Plans for 2021

 

After the challenges of last year, this is written with some trepidation!

Internationally, the pandemic continues, causing many of the world’s population to be living constrained lives. Here in NZ life is more or less normal, apart from the closed borders. International travel will be expensive and challenging for the foreseeable future. The advent of COVID-19 vaccines will hopefully help a return to ‘normality’. The roll out of vaccines in NZ will be mid-2021.

Apart from the pandemic, there is also the consolidation of Te Pukenga as the management team ‘beds-down’ and many of the initiatives, now in planning, actually become reality. All the various ITPs and ITOs will cease to exist end of the year. Te Pukenga becomes the one employer and the main provider of NZ VET from the beginning or 2022. It will be the 35^th largest tertiary institution in the world.

Meanwhile, another year begins and there is a need to sort out plans for the year.

There are several items to work through:

-         -  Programme development work continues with several programmes to shepherd through the programme documentation process and then supported as first semester’s courses begin. I am working on two degrees – Bachelor of Social work and Bachelor of Design and several other smaller programmes, including the Diploma in Agricultural Management (Level 5).

-         -  I will need to bring together some sort of collaborative project – possibly in the area of flexible learning for apprenticeships – with the other ITPs and Transitional ITOs that are now part of Te Pukenga.

-         - There is a need to work on at least one journal article for publication into 2022!

-        -  I hope to bring together an edited book, recording the contemporary VET landscape in NZ before all the ITPs and ITOs become Te Pukenga.

-          -  I need to get to grips with the co-editorship role for the International Journal of Training Research.

-          -  At present, I have a paper for presentation at the annual FLANZ conference in April. I may put in a paper for either AVETRA or NCVER no-frills if these are offered online. There will no doubt be many opportunities to attend various other relevant conference online as well.

-          - I am also going to work on a draft for another book focused on learning design for VET. There seems to be a large gap in this area! But book will not be published until 2023/2024, thereabouts.

So lots on my plate, but having a plan is always a good first step.