Higher Education Summit, Auckland10th March 2011

Peter Coolbear

Educational leadership in today’s higher education sector

What’s my perspective?

March 2011

 From an agency charged with improving teaching and learning

What do we see?• The brilliant co-existing with the indifferent• Great ideas gaining traction: great ideas never getting off the runway• Variability in organisational performance • Decisions made on assertion and anecdote• Practice inertia (unquestioning continuation of historical practices)• Misalignment of resources with learner needs

Plan of this presentation

• The changing policy context for tertiary teaching and learning

• How should we think about educational leadership in this changed context – what are the dimensions of educational leadership?

Proposition: • We need to move to a more evidence-based,

model of educational leadership at all levels within tertiary organisations

March 2011

Levels of Educational Leadership

March 2011

 

• At individual practitioner level

• Middle management

• Senior management

• Governance

• System

The context: an ambitious “value for money” reform package around educational performance

• There’s a new game in town!

• It’s no longer about inputs and systems ….It’s about outcomes and many of the outcomes could be better

The context: an ambitious “value for money” reform package

• Publication of Educational Performance Indicators

• New quality enhancement processes based on self-assessment and external evaluation and review

• Targeted review of qualifications pre-degree and a new model for the tertiary qualifications framework

• Specific governance expectations• Capped funding

Underlying drivers for these reforms

• Massification of Tertiary Education - massive increase in expenditure

• Tertiary education as an investment: what’s the RoI:– for the individual?– for the nation?

• Perceptions of waste and duplication of effort

• Perceptions that resources spread too thinly for effective spend

• Accountability issues• International comparisons• Deadweight costs• Lack of trust?• Expectations of new technologies

Student success7 year completion rates of NZ students enrolling in 2003

Level of study NZ European

Māori NZ Pacific NZ Asian

Diploma L 5-7 40 35 37 52

Bachelors L 7 61 41 41 66

Masters L 9 66 48 50 76

Source: MOE census data for 7 year completion rates all domestic students, all f/t + p/t (September 2010)

Variability in provider performanceMeasure ITP PEP University Wānanga

Qualification completion rates (all levels)

34-65%* 0-100% 63-77%* 37-63%

Course completions (all levels)

50-78% 21-100% 77-87% 42-80%

Source: TEC Educational Performance Indicators for 2009 (September 2010)

* Range excludes significant distance providers

The skills of Educational Leadership

March 2011

 

• Professionalism

• Evidence-based decision making

• Ability to share vision and values across the organisation

• Bravery

• In the end, it’s about people

The functional dimensions of Educational Performance:

Public data

External Reputation

Self -evaluation

March 2011

Educational leadership needsto address all three:

Public data

March 2011

• TEC EPIs

• Value-add measures • Participation rates

• Level of academic challenge

• Employability

External Reputation

March 2011

• Community perceptions and positioning

• Employer endorsement of graduate outcomes

• National recognition of educational excellence / initiative / innovation

• Peer reviewed research

• Consultancy / outreach

Self-evaluation

March 2011

• Evaluative questioning• Evidence gathering• Evidence collation and interpretation

• Benchmarking

• Acting on the evidence

Ako Aotearoa undertaking work with ACER and New Zealand Universities and ITPs

Universities: data interpretation10 polytechnics – NZ report due March

March 2011

Average student engagement scale scores by qualification type in ITPs

March 2011

39.1

29.8

18.6

13.1

60.4

25.2

39.5

30.2 28.6

18.5

55.052.1

45.2

35.8

27.122.9

54.151.4

48.8

40.1

25.8 25.2

53.3 51.9

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Academic Challenge Active Learning Student Staff Interactions

Enriching Educational Experiences

Supportive Learning Environment

Work Integrated Learning

Aver

age

scal

e sc

ore

Bridging programme Certificate Diploma Undergraduate degree

March 2011

Targeting and prioritising from evidence about what works and what doesn’t work

What are the best value for money interventions to improve learner outcomes?

What can we stop doing without much impact on learner outcomes?

What should we be doing to further build our reputation / key partnerships / establish points of difference? What evidence should we collect to support the stories we tell?

How do we grow Educational Leadership in our organisations?

March 2011

 

• A learning organisation grows leaders

• Is managerial numeracy a problem?

• A professional association for tertiary educational leadership?

• How do we improve the attractiveness of middle management positions in educational organisations?

Where does Ako Aotearoa fit in?

• Support development of practice

• Leadership in evidence-based change

• Strengthen the research base on which tertiary education practice and policy develops in the future

• Identify and share good practice

• Raise professional expectations of tertiary teachers and organisations

March 2011

| 20

Generally, people view the value placed on quality tertiary teaching and the quality of professional development services available for tertiary teachers in New Zealand as being quite average

19%

13%

63%

66%

15%

14%

4%

9%

The value placed on quality tertiaryteaching in New Zealand

The quality of professionaldevelopment services available fortertiary teachers in New Zealand

1 = 'Poor' to 3 4 to 7 8 to 10 = 'Excellent' Not Sure, N/A

Perceptions of Tertiary Education in New Zealand (1)

5.5

5.7

Mean

Notes: 1. Sample size n = 517

March 2011

| 21

Nearly eight in ten survey respondents believe that it is important for the tertiary sector to develop mutually agreed minimum standards of teaching and learning

79%

7%

15%

Yes No Not sure

Do you believe it is important for the tertiary sector to develop mutually agreed minimum standards of teaching and learning?(1)

Notes: 1. Sample size n = 517