Open Government Partnership New Zealand National Action Plan 2018-2020
Progress report for: October 2019 – December 2019
Commitment 3: School Leavers Toolkit
Lead agency: Ministry of Education
Objective:
- 1. To develop a Schools Leavers’ Toolkit (Toolkit), comprising a suite of tools, resources and curriculum supports making it much simpler for schools to:
- Understand and respond to learners’ levels of financial literacy, work readiness and knowledge of civics and personal wellbeing
- Integrate civics, financial literacy, personal wellbeing and workplace competencies into their local curriculum across years 7 - 11
- Effectively teach civics, financial literacy, personal wellbeing and workplace competencies.
- 2. Civics education, and an understanding of how government and the democratic process works, is an important element in developing young people who are confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners.
- 3. The Toolkit will also provide a vehicle for increasing young people’s access to other Plan commitments, such as the information products being developed by the Office of the Clerk, and the Youth Parliament programme, delivered by the Ministry of Youth Development and the Office of the Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives.
Ambition:
- 4. Every young person can access the civic and financial literacy, and workplace skills, they need to succeed, before they leave schooling.
OGP values: Public Participation
Milestones
Milestone 1
Stocktake of existing Toolkit resources complete.
Start/End dates: June 2018 – September 2018
Progress: Completed
Milestone 2
Ministers consider Ministry of Education analysis of opportunities to support expanded access to Toolkit opportunities
Start/End dates: September 2018 – December 2018
Progress: Complete
Milestone 3
Exploratory co-design phase concludes and is used to inform resource development and a detailed implementation support plan.
Start/End dates: June 2018 – February 2019
Progress: Completed
Milestone 4
Pilot implementation reporting and evaluation complete
Start/End dates: February 2019 - July 2020
Progress: Underway
Milestone 5
Toolkit training and support programme complete
Start/End dates: February 2020 - July 2020
Progress: Underway
Milestone 6
Initial pilot of digital badges underway
Start/End dates: July 2020
Progress: Some delays
What we have been doing
- On Wednesday 25 September Hon Chris Hipkins, Minister of Education, officially launched the School leavers’ Toolkit student website at Wellington High School.
The School leavers’ Toolkit student website is a publically available resource providing key information and advice on civics, wellbeing, financial literacy and key workplace competencies. The site is available in English and te reo Māori and has been designed in consultation with a range of young people to appeal specifically to16 – 24 year olds.
We have continued promotion of the website and a series of School Leavers’ Toolkit videos on social media channels. The website has seen over 63,000 views since the launch, with over 25,000 first time users.
- Work is progressing to develop digital badges for each of the four School Leavers’ Toolkit topics. Digital Badging will enhance the student website, and enable students to communicate their knowledge and skills to employers, communities, tertiary organisations, parents and whānau. Digital badging will support our evaluation approach and enable us to effectively measure student engagement.
- We have finalised new civics education resources for teachers of English medium education to use with students from years 1 – 13, with a particular focus on years 6 and above. The resources are based on two key themes; belonging and living together in Aotearoa New Zealand and processes of decision making and government. We expect Minister Hipkins to launch these resources in early 2020. These resources will be publicly available from the School Leavers’ Toolkit teacher facing website on Te Kete Ipurangi (Toolkit on TKI).
- We are looking to contract a supplier to develop civics education resources for use in Māori Medium settings. The delivery date for these resources will be June 2020.
- We have contracted a supplier to develop and deliver training and support for teachers on integrating Toolkit topic resources into their teaching and learning programmes. There are 56 workshops in total, across terms 1 and 2 of 2020. As part of the workshops, we will collect data on the baseline capability and confidence of schools and kura to measure the impact of the training and the uptake of Toolkit resources, and support our broader evaluation approach. Last quarter we amended the completion date for Milestone Four, Pilot and implementation reporting and evaluation, to July 2020 to capture this work.
How we are including diverse voices
- We have planned engagement activity for Phase Two of the School Leavers’ Toolkit. We have focussed our engagements to support our understanding of the needs of specific user groups, such as students with disabilities, students with learning support needs, students in alternative education and Māori and Pacific young people. Engagement activities commence in February 2020.
- We are reviewing the content on the student website to ensure that it is reflective of the diversity of young New Zealanders.
How we are keeping diverse communities informed
- We are using the Toolkit on TKI website to provide updates on Toolkit product development. The site includes a feedback portal for any questions or ideas users may have. The Toolkit on TKI website is publicly available.
- As part of the training and support workshops, we are inviting communities to participate, with a particular focus for attendance at Māori Medium workshops. This supports schools to build their local curriculum in partnership with communities.
What's next?
- We will update the Toolkit on TKI website with a Phase Two development timeline as per the recommendations of the Independent Reporting Mechanism.
- We are progressing our evaluation approach, factoring in digital badging and the information collected from the workshops.
- We are planning communications for the launch of the civics education resources and announcement of the training and support workshops. We are also progressing planning for communicating other products for delivery mid year, including Māori Medium civics resources, digital badging, strategic planning tools for developing localised curriculum and the Māori Medium Toolkit Integration Framework and Māori Medium case studies.