Each day of August, the Institute will feature one initiative from the TalentNZ Menu of Initiatives. The Menu showcases four integrated work-streams – grow, attract, retain and connect.

Today we are showcasing ‘Grow 1. Put the student at the centre’. For examples of this initiative, please see the Menu of Initiatives website. If you know of an organisation or initiative that should be included as an example on the website, please email us at [email protected].

Grow 1. Put the student at the centregrow

This is about institutions and how we might optimise the education system in a way that puts the student at the centre, delivering outcomes in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

  • Principals need to build working relationships with different areas of the community (particularly parents, businesses, sports organisations and NGOs), in order to deliver a community-based education.
  • Respect teaching as a profession and develop career paths for teachers that allow them to extend and improve their talents.
  • Acknowledge effective teachers and showcase innovative teaching methods.
  • Flip the classroom – learn at home at the student’s own pace, problem-solve at school with the experts and sit exams when ready.
  • Embrace technology as a key tool to improve learning outcomes.
  • Create effective feedback loops to develop knowledge that will inform new strategies.
  • Review funding systems for any unintended consequences. For example, are secondary schools becoming holding bays because of the incentive to keep students at school in order to retain funding levels rather than focusing on the students’ needs and wants?
  • Review role of zoning.
  • If students are at the centre of the system, then the parents and teachers are the primary support team, the principal and the school board are the secondary support team and the community is the third. This means the Ministry of Education becomes the steward of the education system – filling gaps and removing obstacles in the system as a whole.

About TalentNZ
The Menu of Initiatives is part of our Project TalentNZ and focuses on how best to identify and distribute tools for councils, businesses and communities to design their own unique strategy for creating a talent-based economy. TalentNZ builds on Sir Paul Callaghan’s vision of making New Zealand ‘a place where talent wants to live’.
Sir Paul outlined the reasons why his vision is important in a 20-minute video at the Institute’s StrategyNZ workshop in 2020. The focus of the Menu is on the ‘how’ – we are testing Sir Paul’s assumptions and exploring ways New Zealanders might turn this vision into a reality. To learn more about the TalentNZ project see www.talentnz.org.

Connect with TalentNZ
We want to build New Zealand’s talent-based economy. If you want to join us on this journey, please connect with TalentNZ. By connecting you will receive our monthly TalentNZ newsletter, which outlines recent developments, research and resources related to creating a talent-based economy, and which keeps you informed about upcoming TalentNZ events. Please also share this link with anyone you think may be interested.