Distance and Online Education for VET in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Vocational Education and Training (VET) has been a feature of Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) education since the 1880s. Around 110 years later, a dedicated sector of institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs) provided all regions with access to VET. One polytechnic, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, provided students nationwide with an additional, correspondence option. Since the turn of the millennium, online education practice has blossomed across the ITP sector. The additional reach of online education has formed a core element of strategy for regional ITPs seeking to provide more flexible access to their students. The Open Polytechnic has also applied online education to better serve distance VET students.This chapter begins with an important observation: online and distance education are not the same thing. The differences between them are foundational for two very different sets of practice across instructional design, teaching, and flexibility. Online education as expressed through VET in Aotearoa New Zealand has its starting place in one of two traditional forms of practice: on-campus, and distance. The online forms of both provide quite different student experiences based on very different educational assumptions, and so ultimately reflect different operating models. As the Aotearoa New Zealand ITP sector becomes one collaborative organisation, the opportunity exists for the two models to coexist and extend VET provision still further.KeywordsDistance educationOnline educationVocational education and training (VET)Equity of accessInstitute of technology and polytechnic (ITPs)Industry training and learning