Distance Education in New Zealand: In February 1922, in Wellington, Miss MacKenzie counted New Zealand's first roll, 107 children, for Correspondence classes; a mile away, the first New Zealand public radio station took the air - two threads, agency and technology, in the weave of New Zealand distance education. HISTORY? The writer of this historical sketch faces several problems. First, the historian is not usually a participant. While this sketch is based on published records, it also draws on the writer's own thirty years of experience in New Zealand distance education. One person's perception may be another's distortion. Second, until the various participants in New Zealand d i s t a n c e e d u c a t i o n pooled some of their interests in the mid-1980s within DEANZ, their earlier activities occurred in separate sectors of education, developing at different rates at different times. Third, our participants are very d i v e r s e . A m o n g t h e m are thousands o f individuals, learners, teachers, administrators, technologists and a host of others. Distance education is such that they almost invariably function as members of some collective group, in an organisation, association, institution, or network. It is on the historical development and interactions of these collectivities that this sketch focuses. Few individuals are named1, and where poss i b l e , familiar acronyms are used for organisations (which are listed in the two Tables) Finally, like many histories, this brief account of New Zealand distance education has the An Historical Sketch DONALD BEWLEY p ALMERSTON NORTH NEW ZEALAND problem of where to start. Were not all imported manifestations of 'pakeha' education a form of distance education curriculum? Do we begin with the first missionaries? Even when, at the earliest universities, instruction was face-to-face but 'external' assessment from England was required, wtl.s that really 'tutored' distance education, different in degree, not kind, from the tuitionless 'exemption from lectures' so commonly allowed? (Owens, 1985, 17-25) Or did New Zealand distance education begin when Australian commercial correspondence courses were made accessible here? This sketch ignores (or almost) these pre-cursors because they do little to explain our shape and character for distance education. To narrate the d e v e l o p m e n t of distance education of that kind, we dip in at a time when the New Zealand public advocated, and were answered by, distance education; and when, by coincidence, a new technical venture, its resource significance unforeseen, also began. Correspondence school and broadcasting, later icons of distance education, give us our arbitrary start in February 1922. Table 1 shows major provider institutions, that together complement and are a counterpart to the national system of public education. There are some o t h e r s , more ephemeral so n o t included. Each has a distinctive role and history which some have celebrated in (sometimes very full) detail 2 . ]au mal of Distance Leaming, Vol2, No. 1, 1996 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 14 Agency Description Acronym 1 International Commercial corre-Spondence schools; founded overseas and ICS Correspondence Schools imported early in the 20th century, they provide a range of .1 personal and vocational education courses 2 Stott's (heavily marketed) and issue their own certificates. 3 T he New Zealand Founded 1922; provides at all levels of the school programme NZCS Correspondence School (including pre-school, second-language for immigrants . . . ) for children unable to get to school and ad pits whose schooling was truncated; it also teaches secondary subjects in regular schools that lack specialist teachers 4 T he Open Polytechnic of Founded 1944 as NZ Technical Correspondence School, later TOPNZ New Zealand Institute; provides wide variety of vocational subjects for formerly diplomas (and recently degrees) and professional certification. NZTCI 5 Massey University's Offers dual-mode distance education over a wide range of own CUES, Centre for University university degrees and diplomas and towards degrees was Extramural Studies elsewhere. Was 'Extramural Studies' first as Victoria U. branch 'Extramural 1960-3, then at Massey U. from 1964. Renamed CUES 1978. Studies' 6 Advanced Studies for Established at NZCS 1962 (and serviced from there for many ASTU Teachers Unit (now years) to provide mid-career courses for schoolteachers (now Professional & (sometimes in close collaboration with the Colleges of ASPESA Community Education) Education network). Separated off during one of NZCS's PACEO many changes of location, thereafter having quasi-separate entity under the NZ Education 0\:!partment, until integrated with Palmerston College of Education about 1980. 7 Workers Education Founded with support from the National Council of Adult WEA-TlJI'E Association-Trade Union Education in 1968; within the framework of W EA's historic Postal Education Service policy for workers it has provided NZ trades union officials with on-the-job training (organisational management, labour Trades Union law, negotiation skill, TU history etc) and TU members and Education Authority their families with second-chance, non-public-examination basic education skills; amalgamated 1987 with T UEA and was TUEA consequently lost when TUEA was disestablished in 1992. 8 Continuing Education Operated 1975-89. Offered radio series targeted at adult ContEd,RN2 Unit, Radio New Zealand interest groups (e.g. new parents, over-fifties, cancer sufferers and their families, Polyn�sian immigrants, etc); recordings were then distributed via National Film Library and public libraries. 9 University Various departments have or have had courses: local radio - Extension/ Continuing instruction and nationally networked voice teleconferences Education Departments (Otago U.), early childhood education training (Massey U.), training for adult educators (Waikato U.), law and criminology for police and more recently librarianship (Victoria U., Wellington); agriculture (Lincoln U.). T he Auckland U. department's New Start programme has served many second- chance distance education students. 10 Polytechnics Interacted with TCI/TOPNZ to support latter's students. Have - offered independent courses (e.g. beekeeping at Bay of Plenty Poly, veterinary technician training, etc at Auckland Institute of Technology (which now interacts with eTV). Several polyteclu!ics use materials prepared by other providers, in joint programmes. 11 Education Television Major providers have attempted own support activities using eTV television, several making video cassettes for home viewing, Massey U. broadcasting programmes, NZCS videorecording teachers' comment for students. NZTV now screens series, often imported, some used by students enrolled through other providers. Table 1. Provider agencies -. Journal of Distance Learning, Vol2, No. 1, 1996 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 15 Agency Description Acronym 1 NZ Correspondence School Founded 1936, supports NCCS's pupils individually and CSPA collectively, and Parents' Association provides substantial political advocacy for NZCS. 2 International Council for International Conference I Council of Correspondence ICDE Distance education Education/Educators [ICCE] (founded 1938 was professional formerly body to encourage formerly correspondence education in ICCE North America and pan-Pacific, then worldwide. Became in 1982 ICDE, marking wider range of DE systems. 3 NZ Council for Educational Founded 1936, this major research agency has maintained a NZCER Research watching brief on DE and on educational telecommunications since the late 1970s. 4 MU-Extramural Students Founded 1963 for social purposes but re-organised with fresh EXMSS Society authority 1977 for advocacy and political voice. 5 Australian & South Pacific Regional professional group, founded 1973. Emphasis on tertiary ASPESA External Studies Association sector; included NZ agencies: now more national as Open and (now Distance Learning Association of Australia [ODLAA] since ODLAA) separate DEANZ and South Pacific Association for DE established. 6 PeaceSat Organisation established (c.1973) to manage communication and PeaceSat research functions of US Pacific-located redundant satellite AT S1; NZ terminal in Wellington controlled many pan-Pacific sessions ATS 1 7 University of the South including for DE; gave experience of,satellite use for DE and was base for pan-Australasian DE discussions of DE technology; Pacific Extension Services subsystem Satellite Network USP-Net formed basis for U. South USP-Net Pacific inter-island DE communication links. 8 Rural Activities Education Initiated c.1977 to counsel rural students about options for REAP Programmes learning and to provide back-up. Some now superseded by regional polytechnics. 9 Asian-Pacific Programme of UNESCO regional network which NZ joined in 1981 with NZCS, APEID Education Innovation for NZTCI and CUES among NZ centres named to support Asian DE Development ventures. 10 Distance Education Initiated 1984 to encourage support and study of DE in NZ; open DEANZ to all who manifest interest in NZ distance learning. 11 Commonwealth of Founded 1988 under aegis of Commonwealth Secretariat to COL Learning disseminate DE practices among 'developing' country members of Commonwealth. Table 2. Support agencies and networks Table 2 lists other agencies that have played a part - student societies, media organisations, experimental programmes, support networks, and so on, and there are others which could have been li sted. Not all distance education professionals are teachers. There are broadcasters who create programmes for children at NZCS and elsewhere or screen educational television series for adults that other agencies use to complement their own courses. Communication specialists with computers and satellites create and disseminate instructional packages.Like the providers, these agencies, specialists and networks recur and interact throughout our distance education history. A PATTERN? What pattern has evolved that gives New Zealand its own identity? Again, my suggestions and selection may not match what others would choose: Our distance education is, and has long been, kaleidoscopic: The k a l e i d o s c o p e ' s c e n t r a l structure comes from the key public institutions which offer qualification courses, at various levels. Alongside are the shapes and designs of many other distance education agencies. There are commercial schools, flourishing like Stott's and ICS, succumbing like Hemingway's; or newcomers who seek high f e e s f o r n e w instructional methodologies o r a knowledge Journal of Distance Learning, Vol2, No. 1, 1996 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 16 product by distance learning in a newly evident · market; or those who offer new-age alternative I complementary therapies or non,Western religions and spirituality. Some are voluntary agencies, hard hit now by loss of government support, notably.WEA-TUPES. Government departments, among them the police, inland revenue and the military (and also temporarily TUBA) run training schemes at a distance, as do banks; or they employ other agencies to tailor courses for them. Churches, too, improve the t h e o l o g i c a l or c o u n s e l ling skills of their congregational workers by distance education means. Alongside providers are student- or p a r e n t - or community-based support organisations, CPSA, EXMSS, REAP staff. Among this diversity, and other activities not listed here (Bewley, 1988/9), overlap is a recent a n d s t i l l u n u s u a l phenomenon. Not a l l programmes have formal outcomes: while some do satisfy public examinations, others offer qualifications of their own, and some eschew a l t o g e t h e r formal assessment either as unnecessary for self-motivated students or because they may deter those hesitant to confront examine rs. The propriety of the distance mode is rarely nowadays questioned. Fortunately, in the openness of DEANZ to membership, a kaleidoscopic collegiality has developed 3 • Membership socially of learner 'communities' has always figured large: Apart from contributions from some very substantial learner support organisations, there is a long record of efforts to make students feel less alone, more part of a group. NZCS's pioneer programme of Social Learning was applauded at the 1938 first international meeting of correspondence educators ( ICCE, 1938). The School's radio broadcasts have for many years created the sense of school community (and public awareness) with weekly principal's talks and. the annual public end-of-year ceremony (now televised). Many polytechnics have made support for distance learners, wherever they are enrolled, a part of their community programmes. Approval comes more readily from NZ public and political sources than some educational ones: The formal agencies, NZCS in 1922 and TOPNZ in 1946, arose from post-war public pressure that ready access to education was not to be denied to returned soldiers' families nor ex-soldiers themselves who wanted to learn a trade. From 1936 CSPA was there to stir political support on behalf of NZCS. Teacher shortage, potentially another denial of education, kept pressure on universities 'to retain extramural stu dies, provided there was tuition. It was pressure within the teaching profession that caused ASTU to be set up at NZCS and ensured continuing mid-career distance study for teachers. NZDE agencies usually began tentatively (and parsimoniously) before discovering appreciative and growing clienteles: There is a myth that distance students occur because 'normal' provision is temporarily over-extended, but they will be no more when 'the crisis' ends. The myth has been preJalent in New Zealand, so each new venture has been thought to be undeserving of long-term investment. NZCS, TOPNZ and CUES have suffered this myth but by their persistent growth have contradicted it. New distance learning opportunities for other social and vocational groups have been perceived and these have encouraged more growth. Conventional courses and their distance learning counterparts usually interchange: Although NZCS and TOPNZ operate independent distance programmes, their single-mode approach is moderated by much similarity of programme, interchangeability and complementarity with their counterpart face-to-face institutions. Curricula and courses are frequently designed together and are taught in parallel. CUES courses are dual-mode versions of Massey University's degree/ diploma courses and cross­ credit freely to qualifications at o t h e r universities. Even before Prior Recognition of Learning became well-nigh obligatory, most distance education agencies earned full credit from their peers. Formal (that is, qualification-oriented) New Zealand distance education programmes have until recently been print-beset: Most major credit-awarding agencies (with the exception of the University of Otago's Q.istance learning programme) rely on print. They have also developed uses for Journal of Distance Learning, Vol2, No. 1, 1996 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 17 other media a n d technologies, some in a subsidiary teaching role, some as student support, some for management. This is a very fast-growing area, ,but teaching, including distance teaching, has lagged for dearth of investment. NZDE has been culturally pakeha until recently and changes are limited: The style and models of distance education worldwide, including here, derive from European intellectual culture, curriculum, institutional organisation and individualised learning. Maori and Pacific languages and cultures are now taught in distance mode, with culturally appropriate content, teaching and learning in the mix. Less common, if at all, are such elements in other subjects where there are Maori or Pacific Island distance learners. NZDE has provided mid-career education including scope for many women to reshape their lives and careers: Relatively open admission, distance learning c o u r ses that are manageable in constrained d o m estic circumstances, the development of distance education courses a t t r a c t i v e to women candidates and the expansion of support networks where women can be at ease w i t h one another, have contributed to the opportunities that various agencies of NZDE have provided. Distance education not only has high proportions of women learners, b u t of teachers and organisational leaders. Women have led EXMSS since the early 1970s. By 1990, ASTU and TOPNZ (and TUEA and, previously W EA­ TUPES) were in the executive care of women, as DEANZ has been from its second president onwards. Some but not all these features surface during the brief narrative that follows. A longer larger narrative could highlight and elaborate some issues which in a general narrative remain shado wy. The events described form the maintrack, along which some key players in New Zealand distance education have emerged and eventually banded together, in part to discover their individual and their common elements of identity. By banding together in various situations, and eventually in DEANZ, they have not only managed to protect their own interests but to share the wealth of their experience, within and outside New Zealand. OUR HISTORY B EGINSA week before WWI ended, the attention of the Minister of Education was drawn to the recent example of Australian ' lessons by m a i l ' a n d he was reminded (public concern had already been expressed) of the need f o r 'a school o f correspondence' for New Zealand 'backblocker children'. In 192 1 Miss MacKenzie, the first teacher of correspondence classes w a s appointed f o r t h e start of t h e 1 9 2 2 year; 87 children were expected but 107 enrolled for the new year, growing to 204 by August. A second woman teacher was added. In mid-1923 Mr S.M. Mills, 'Heaqmaster of the Correspondence School' was appointed. Enrolments still rose but were capped at 500. The cap was lifted in 1927; in 1929 a secondary division was added and that year the roll passed 1000 (NZCS, 1947, 5-9). On Courtenay Place, a mile away from NZCS's original home, the Government Building, the first New Zealand radio station, set up by the Forrest brothers, took the air. National radio evolved three or four years later a n d responsibility for news and information became greater (ANON, c. 1970, 2256, col.l). NZCS and broadcasting first linked in July 1931 when the Principal began a series of talks called 'Correspondence School'. Through the 1930s, and ever since, concepts of radio support developed: NZCS lesson material was provided (1936), NZCS assemblies transmitted and the 'break-up' aired (both in 1937). NZCS and radio themselves became t w o significant threads, correspondence institution and technology, in the tapestry of New Zealand distance education. Together they became symbolic of the interest of its providers in cultivating, without wholly converting to, other media than print. Most agencies now make much use of audiocassettes. Radio New Zealand itself became a provider for a time, its Continuing Education Joumal of Distance Leami11g, Vol2, No. 1, 1996 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 18 Unit broadcasting non-credit series for adults on significant issues, then distributing them as audiocassettes around public libraries. NZCS has persisted with radio but its 'break­ up' is now an annual television event. apart from videocassette instructional material for a small range of courses, NZCS uses teacher-made videocassettes for direct tuition between teacher and child. Christchurch Polytechnic (as it then was) showed early interest in educational television. TOPNZ has made, and imported, instructional videocassettes. Massey University. h a s p r o d u c e d programmes f o r recorded broadcast, mostly but not exclusively, for CUES students. CUES now occasionally uses TVNZ's eTV programmes. Most eTV credit courses derive from Auckland Institute of Technology. Telecommunications add another dimension: the major teleconference pioneer has been the University of Otago, but its system has been widely shared, being later joined by Telecom New Zealand Limited and its technological developments. Agencies now use their computers to provide (as well as management) student access and enquiries, and variously (because some students lack equipment and skills) for instruction. INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION In A u g u s t 1 9 3 8 , a Pacific R i m group of correspondence educators (from the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) met at Victoria, BC, Canada for the First International Conference on Correspondence Education, th e r e b y i n a u g u r ating the profe ssional o r g a n i s a t i o n that we now know as t h e International Council o f Distance Education. NZCS's Social Learning schemes as described by P r i n c i p a l Butchers brought NZCS to immediate prominence, earned Butchers the chair of ICCE's first Research Committee and the promise of an ICCE meeting in NZ (ICCE, 1938, 56-71). The attention paid to overcoming pupil loneliness, the numerous clubs that children could join to bring them into friendly c o r r e s p o n d e n c e with other children, the guidance from peripatetic teachers, the radio broadcasts, the associations of parents and past pupils, the exhibition of pupils' w o r k i n Wellington opened b y the Governor-General all established that N e w Z e a l a n d s t y l e of correspondence education was infinitely caring for the life of childhood and as satisfying (and probably healthier) as any other pupil could expect - echof11g the Fraser /Beeby dictum that then guided New Zealand education. The second ICCE scheduled for 1940 eventually took place after 1945 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Ostensibly Pacific Rim again, it had only one New Zealander, one Australian, a Filipina; the rest came from the USA and Canada, except for two Norwegian correspondence educators and a Yale professor speaking on behalf of Sweden's Hermods School (in 1938 a lone Scot had been the European contingent). At the end of the conferen