The country’s only state distance educator enrolled almost 30,000 students last year and is increasingly playing a role in the lives of young people who, for a myriad of reasons, have fallen out of schooling.
In 2022, Te Kura, formerly the Correspondence School, celebrated its first 100 years. In 2023, it celebrates the appointment of a new Chief Executive and the opening of three new offices around the country, to cater for an ever-increasing roll.
One of those offices is in Dunedin, which in the past four years has seen its staff go from four teachers to 20 teachers and kaiawhina – or learning advisors. This reflects the growth in numbers of enrolments in the Otago/Southland districts.
Te Kura’s newly appointed Chief Executive, Te Rina Leonard, also has a close relationship with the south, having grown up in Invercargill, attending Southland Girls High School, where she was the Deputy Head Prefect, then later graduating from Otago University.
Te Rina, currently Te Kura’s Deputy Chief Executive Learning Delivery, will take over at the end of July.
For 90 years, Te Kura operated out of Wellington, but under the current Chief Executive, Mike Hollings, who has led Te Kura for the past 17 years, the school has been transformed.
A key part of that transformation has been regionalisation so that teachers can be closer to their students. As well as Dunedin, there are now offices in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Hastings, Nelson and Christchurch. The make-up of students is a far cry from the early days when students came mainly from remote districts and lighthouses.
Another sharp difference from the past is that by moving into the regions, it has also been able to introduce face-to-face learning experiences.
“Huinga Ako” refers to a place for ākonga (students) to gather with each other and their kaiako (teachers).
Te Kura’s Dunedin kaiako say their new office will be a great space for huinga ako where they can provide aroha and support for their students.
Established in 1922, Te Kura’s first and sole teacher, Miss Janet MacKenzie, had the task of single-handedly guiding the school through its first year. Expecting about 25 students aged from five to 13, she had within weeks 100 children on the roll. By the end of the first year, there were more than 320.
Over the past 100 years Te Kura has undergone remarkable transformations. Even the name has changed.
As New Zealand’s largest school and the largest state provider of online distance education in the compulsory education sector, Te Kura has a unique place in the country’s educational – and social – history.
It currently provides high-quality learning programmes to a hugely diverse group of learners ranging from early childhood to young adults.
It teaches New Zealanders who live overseas, young parents, gifted and talented students, prisoners, young adults who need qualifications, students from other schools – known as “dual students” who come to Te Kura to do subjects not offered by their home schools.
As former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last year: “We have had several generations now grow up in the light of learning that Te Kura has created. And we have all benefitted…”
Te Kura also plays a huge role with some of the country’s most vulnerable young people in our communities.
The school’s transformation over the past 100 years has taken it from The Correspondence School, largely responsible for the education of “backblocks” families – children living in lighthouses and on farms - to an online distance educator where half of the full-time roll are Māori, and alongside the gifted and talented, there are students who are considered to be at risk of disengaging from education.
Only a very small percentage of its students are now classified as living remotely.
The Correspondence School came into being as a result of agitation by groups of parents living in isolated areas. The 1877 Education Act laid down that all children had a right to receive a free and secular education.
Today, many of Te Kura’s ākonga are enrolled because they have become alienated or have been excluded from their school.
And just as those early pupils reflected the times they lived in, so do ākonga today, who live in a world where there are soaring levels of anxiety among young people, where there is an epidemic of school absenteeism, and where a free and secular education is available, but which for a multitude of reasons for some is difficult to access.
In 1946, The Prime Minister Peter Fraser, who had earlier proven to be a visionary Minister of Education and earlier had argued for education for the “backblocks” as the MP for Wellington, could have been talking about Te Kura philosophy today, when he told students about the benefits they enjoyed as correspondence pupils.
“You are all taught individually, which is a very great benefit, because it enables you to make progress at your own pace, independent of the rest of your class,” Fraser said.
This is very much a key part of Te Kura today where students are placed at the centre of their learning. This authentic and personalised learning was introduced to provide better support for those students at risk of missing out on schooling.
For all the massive change and the challenges along the way, Te Kura endures, and its purpose remains: to provide education for those who would otherwise be likely to miss out. It also serves as a stark reminder of the value of education, particularly for those for whom it seems beyond reach.
