Flexible Learning Pathways

Barbara Johnsen

NZ Seafood Industry Training Organisation

6 December 2001, Queenstown

Flexible Learning Pathways

• Delivery

• Content– tailor for the learner– relevant– recognise current competence– gap analysis

• Transferable learning

Flexible Learning Pathways

• Knowledge, skills (abilities), attitudes

• Define by outputs– valid assessment

• Owned by the learner

• Recognition

Flexible Learning Pathways

• Identify the end point– learning outcomes

• Variety of places and modes

• Integration– education– life experience– work

• Multiple pathways - transferable

Emergent Fisheries Managers Education Providers

• Science and post-graduate focus• “Hodge podge” programs• Rely on “bubble up” effect• Students’ attitudes

– “environmentalism” as a learning driver

• Gain qualifications– are they valued by stakeholders?

• Funding drivers

Emergent Fisheries Managers Workplace

• Learning on the job• Poor recognition of learning

– reduces transferability and career pathway

• Narrow focus• Little recognition of formal qualifications

– by industry in particular

• Body of knowledge not shared with academia

Emergent Managers NZ Industry Examples

• Te Arahou– Emergent Maori leaders– Builds personal skills– Strengthens leadership

• First line management training– Education provider, outcomes-based– Delivery and content tailored to company– National qualification to recognise learning

Emergent Managers NZ Industry Examples

• Initial development of unit standards describing fisheries management competencies - outcomes of learning– “industry” driven– recognises that knowledge and skills are in the

workplace, not academia– definition of ‘fisheries management’?– lack of education providers in this area

• reluctant to use unit standards approach

– faltered, developed before systems in place

Keys for successEmergent fisheries managers

• Integration of education with workplace– real world application of “academic” learning

• Two-way sharing of knowledge/skills– builds mutual respect

• Shared “ownership” of education – providers, learners, stakeholders– recognition of “non-traditional” skills and knowledge– leads to recognition by stakeholders of value of

education programs

Keys for SuccessExisting fisheries managers

• Recognition of learning

• Ongoing professional development– education provider and workplace– flexibility

• Valuing of education by existing fisheries managers - their own and emergent managers

– relevance and ownership

Last Words

“If we focus on the recognition of outcomes instead of the pathway we

might be surprised by who succeeds.”

“If we look back we replicate the past. We need to take the best of the past

and head for the future”Martin Eadie, November 2001