchurch's rebuild.
What am I theorising as the root cause? The desire of a generation of working class parents to ensure that their children would not be subject to the deprivations that they had experienced, and the belief of that generation that education (well, a university education actually) was the key.
Since the 1970s ( and maybe earlier) we have had ready access to university, with the belief that a university education is the right of every child. I support the belief that everyone should be able to access a university education. With regard to universal access we still have much to do of course. Cultural and socio0economic barriers mean that some groups do not actually have the same opportunities as others. The 'tail of under achievement' is something that we need to address.
I am challenging the belief that it is in society's best interests that everyone should have a university education. The introduction of tuition fees has not slowed the growth in university rolls. Nor until now perhaps has the increase in the level of the bar required to access university.
The 2015 drop in the numbers of New Zealand students gaining a UE qualification is probably the result of the latest lifting of that bar. The lifting of the bar took the form of requiring students to achieve Level 3 NCEA in addition to a literacy and numeracy component, and reasonable achievement (14 credits) in each of three level 3 subjects. Universities have found that students who entered their halls without Level 3 NCEA tended to have a much higher failure rate in their first year.
This is in my opinion a far better rationing mechanism than the imposition of ever growing fees. The growth in fees disenfranchises those from the very working class from which people like me have sprung. If instead the bar is created in terms of ability, with subsequent lowering of costs to students gaining entry, then perhaps we are more likely to get the most useful populations of university students from the perspective of New Zealand society, and the economy.
So, summarising, I am suggesting that we have had a generation of secondary school teachers who had come from a 'working class' background who have pushed students into a university education. The result is that we have had too many students attend universities and too few take up alternative forms of tertiary training/education. The result is that we have a serious labour market imbalance. We also have a university system that has grown beyond what we can support. Instead of funding high level research, and the education of our academic best, we fund a much larger population of university students who take on large debt for possibly little gain. We also have a shortage of people wiling and able to work in trades, and other non academic work. Arguably we may also have a less entrepreneurial society than we need.
But .. I was just thinking.
Introduction
In this post I want to describe some thinking that has been 'brewing' in my mind for some time about the work of secondary schools in New Zealand for the past four or five decades.
My parents were 'great depression' children. They were born in the '20's (the 1920's) and grew up in the 30's. These were times when unemployment was high, when families struggled to feed their children, when children went to school without food or shoes (some of that seems a little too familiar at the moment). My mother would tell me stories of what it was like to grow up in a working class family at the time, and these were common themes in her stories. This continued into my own childhood, we were a working class family.
The one thing my parents held to be true (if I remember correctly) was the value of education. They did not want us to lead the lives that they had lead. They believed that better eduction was the key to avoiding the poverty that they experienced as children, and so they pushed us to attain the highest possible levels of education that we could. Their own experience had been to be forced to leave school at the end of their Standard 6 (Year 8 in our terms) in order to get a job to help support their families (or maybe to be less of a burden on those families). They suggested that this was common at the time.
To them, a university education was the ultimate, and they pushed us in that direction. Now for our generation they were probably right. I gained a university degree and went on to teach, beginning my career in 1979. We were a generation of new teachers who possibly came from those working class origins, the product of a generation who held this aspirational belief in a university education.
I 'm not suggesting that these attitudes were unique to working class parents (whatever that may mean), but I think that they had a significant impact on attitudes towards education.
This is relevant background to what I believe to be the root cause of a significant labour market condition in New Zealand.
Theory
The over-riding value was (and still is) that the higher the education the better. A university degree is the best education that anyone can aspire to, the best that money can buy. And here is the root cause of the problem. As a child of depression generation parents, I too grew up to believe that the higher the level of education the better. When I began my teaching career I took this belief into the profession with me, and for a while continued to perpetuate this view with my own students. I would counsel students to aspire to a university education. There was an unintended consequence of our beliefs. It created a 'hierarchy' of jobs and activities.This situation has been exacerbated by the EFTS based funding formula for universities. More students means more funding. This incentivises the recruitment of more and more students.
In my opinion we now have too many people equipped with inappropriate degrees, and too few people trained in what 30 years ago might have been called the trades. The result is that I pay anything between $100 and $200 an hour for a plumber, or an electrician or .... you get the picture. These charge-out rates to some degree represent a skills shortage, one which we have seen exacerbated with the massive increase in housing demand driven by Auckland's growth and Christchurch's rebuild.
What am I theorising as the root cause? The desire of a generation of working class parents to ensure that their children would not be subject to the deprivations that they had experienced, and the belief of that generation that education (well, a university education actually) was the key.
Since the 1970s ( and maybe earlier) we have had ready access to university, with the belief that a university education is the right of every child. I support the belief that everyone should be able to access a university education. With regard to universal access we still have much to do of course. Cultural and socio0economic barriers mean that some groups do not actually have the same opportunities as others. The 'tail of under achievement' is something that we need to address.
I am challenging the belief that it is in society's best interests that everyone should have a university education. The introduction of tuition fees has not slowed the growth in university rolls. Nor until now perhaps has the increase in the level of the bar required to access university.
The 2015 drop in the numbers of New Zealand students gaining a UE qualification is probably the result of the latest lifting of that bar. The lifting of the bar took the form of requiring students to achieve Level 3 NCEA in addition to a literacy and numeracy component, and reasonable achievement (14 credits) in each of three level 3 subjects. Universities have found that students who entered their halls without Level 3 NCEA tended to have a much higher failure rate in their first year.
This is in my opinion a far better rationing mechanism than the imposition of ever growing fees. The growth in fees disenfranchises those from the very working class from which people like me have sprung. If instead the bar is created in terms of ability, with subsequent lowering of costs to students gaining entry, then perhaps we are more likely to get the most useful populations of university students from the perspective of New Zealand society, and the economy.
So, summarising, I am suggesting that we have had a generation of secondary school teachers who had come from a 'working class' background who have pushed students into a university education. The result is that we have had too many students attend universities and too few take up alternative forms of tertiary training/education. The result is that we have a serious labour market imbalance. We also have a university system that has grown beyond what we can support. Instead of funding high level research, and the education of our academic best, we fund a much larger population of university students who take on large debt for possibly little gain. We also have a shortage of people wiling and able to work in trades, and other non academic work. Arguably we may also have a less entrepreneurial society than we need.
Evaluating the argument.
- Where's the data? Is it true that a majority of secondary school teachers recruited in the 60's and 70's came from 'working class' backgrounds?
- What were school leaving ages like ion the '30's and 40's? Was it in fact a typical experience, or something only forced on a relative few?
- Were real wage differentials large enough in the 60's and 70's to justify the belief that a university education would make someone better off than say a trades apprenticeship?
- How significant is the current wage differential? If it is real, does it really represent a longer term shortage in labour markets, or is it merely a short term phenomenon?
But .. I was just thinking.
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