Questions for a twenty-first century senior secondary curriculum

Abstract

Abstract This article looks at the current organisation of senior secondary curriculum in New Zealand, and raises some key questions that will need to be considered as we seek to develop a senior secondary curriculum designed for life in the twenty-first century. It asks: Do our current structures, for senior secondary curriculum, support goals and aspirations that have been articulated for twenty-first century senior secondary education, and, if not, what might need to change? Introduction In 2005, the Ministry of Education commissioned a background paper to inform their thinking on future development in the area of the senior secondary (Years 11-13) curriculum (Bolstad, 2005). This followed nearly a decade and a half of significant national changes affecting curriculum, assessment, and qualifications in secondary schools. With the new assessment regime, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), fully implemented at Years 11, 12, and 13, and a first draft of the revised New Zealand Curriculum scheduled for circulation in 2006, it was a timely opportunity to step back and reflect on the current organisation and purpose of senior secondary curriculum in New Zealand. Most often, the senior secondary curriculum in New Zealand is thought about and discussed in terms of its constituent parts, i.e., as the individual and collective subjects that are taught in Years 11-13. As I will discuss in this article, two inter-related factors have contributed to, and perpetuated, this view of the senior secondary curriculum: the historical (and ongoing) need for the senior secondary years to prepare students for entrance into tertiary education; and the close coupling of the senior secondary curriculum with the structures and systems used to assess and qualify students. The difficulty with the subject-oriented view is that it may preclude broader questions about the overall shape and scope of learning in the senior secondary years. For example, what should students learn in their final few years of school? What kind of learning will school leavers need to equip them for life in the twenty-first century? What kind of people do we need, to build and support a twenty-first century society and economy? Do our current structures for senior secondary curriculum support our goals and aspirations for the future, and, if not, what might need to change? These are the sorts of questions that must be addressed by educators and curriculum policy makers alike. For the most part, the policy drivers shaping the senior secondary curriculum in New Zealand since the early 1990s centred on the development of new assessment and qualification frameworks. The senior secondary curriculum itself was not the main focus of review and attention, and there have been few opportunities to debate questions such as those raised above. With the long-awaited changeover to the NCEA, there has been a partial decoupling of the relationship between senior secondary assessment qualifications structures, and the senior secondary curriculum. Social and economic forces' have also changed the entire landscape of senior secondary education, leading to higher retention rates, and the need for much more flexible pathways through the senior secondary years. This article explores challenges to the existing senior secondary curriculum, as a consequence of these changes. While some see these as negative challenges, this article suggests that the changes have potentially opened up new opportunities to discuss, debate, and renegotiate, at a national level, the shape and scope of the senior secondary curriculum for young New Zealanders of the future. How was the senior secondary curriculum organised in the past? In order to understand how New Zealand's senior secondary curriculum works today, it is important to know how it worked in the past. Traditionally, one of the main purposes of senior secondary education was to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and entrance qualifications they would need to enter tertiary education. …