August 30, 2016
COOL schooling complement to classroom
Education Minister Hekia Parata says allowing online lessons is a complement to existing schools, not a replacement.
The provision for Communities of Online Learning or COOLs is one of the most contentious aspects for Ms Parata’s rewrite of the Education Act.
She says as the first rewrite in 30 years it will allow greater flexibility for schools, more choice for parents and a real focus on kids and their results – all reasons given for the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms a generation ago.
It will also allow Governments to issue national statements on education and learning priorities.
Ms Parata says Communities of Online Learning acknowledge how schools are already using technology, with the Correspondence School in particular now being the country’s largest provider of online lessons.
"There are other potential providers who could for instance build niches like how do we get more language learning to schools where we don't have a high resource of language teachers, whether it be te reo Maori or Mandarin, so there are some real opportunities here and I really don't think some of the commentators who have been saying it's absolutely terrible and we will have five year olds at home swiping iPads need to be concerned about that." she says.
Ms Parata says the country’s Kura Kaupapa Maori are already using the cloud to share lessons and stay connected.
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