TEFANZ Newsletter Number 10
Whiringa-ā-Rangi, 2021
Kia ora koutou; ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.
2021 has proved to be another difficult year for teacher education, especially for colleagues in Tāmaki Makaurau, Waikato and Tai Tokerau who have had prolonged periods of COVID instability and restrictions. As we all know, all too well, not being able to plan, or problem solve with any certainty is very difficult and places considerable strain on people personally and professionally. Student teachers in these areas have had a rough road this year too, and although they have learned many skills for online learning and teaching, they have not had the same opportunities to build relationships with learners and school communities as in other parts of the country. However, our work in 2020 has been a resource for us, and innovative ways of working and learning are emerging. Aotearoa is fortunate to have such a dedicated group of people preparing our next generation of teachers.
Alongside these challenges, 2021 is the ‘year of the approval’ as providers seek to meet the 2022 deadline for approval of programmes under the 2019 Approval, Review and Monitoring requirements. The 2019 requirements posed a set of challenges for us to meet; now we need to give space for the approved programmes to roll out and see how our changes impact our graduates. In Australia they have just completed the approvals for their equivalent of the ‘CIA’ (it is a more formal test in Australia) resulting from the ‘TEMAG’ review in 2014-15, and simultaneously there is another nationwide review of teacher education occurring (QITE: https://www.dese.gov.au/quality-initial-teacher-education-review). Reviewing teacher education is always fashionable for policy makers but giving our new programmes a chance before making further changes would provide stability and an opportunity to investigate the impacts of our practice. Fingers crossed!
TEFANZ Conference 2022
Every second year TEFANZ hosts a conference. In 2020 our conference was cancelled.
We would be pleased to receive any Expressions of Interest for hosting next year’s conference. It is usually a 1 ½-2-day conference, with conference presentations, our AGM and an awards function. If you would be interested in hosting this event, please get in touch with Alex Gunn (alex.gunn@otago.ac.nz) and let her know. TEFANZ provides some seed funding to help you get started.
Responding to Māori and Pasifika people in ITE
As we think about how we will support our student teachers to be able to teach the Aotearoa NZ Histories curriculum (https://ssol.tki.org.nz/Aotearoa-New-Zealand-s-histories-draft-curriculum) from 2022, an interesting task is for us to think about our own connections to place and people as institutions. Many members will be closely connected to the history of the places where their institutions stand and to the people of that place, while others may have less knowledge.
This website https://maorimaps.com/node/14479 maps marae around Aotearoa and provides a start point for understanding the Māori cultural landscape.
These are the MoE guidelines for teaching Māori history, which will be of interest to teacher educators and our students: https://maorihistory.tki.org.nz/en/
TEFANZ involvement in policy and teacher education developments
TEFANZ was asked for nominees for a Stakeholder Group, convened by TCNZ. We asked all members for nominations for this group and we are represented by Kirsty Jones (EIT) and Steven Sexton (University of Otago).
Alex and other executive members met by Zoom with Catherine Delahunty who was researching ITE for the NZEI in order to develop a position paper for them. This paper will be released later this month. Alex is part of a panel discussing the paper with the NZEI membership. The TEFANZ Exec will be meeting with NZEI Leaders in preparation for this.
Rosina Merry provides an ITE perspective on the Curriculum Voices group that is part of the Curriculum Refresh work.
The TCNZ board is up for renewal in 2022. Nominations are currently being accepted for people to represent different groups on the board. ITE has a representative. Steven Sexton, one of our executive members is standing and we expect others will want to also. We wholeheartedly encourage TEs to put themselves forward. Nominations close on December 30th 2021. We contributed a submission to the Teacher Refresh rule changes consultation. Alex attended two consultations with TCNZ as they begin to frame up potential engagement with the profession over strategic issues, including professional fees for registration and certification and associated outcomes arising from the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees, Levies, and Costs) Amendment Bill currently in its third reading.
ATEE Winter Conference
Our teacher education colleagues in Europe invite us to a conference next year (April 20-22) in Italy. The details can be found at the website below. Papers are due in January. Can this be possible? It seems so!
TEFANZ Fees for 2021
TEFANZ membership runs from July to July (hui to hui). The executive have decided that with the current COVID disruptions and financial situation, and because we are not engaging in face to face activity and have sufficient funds to do what we need to do at present, we will not being asking for membership fees for the July 2021-July 2022 period. All institutions who were members in 2020-2021 will be considered as fully paid members for 2021-2022.
Executive Meeting News
– Revision of the criteria for TEFANZ awards continues and the new rubrics will be available for use in 2022, when it is time to give the awards again.
– The carbon offset policy will also be ready for AGM 2022.
Our next executive meeting will be held virtually in March 2022.
Noho ora ra
Fiona (on behalf of the TEFANZ executive).
The newsletter aims to keep our members up to date on TEFANZ activities and the national ITE landscape more generally. It will also be used to advertise opportunities to participate in policy or research activities that are offered to or generated by TEFANZ. We welcome contributions by member organisations who would like to connect with other members through this medium. We hope you find it useful, and are happy to receive feedback (via Fiona Ell, f.ell@auckland.ac.nz).
TEFANZ is a climate conscious organisation. TEANZ strongly encourages purchase of carbon offset for all travel associated with TEFANZ business and events.
Want to find out more about carbon offset?
https://www.orataiao.org.nz/offset_your_emissions
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/sustainability-customer-carbon-offset