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Measuring Progress

This Strategy sets a range of goals for our tertiary education system and outlines a number of required shifts and changes to reach these goals. We will need some means of determining whether we have made progress towards these goals and whether the strategies and objectives outlined here produce the outcomes we want for New Zealand.

The strategies and objectives outlined here impact on a range of actors at a range of levels – from individual educators, researchers, managers, and employers, to institutions of all types, ITOs, industries, staff and unions, and government agencies. We will need to monitor the performance of the system as a whole in terms of its capability, operation, connections, and outcomes.

The Government will continue to develop tertiary education indicators of the overall health, and strengths and weaknesses, of our post-school education and training system. This will assist us to evaluate and monitor the Strategy and will inform future policy and priorities (including revision of this Strategy itself).

Developing indicators in some areas will be a priority. We currently collect little system-level data, if any, in some critical areas such as outcome data around literacy skill levels and generic skill levels. As a result, the development of new indicators and data sources will be needed, subject to the benefits, costs and feasibility of filling these information needs over time.

The process of developing charters and profiles will help build a better understanding of dimensions of quality and the capabilities of our tertiary system as will the development of indicators of research capability and performance.

An illustrative set of indicators for measuring progress against the Strategy is shown below. Included here are indicators that have some acceptance internationally for measuring the state of education. Not every important aspect of the operation of the system is included, but rather the focus is on elements related to the Strategy. The best overall measures will need to pick up system-wide effects or changes in significant aspects of the system.

Further development and refinement will be a key priority over the next year and will entail ongoing discussion with a range of experts and stakeholders around the conceptual, policy, and technical issues involved.

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