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Lifelong learning policies and discourses: criticalreflections from Aotearoa, New ZealandROBERT TOBIAS aa University of Canterbury , New ZealandPublished online: 10 Aug 2006.

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INT. J. OF LIFELONG EDUCATION, VOL. 23, NO. 6 (NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2004), 569–588

International Journal of Lifelong Education

ISSN 0260-1370 print/ISSN 1464-519X online © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/026037042000311488

Lifelong learning policies and discourses: critical reflections from Aotearoa, New Zealand

ROBERT TOBIASUniversity of Canterbury, New Zealand

Taylor and Francis LtdTLED230605.sgm10.1080/0260137042000311488International Journal of Lifelong Education0260-1370 (print)/1464-519X (online)Original Article2004Taylor & Francis Ltd236000000November-December 2004

This article examines New Zealand experiences and understandings of lifelong educationand lifelong learning over the past 30 years or so. It investigates the place of lifelong educa-tion and lifelong learning discourses in shaping public policy in Aotearoa as well as questionsabout the similarities and differences between the discourse in New Zealand and in Europeand the UK. The aim of the paper is to throw light on the following questions: what effects, ifany, have notions of lifelong education or lifelong learning had on public policy discourseson tertiary education and the education of adults? Is there evidence to suggest that notionsof either ‘lifelong education’ or ‘lifelong learning’ have provided a vision or sense of purposeor set of guidelines in developing public policies? Have they served to justify or legitimate newinitiatives or funding arrangements? And, if so, what is the nature of this influence? Finally,in the light of this discussion the article also examines the question whether notions of ‘life-long education’ and ‘lifelong learning’ as they have featured in the academic and policy liter-ature are predominantly located in a Euro-centred discourse and hence how they might bereconstituted to reflect more adequately discourses of learning and education in other partsof the world.

Background

Various forms of lifelong learning and lifelong education may be traced back manyhundreds, if not thousands of years. Indeed increasing awareness of the complexi-ties of early human settlements and the extraordinary achievements of humanity inpre-historic times enables us to recognize the remarkable learning that must havebeen undertaken in past times in many parts of the world (Grattan 1955). In pre-capitalist, pre-colonial Aotearoa, there would have been no need to define or ‘label’any specific sphere of human activities as ‘lifelong education’ or ‘lifelong learning’.Within the

whanau

and

hapu

there were undoubtedly highly significant institution-alized and non-institutionalized forms of learning and teaching, and many peopledid continue their learning throughout their lives (Te Hau 1972, Walker 1980).From the mid-nineteenth century, however, with the gradual incorporation of

Robert Tobias

is a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Canterbury,Christchurch/Otatahi, Aotearoa, New Zealand. He has been involved in a wide range of research andpolicy-oriented projects in lifelong learning, and adult and community education. Earlier this year heretired from the full-time teachng position he had held at the University of Canterbury since 1978. Priorto that, he was for ten years Director of Extra-mural Studies at the Univeristy of Cape Town in SouthAfrica.

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Aotearoa New Zealand into the rapidly expanding British imperialist political econ-omy, and its colonization by successive waves of settlers drawn predominantly fromBritain, a new hegemony was established.

This new hegemony served to preserve and extend the interests of British andcolonial capital and the patriarchal and colonial cultural, social, political andeconomic institutions and traditions that the new settlers—the

tauiwi

—brought withthem. However, it was not established without a struggle. Military, political,economic and ideological means have been used to subdue or contain the forces ofresistance over the past 160 years or so (Walker 1990, Belich 1996, 2001); the formsand practices of learning and education as they exist in Aotearoa New Zealandunder conditions of late-capitalism in the first decade of the 21st Century are a prod-uct of these struggles. Not surprisingly, therefore, lifelong learning and lifelongeducation discourses and the many initiatives taken by members of various socialmovements as well as by governments to promote lifelong learning have also beenshaped by these struggles (Tobias 1999a). In spite of this long history, it is effectivelyonly since the early 1970s that discourses of lifelong education and lifelong learninghave moved at times to centre stage in the shaping of public policy.

Lifelong education discourses in the 1970s

In the latter part of the 1960s and early 1970s, major debates on educational policieswere being undertaken under the auspices of a number of international organiza-tions. These debates were prompted by a number of factors. They included thecontinuation of ‘the cold war’ and the ever increasing expenditure on defence anddeployment of nuclear weapons, the rapid process of political de-colonization inAfrica, Asia and the Pacific, and the continuing ‘booms and busts’ of a relativelyslowly expanding global capitalist system. In addition, they included the rise of ‘newsocial movements’ such as the environmental, peace, indigenous peoples’ andwomen’s movements that raised increasingly questions about the Euro-centred andgendered nature of much of society and about the possibility of solving problems ofwealth and poverty, peace and war, or of achieving sustainability of the eco-systemwithin existing political and economic settlements. All this was happening at a timeof rapid expansion of formal educational provision in many parts of the world,increasing recognition of the limits of schooling in both rich and poor countries, andupheavals in many universities. In the course of all this, fundamental questions werealso being raised about the nature and purpose of education (Finger 1989, Cookeand MacSween 2000, Field 2000, 2001, Boshier 2001; see Gelpi 1979, Lovett

et al

.1982, Kilmurray 1983, Law 1993, Welton 1993, Holford 1995, Istance

et al

. 2002).Within this context, UNESCO adopted

lifelong education

as its guiding principle(Lengrand 1970, Dave 1976). This became one of the main themes of the Inter-national Year of Education in 1970, and the report of its International Commissionon the Development of Education was based on this concept (Faure 1972). One ofthe aims of UNESCO was to persuade governments to shift from an exclusive focuson policies to expand provision for formal schooling, and to examine educationalalternatives from a wider lifelong perspective. At about the same time the Councilof Europe adopted

education permanente

as its guiding principle in the field of educa-tional and cultural policy. This notion shared much in common with UNESCOthinking; however, its main aim was to promote cultural democracy and the

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democratization of culture (see, for example, Council for Cultural Co-operation1971). The OECD was also reviewing educational policies at this time, and it toofocused on the importance of lifelong learning. Drawing, however, on the Swedishexperience, it focused its attention on advocating strategies for post-compulsoryeducation, which included alternating periods of study and work throughout life.This strategy was embodied in its central concept of

recurrent education

(OECD 1973,Kallen 1979, Alanen 1982).

From the early 1970s, under the influence of the forces referred to above, as wellas the re-orientation in international thinking about education, discourses of life-long education began to influence the development of policy in Aotearoa NewZealand. In 1972, a Committee on Lifelong Education of the New Zealand NationalCommission for UNESCO published its report. It proclaimed that:

Our goal must be to get general recognition of the fact that the whole commu-nity (including – but not only – its economy) is the poorer when the potentialof any significant proportion of its people is not reached throughout the wholelife span. (Simmonds 1972: 16)

The movement to promote policies that recognized the importance of lifelonglearning and lifelong education thus gained considerable political momentumunder the second Labour government between 1972 and 1975, and was supportedby the many thousands of people who participated in an Educational DevelopmentConference, which was convened by the Minister of Education at that time. Asustained critique was mounted of ‘front-end models of education’ and of what wasseen as a narrow, overly academic conception of education and of the sharp policyand administrative divisions which existed between ‘non-vocational education’ and‘vocational training’ (Advisory Council on Educational Planning 1974: 81). More-over, much of the political momentum was sustained under the leadership of aliberal Minister of Education in the National government from 1975 to 1978.

In Aotearoa in the 1970s, therefore, seemingly in contrast with the UK, the move-ment to promote lifelong learning and lifelong education did not remain at thelevel of academic discussion or political rhetoric. Although it may not havecontained the radical edge of some of the literature in other parts of the world, itdid lead to a number of practical measures. In 1974, the Labour governmentamended the Education Act to broaden the legal definition of education. A new divi-sion of continuing education was established in the department of education to co-ordinate and administer post-compulsory or continuing education including both‘vocational’ and ‘non-vocational’ education; the number of technical institutes, thefirst of which had been established in the early-1960s, continued to grow and theirroles and functions were broadened and extended; community colleges with equallywide-ranging functions were set up in regions with a population too small to sustaina technical institute; and in two areas non-institutional programmes or services—theNelson Community Education Service and the Wairarapa Community ActionProgramme—were set up. In addition, 13 Rural Education Activities Programmeswere established to provide specialist and financial support across all educationalsectors including early childhood education, schools and post-compulsory andcommunity education. Legislation was passed to allow adults to return to school andseveral schools-based Community Learning Centres were established. Provision wasalso made for the direct funding of voluntary organizations involved in adult and

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community education through the department of education and a number of Indus-try Training Boards were set up under the Vocational Training Council, which hadbeen established in the late-1960s. Finally, a number of pilot programmes andprojects in Maori education, adult literacy and the use of radio in lifelong educationwere established, and a post of training and development officer was established bythe National Council of Adult Education (Boshier 1979, Garrett and Paterson 1984,Herbert 1984, Dakin 1988, Tobias and Duke 2001).

By the late 1970s, however, a number of changes were taking place, whichbrought a halt to this progressive movement. As in many other capitalist countries,from the mid-1970s, Aotearoa New Zealand witnessed an increasing crisis of capitalaccumulation and a growth in unemployment. This was linked with a number ofother trends. These included the expansion and reorganization of global capitalismand increasing internationalization of the division of labour, changes in systems andmethods of capitalist production associated with the increasingly varied applicationsof new technologies, and increasing power and expansion of private ownership ofthe mass media (Foley 1999). They also included increasing disillusionment, espe-cially among political elites, with the welfare state compromise, which had beenachieved in many capitalist countries in the 1930s and 1940s.

In the late-1970s and early 1980s, the populist National government borrowedheavily to finance a series of ‘Think Big’ projects, whilst at the same time in the early1980s instituting a wage/price freeze and cutting back on educational expenditure.Under a conservative National Minister of Education, these cuts were particularlysevere in their effects on several organizations such as the WEAs and the NationalCouncil of Adult Education (NCAE), which were active in promoting a broad,progressive notion of lifelong education (Dakin, 1988). Along with other policiesthat re-directed priorities in polytechnics and community colleges to provideincreasingly narrow skills-based labour market programmes, they brought a prema-ture end to the progressive, social democratic era in lifelong education initiated inthe early 1970s.

Lifelong learning discourses and the reforms of tertiary education in the 1980s

In 1984, the fourth Labour government was elected to office, bringing with it greatexpectations among many progressive educators of a return to the era of the 1970s.There was widespread recognition that there was a great deal to be done. The mani-festo of the incoming government brought lifelong learning back to centre-stage inpublic policy discourse. Within weeks of taking office, the Minister of Education,Russell Marshall, gave the opening address at a ‘South Pacific Lifelong LearningConference’ held in Wellington early in September 1984 under the auspices of theNCAE. At this conference, which was one of the largest gatherings of adult andcommunity educators for some time, the Minister took the opportunity to state hisbelief in the importance of lifelong learning especially to achieve greater equity.However, he did also sound a cautionary note, drawing delegates’ attention to theinevitable scarcity of financial resources and stressing the need for co-ordinationand co-operation among agencies and groups involved (Marshall 1984).

Following the conference, the NCAE, with the approval of the Minister, estab-lished a Lifelong Learning Task Force, and in March 1985, he asked the Department

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of Education to convene a series of meetings or conferences of individuals and orga-nizational representatives to examine a number of issues. Both the Task Force andthese latter working conferences produced reports that were intended to move life-long learning policies a step further. The focus of both reports was on equity issues(Lifelong Learning Task Force 1985, Working Conference at Stella Maris Confer-ence Centre 1985).

A number of other groups were also appointed in 1984–85 to investigate variousaspects of education. These included issues associated with transition education(Scott

et al

. 1984), the school curriculum (Committee to Review the Curriculum forSchools 1987), the organization and administration of polytechnics and communitycolleges with a view to establishing a Technical Institutes Grants Committee (Probineand Fargher 1987), paid educational leave (Law 1985) and trade union education(Law 1987). The second report of this latter working party was particularly wide-rang-ing and relevant to public policy discourses on lifelong learning. In addition tomaking a strong case that a public commitment to trade union education was vitalto the economy, it also drew on other discourses to argue that individuals should havea right to lifelong learning to enable them to play a full, active and democratic rolein all spheres of economic, political, social and cultural life, including the workplace.

Linked with the work of some of these groups, were several important new initia-tives. These included the restoration of some of the state funding that the WEAs andother organizations had lost in the early 1980s, the recognition of paid educationalleave for trades unionists, the setting up of the Trade Union Education Authority,the establishment of ACCESS courses for unemployed people, the provision of someequity funding in tertiary institutions, and some responses by the state to the pres-sures from Maoridom for recognition of their rights under the Treaty of Waitangi.All this contrasts markedly with the experience under conservative regimes inseveral other countries, which had removed lifelong learning and education fromthe political agenda.

Nevertheless, the high expectations of the mid-1980s were never fulfilled. Else-where (Tobias 1990) I have discussed the reasons for this in some depth. Briefly,however, the failure was in part at least a direct consequence of the rapid rise topolitical dominance of neo-liberal ideologues. They argued strongly for lower levelsof taxation, a substantial reduction in the role of the state in the provision of educa-tion in general as well as other social services, and much greater reliance on themarket place and on market signals in the determination of policy. Within theseframeworks the long-established linkages between education, citizenship and thestate were largely severed and replaced by linkages between education, theconsumer and the labour market.

From 1987 on, a number of further review and policy groups were presentingtheir reports. These included the reports of the Interim Advisory Group on Nonfor-mal Education (Shallcrass 1987), the Universities Review Committee (New ZealandUniversities Review Committee 1987), and the Review Team (Tertiary Review Team1988). The reform process, initiated in a wave of progressive enthusiasm in 1984,had to a considerable extent been captured by the dominant neo-liberal ideology.Each review or policy group and each cabinet decision can usefully be seen to consti-tute a moment in the struggle between the forces of neo-liberalism and those ofprogressivism. As in many other countries, this resulted in many instances in the riseof a new managerialism, instrumentalism, vocationalism and credentialism (Brown1995, Tobias 1999b, Marshall 1997).

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In May 1988, the report of the Taskforce on Education Administration waspublished (Picot 1988). It has been argued (McCulloch 1990) that this reportreflects and reconciles the criticisms and views of neoliberals on the right andprogressives on the left. Both of these perspectives had drawn attention to the fail-ures of traditional educational structures and institutions to provide the kind ofeducation required to achieve equity and responsiveness as well as accountabilityand efficiency. The Taskforce argued that the central problem was the over-central-ized and overly complex administrative structure, and the consequent lack of effec-tive management practices and information required by people in all parts of thesystem to make informed decisions. The problem was thus defined in neoliberalterms as essentially a managerial rather than a professional or political one, and theTaskforce went on to advocate managerial solutions.

These solutions included the separation of the following functions:

●

policy advice and implementation (which should be located in a newly createdMinistry of Education);

●

the provision of education (which should be located in institutions, whichshould have elected boards of trustees and charters to ensure maximumaccountability);

●

the provision of professional and administrative services (which should for themost part be privatized and purchased on the open market by institutions outof funds allocated by the state); and

●

the review and audit function (which would be located in a separate and inde-pendent state agency).

Following a three-month period of public discussion of the Taskforce’s recommen-dations, in August 1988 the government set out its policy position in a documententitled

Tomorrow’s Schools

(Lange 1988). In general, terms the governmentaccepted the recommendations of the report, modifying them in some respects byretaining more of the professional service functions within the state and providingfor somewhat greater recognition of the role of professional educators in the devel-opment of national educational policies.

By March 1988, the government had also received reports from groups reviewingevery aspect of post-school education. All these reports, as well as the report of theRoyal Commission on Social Policy that was published in April 1988 (Richardson1988), were referred to a Working Group, and its report was published on 31 July1988 (Hawke 1988) and distributed widely for public discussion. This report waswide-ranging. Among other things, it emphasized the importance of lifelong learn-ing, endorsed a very broad interpretation of education and drew on some of themanagerialist thinking contained in the Picot Report to recommend in the tertiarysector as well greater reliance on institutional decision-making and a more limitedrole for central agencies.

After six months of debate and discussion of the recommendations of theHawke report, in February 1989 the government issued ‘

Learning for Life: One

’(Minister and Associate Minister of Education 1989). This was followed six monthslater in August 1989 with a further document ‘

Learning for Life: Two

– Educationand Training beyond the Age of Fifteen’ (Minister of Education 1989). These twodocuments announced the decisions that had been made by government. In hisintroduction to the first of these documents, Phil Goff, then Associate Minister of

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Education, drew on the discourse of lifelong learning and lifelong education. Hesaid that:

Rapid change is a feature of the modern world. Technology, the changingstructure of the economy and the increasing complexity of modern societyrequire people today to possess higher levels of skill and to be more adaptable.Not only must young people spend longer in their initial training and educa-tion-increasingly, education and retraining will be become a recurrent featureof our lives. Education is becoming a truly life-long process, necessary for us intaking our places both in the workforce and wider society. (Minister of Educa-tion 1989: iii)

The decisions announced by the government endorsed many of the recommenda-tions of the Hawke working group. They provided the basic framework on which theEducation Amendment Act of 1990 rests, and it was through this major piece oflegislation that the government brought about its major re-structuring of post-compulsory education. The Act provided for the following:

●

abolition of the University Grants Committee (UGC), and the establishment ofa common ‘across the board’ system of management, administration and fund-ing of all tertiary institutions on the basis of charters, using an Equivalent Full-Time Student (EFTS) formula;

●

endorsement of the universities’ role as ‘critic and conscience of society’;

●

abolition of the Vocational Training Council (VTC), but the retention of itsIndustry Training Boards;

●

abolition of the National Council of Adult Education (NCAE), a statutory body,and the transfer of its assets to the National Resource Centre For Adult Educa-tion and Community Learning (NRC), an independent Trust;

●

establishment of the Education & Training Support Agency (ETSA);

●

abolition of the Vocational Guidance Service and its replacement by CareerDevelopment and Transition Education Service;

●

abolition of the Trades Certification Board (TCB) and the Authority forAdvanced Vocational Awards (AAVA) and their replacement by the NZ Quali-fications Authority (NZQA) with wide powers to establish a new qualificationsframework;

●

establishment of mechanisms for the registration and accreditation of privatetraining establishments; and

●

recognition of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee to work alongside NZQA inthe university sector.

Overall, this legislation established the framework upon which the tertiary sectorwas to develop over the following years. Its main features included the fact that itwas driven largely by student enrolments and by institutional decisions based ontheir assessments of potential student interests. There was to be little to distin-guish or differentiate between the various types of institutions at least in terms offunding, and each institution was to be largely autonomous within the confinesof charters and corporate plans that would be negotiated with the Ministry ofEducation. The Act failed however to provide a satisfactory mechanism for therecognition and funding of voluntary organizations engaged in adult and

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community education. In addition, it seems that the envisaged reforms of work-based education were not complete in time to be incorporated fully in thislegislation.

The legislation may then be seen as one outcome in a series of struggles betweenthe competing ideological and political forces referred to above. From the point ofview of lifelong learning discourses, it may be argued that it reflects a compromise.On the one hand, it went some way toward breaking down institutional barriers tolearning and allowed for the possibility of a more diverse curriculum; on the otherhand, it endorsed a highly individualized and consumerist notion of lifelong learn-ing and a managerialist approach to problem solving. It appeared to allow littlespace for the development of radical or critical educational engagements based onthe collective interests of groups and movements in society (Thompson 1997, Foley1999, 2001, Crowther 2000).

Lifelong learning discourses in the 1990s

In November 1990, six months after the passage of the Education Amendment Act,a National government was elected to office on the promise of a ‘decent society’, andon a tide of voter disenchantment with a Labour Government that had all butdestroyed the welfare state compromise achieved by a previous Labour governmentin the 1930s and 1940s. In December 1990, however, one of the first initiatives of thenew government was to produce an ‘Economic and Social Statement’ thatannounced massive cuts in welfare benefits and housing assistance. This wasfollowed in 1991 by a whole series of measures designed to cut back radically on theprovisions of the welfare state.

In mid-1991, the government announced its new education policies as part of itsfirst budget and within the context of a very strong commitment by government toneo-liberal ideology along with a view which suggested that New Zealand’s economicills derived from past protectionist policies and limitations and skill deficits in thelabour market. Policies thus included a wide range of measures. The standardtuition fee for tertiary studies was abolished and instead individual tertiary institu-tions were required to set their own fees. ‘Study Right’, a mechanism that enabledthe state to fund different categories of tertiary students at different rates andprogressively to reduce the level of funding of older students, was established. Cutswere announced in student allowances to bring them into line with the unemploy-ment benefit, and the iniquitous student loan scheme was introduced. A capitalcharge on the assets of tertiary institutions was also proposed, and cuts wereannounced in the funding of the NZQA, the Career Development and TransitionEducation Service, ETSA and a wide range of community groups. It was alsoannounced that all state funding of the WEAs would be withdrawn.

The introduction of a new ‘Industry Skills Training Strategy’ was announced in1991 and the new measures were set in place through the Industry Training Act thatcame into law in June 1992. They included the progressive replacement of Access byTraining Opportunity Programme (TOP)—a more highly targeted and restrictedtraining programme for unemployed people. It also included the establishment ofa Youth Traineeship Scheme, and the consolidation of other funds for training,apprenticeships, etc., to be available on a contestable basis to new Industry TrainingOrganizations (ITOs). These ITOs, funded partly by government and partly by

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industry, were recognized by ETSA and replaced the previous tripartite IndustryTraining Boards. The ITOs were to operate their own training programmes leadingto competency-based qualifications approved by NZQA.

In 1991, the NZQA adopted its new qualifications framework. This was designedto provide for the development of a flexible, modularized competency-based system,in which all education and training would lead to nationally recognized qualifica-tions. In February 1993, the first units of the new qualifications framework werelaunched. In the meantime, in 1992, the government passed the Union Representa-tives Education Leave Act Repeal Act. This Act disestablished the TUEA and with-drew the right of union representatives to paid educational leave. This was done inspite of evidence to indicate the considerable success of the Trade Union EducationAuthority (TUEA) in providing useful education and training for many people whohad had little if any positive prior experience of education.

Many of the measures adopted by government in the early-1990s were groundedin discourses opposed to or unsympathetic to any involvement by the state in life-long learning. Little reference in public policy discourses was made to lifelong learn-ing, and little recognition was given to the potential significance of a range oflifelong learning initiatives. Policy, it would seem, was driven firstly by neo-liberalideologues who saw no need to participate in such discourses and who saw tertiaryeducation largely as a private good, and secondly by conservatives, many of whomrejected the priorities advocated by supporters of lifelong learning.

In spite of this, by mid-1993—perhaps driven in part by the upcoming generalelections—Lockwood Smith as Minister of Education initiated a public consultationon all aspects of education. To this end, a draft document entitled ‘Education forthe 21

st

Century’ was published and widely distributed. This document was intendedto stimulate discussion of policies on education from the cradle into adulthood. Inhis foreword, the Minister says that: ‘Contained in the Document is the Govern-ment’s vision of an education system that will provide, first, the foundations ofeducation, second, the development of essential skills, and third, lifelong learning’(Ministry of Education 1993). However, the notion of lifelong learning contained inthe document is almost exclusively limited to formal learning provided for underthe qualifications framework. There is little if any recognition of wider notions oflifelong learning.

Early in 1994, following four months or more of extensive discussion the govern-ment published a revised version of the strategic document on ‘Education for the21st Century’. The introduction to this document begins by pointing to the rapidpace of technological change and the ‘explosive growth in communications’. Itargues that ‘New Zealand must compete in the global marketplace’ and that ‘successwill depend in large measure on the investment we make in education and training’.At the same time it argues that ‘All New Zealanders have a right to education andthe benefits it brings’ and hence seeks to guarantee or ensure access to appropriateand high-quality educational opportunities to all. The document, it claims, ‘outlinesa life-long education system which lays strong foundations in the early childhoodyears and continues to build on these during the years of compulsory schooling. Itenvisages a seamless education system in which barriers no longer exist betweenschools and post-school education and training’. Finally, the report claims that it‘outlines the vision of a seamless education system which can maximize participationand achievement in education and training, from birth throughout life’ (Ministry ofEducation 1994: 6).

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In spite of these claims, which do engage with discourses on lifelong learning, thevision remains limited, constrained as it is by the requirements of the qualificationsframework on the one hand and the labour market on the other (Tobias 1999b).The report as a whole focuses primarily on (a) forms of initial and preparatoryeducation i.e. a front-end model of education rather than a lifelong learning one,and (b) work-related skill development in the adult years. The concrete proposalscontained in the report provide little evidence of understanding or sympathy forthose wider lifelong learning goals, which focus on the integration of personal,social and democratic ends, and few significant changes are referred to.

Over the following three or four years, New Zealand continued to experienceconsiderable expansion of its formal tertiary education sector. This was based prima-rily on the earlier changes set in place by the reforms initiated by the 1990 legisla-tion. At the same time the nonformal sector languished. Then in September 1997,a further review of tertiary education was launched by the new National/NewZealand First coalition government. A Green Paper was released to provide a basisfor public discussion and consultation (Ministry of Education 1997). In its discus-sion of the role of tertiary education, the Green Paper notes that ‘Tertiary educationoccurs in a variety of settings, in many different ways’. In line with the thinking ofTreasury it points out that tertiary education ‘provides many benefits to students’.However, it also states that employers and the wider community benefit. ‘Tertiaryeducation contributes to achieving the Government’s wider social goals and a highlyskilled and high-growth economy’. To do this effectively, it argues, a tertiary sectoris required that is ‘dynamic and adaptable’; ‘It must have providers that are commit-ted to encouraging lifelong learning and to the pursuit of equality’ (1997: 7).

This need for a lifelong learning focus is repeated in the discussion of the goalsof tertiary education. Emphasis is placed on maintaining flexibility in teaching andlearning and a commitment to high standards, along with supporting individuals toachieve their highest potential, encouraging increasing numbers of participantsfrom those groups that have traditionally been under-represented in the tertiarysector, encouraging responsiveness and innovation, and setting in place stable andpredictable resourcing arrangements are all seen as important goals (1997: 8). Inthis Green Paper, it was noted that overall enrolments in tertiary education hadincreased by 30% between 1991 and 1997, with Maori enrolment increasing by103% and that of Pacific peoples by 116%. It was also noted that total expenditureby the state on tertiary education ‘including tuition subsidies, loans and allowances’had increased by a little over 30% between 1992/3 and 1996/7 (1997: 9). In spite ofthese increases what was not noted in the Green Paper was that the per student fund-ing by the state had fallen steadily between 1991 and 1997 by close on 12% (Ministryof Education, 2000: 104), that funding of nonformal education had been cut drasti-cally, and that the difficulties of sustaining high levels of state support were exacer-bated by a tax regime which had been driven down by neo-liberal forces in the nameof global competitiveness.

Some of the government’s decisions on the funding of tertiary education arisingout of this review were announced in the 1998 Budget. This was followed in Septem-ber of that year by the publication of a White Paper outlining further decisions(Ministry of Education 1998). These served for the most part to confirm and/orimplement the recommendations that had been contained in the Green Paper. Inhis foreword, Wyatt Creech, Minister of Education, drew to some extent on lifelonglearning discourses and in particular on those elements which emphasized the

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needs of the labour market and the constant need/pressure on people to retrain orup skill or change direction throughout their lives. Although the government envis-aged that tertiary education should contribute in important ways to a range of goals,its primary focus was on lifelong learning for employment. This employment focuswas, however, to be achieved, not through processes of co-ordination or planningbut primarily by opening tertiary education up to the competitive demands of themarketplace. The tertiary system was to be made more responsive to the demands ofindividual learners and potential learners. Tertiary education was to be traded inmuch the same way as any other commodity.

On the other hand, the government did recognize that it had a number of roles:

●

first, it had to ensure that the resources of the state were equitably distributedbetween public and private institutions with the only two criteria being thoseassociated with student or consumer demand and those associated with courseapproval (it had to eliminate ‘distortions’ created by previous preferences givento public institutions);

●

second, it had to ensure that potential consumers or learners received the full-est possible information so that they could make informed choices and deci-sions;

●

third, it had to ensure more effective quality assurance;

●

fourth, it had to ensure greater efficiency and accountability especially in thegovernance of public education institutions (this was to be achieved by impos-ing corporate instead of collegial structures on these institutions; and

●

finally, it had to bring about greater contestability and transparency in the allo-cation or research funds both within the tertiary sector and outside it.

As has already been suggested, this White Paper and these decisions by governmentdo not seem to have been much influenced by the lifelong learning discourses thathad emerged in many other OECD countries at the time. In most respects thesedecisions served to implement the neo-liberal policies which had played such a keyrole in policy formation since the mid-1980s—policies that had very little to do withlifelong learning.

Lifelong learning discourses and the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission

At the general election in November 1999 a Labour/Alliance government waselected to government. During its first year in office attention was given to reviewingevery aspect of post-compulsory education. In April 2000, the Government launchedits ‘Modern Apprenticeship’ scheme, and in December of that year, Parliamentenacted the Modern Apprenticeship Training Act. Reviews of adult and communityeducation, adult literacy, industry training, and training for unemployed peoplewere undertaken (Tobias 2002).

One of its earliest and most substantial initiatives in the first part of 2000 was toset up a Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (TEAC) to undertake yet anothermajor review of tertiary education. By way of contrast with the reports of the 1990s,the government placed lifelong learning close to the centre of its terms of referencefor the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (TEAC). Moreover, TEAC itself has

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come to draw on the discourse of lifelong learning. It commences its first report byquoting (Tertiary Education Advisory Commission 2000: 6) from one of the stron-gest statements on lifelong learning I know of—a declaration by the Council ofMinisters of Education of Canada published first in 1993 (Council of Ministers ofEducation of Canada 1993: 2) and referred to again in a 1999 publication.

[E]ducation is a lifelong learning process … the future of our society dependson informed and educated citizens who, while fulfilling their own goals ofpersonal and professional development, contribute to the social, economic,and cultural development of their community and of the country as a whole.(Council of Ministers of Education of Canada 1999: 3)

Perhaps the greatest strength of this statement is that it is less individualized andmore socialized than many other similar statements. The lifelong learning processis concerned with ‘the future of our society’ which ‘depends on informed andeducated citizens’. Learners, then, are ‘citizens’ not consumers, who not only fulfil‘their own goals’, but also ‘contribute to … social, economic and cultural develop-ment’ and presumably engage in learning while making these contributions. Finally,the statement suggests that this learning is not necessarily limited to contributionsto ‘their community’ but also to ‘the country as a whole’. Although the Commissiondoes acknowledge these kinds of goals in its discussion of the purposes of tertiaryeducation (Tertiary Education Advisory Commission 2000: 10–11), it fails to makethe explicit links between lifelong learning and these wider goals and purposes. Thisfailure, it seems to me, has profound consequences. It leaves the notion of lifelonglearning without sufficient grounding in social theory and philosophy, and withoutthis it remains one of those concepts that may be full of resonance but which signi-fies little or nothing.

Nevertheless, TEAC does draw on notions of lifelong learning at key points inits work. It does so firstly in its discussion of the nature and scope of tertiaryeducation when it notes that it has chosen to define tertiary education broadly toinclude:

learning at all levels within public tertiary institutions (i.e. polytechnics,universities, colleges of education and

wananga

), programmes provided byprivate and government training establishments, business-based education,industry training, and all lifelong learning beyond the compulsory schoolsystem. It thus includes both formal and non-formal education, and what isoften termed ‘second-chance’ education. Embracing these diverse forms ofeducation and training is particularly important if the challenges of promotinglifelong learning and designing a tertiary education system that contributes tothe knowledge society are to be taken seriously. (Tertiary Education AdvisoryCommission 2000: 9)

Secondly, and perhaps most significantly, it stresses the important place of lifelonglearning in its discussion of the contribution of tertiary education to the knowledgesociety:

The demands that the knowledge society makes on individuals, business,industry,

whanau, hapu, iwi

, Maori and the wider community will necessitate

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New Zealand becoming very serious about lifelong learning, a concept that hasto date been paid little more than lip-service’ (Tertiary Education AdvisoryCommission 2000: 11)

With these comments in the first report, TEAC sets the scene. These themes arepicked up at several points in the second report, which is focused on ‘Shaping theSystem’ (Tertiary Education Advisory Commission 2001c). The notion of lifelonglearning is drawn on first in the discussion on national and local responsiveness. TheCommission states that it is not sufficient to have one or two providers to serve allNew Zealand and to expect learners to travel.

Lifelong learning should take place close to where people live, work and social-ize. Nor is it sufficient to expect everyone to be successful learning in an openor distance-learning environment. While these technology-driven learningenvironments suit some, they are not appropriate for all. Regional tertiaryeducation providers have an important role to play in the development of theregions in which they operate and it is vital this role be protected. (TertiaryEducation Advisory Commission 2001c: 20)

Secondly, notions of lifelong learning also provide a key element in the discourse onaccess and the recognition of learning outside formal learning environments. Thus,the Commission states that:

A genuine hunger for improvement in individuals for themselves and thecommunities in which they live can be a strong impetus for national develop-ment. For this to occur, lifelong learning, accessible throughout the country(in both urban and rural areas), is a necessity. Lifelong learners will enterformal education environments at many points in their lives. In between theseperiods of formal, credentialized learning, their learning experience does notstop. It continues in their workplaces, their homes and in the activities theyundertake in their day-to-day lives. The system should be able to offer alterna-tive pathways that encourage and foster participation by groups traditionallyunder-represented in tertiary education. (Tertiary Education AdvisoryCommission, 2001c: 21–23)

Thirdly, the discussion on learning and technology for a knowledge society alsodraws on notions of lifelong learning. The Commission argues that technology andspecifically e-learning is likely to play a major part in the provision of ‘lifelong learn-ing pathways and will provide access for learners in distant geographical locations(2001c: 101).

This report was followed in July 2001 by a third report entitled ‘Shaping the Strat-egy’. This begins with the statement that the overall aim of the government’s ‘…strategy is to make New Zealand a world-leading knowledge society by providing allNew Zealanders with opportunities for lifelong learning’ (Tertiary Education Advi-sory Commission 2001b: 5). It goes on to state that this will require new ways of orga-nizing, delivering, and recognizing tertiary education and learning.

The purpose of this third report was to develop a set of priorities for the tertiaryeducation system together with a strategy for achieving these priorities as well asother goals. The first priority, it recommended, was to give attention to ‘continuous

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quality improvement’ (2001b: 21) by means of such measures as ‘better assessmentof quality in terms of learning outcomes’, ‘more explicit financial rewards andincentives … and sanctions’, ‘more effective institutional governance’ and the‘encouragement of greater unbundling of services associated with learning’ (2001b:21). Managerialism reasserts itself and seems to underpin recommendationsconcerning quality. There is no reference here for example to the important role ofteachers, scholars and researchers in the process of ‘continuous quality improve-ment’ and it seems indeed that learners are not seen to have any role in the process.Indeed the reports as a whole pay remarkably little attention to teachers and schol-ars in tertiary education.

A second priority was to give increased attention to what the commission refersto as the ‘top and bottom’ of the system. ‘By ‘bottom’, the Commission means thosepeople who have not achieved previously in education and who have no, or very low,qualifications. By ‘top’, it means high-quality, world-class research and NewZealand’s top learners’ (2001b: 21). At the ‘bottom’ end the Commission identifiesa wide range of measures that might be taken to ‘build stronger bridges into tertiaryeducation’ for those with minimal qualifications or limited skills. At the ‘top’, thecommission makes a range of recommendations with a view to enhancing tertiaryresearch quality, capacity and linkages’ (2001b: 24–26).

Two points are worth noting here. Firstly, in spite of its earlier rejection of anynarrow definition of the knowledge society, this recommendation seems to reflectand legitimate a strongly hierarchical view of society and knowledge. It seems toassume that there is a pyramid or ladder of learning and credentials, and aims toensure that those who have been barred access to this ladder should be allowed ontoit at an appropriate level. The Commission does not pose questions about the natureof the pyramid itself. Yet, it could be argued that this is one of the key questions aris-ing within a lifelong learning discourse. Secondly, in spite of the endorsement bygovernment and by TEAC of the importance of maintaining close links betweenresearch and tertiary teaching and the emphasis placed on research-led teaching,this recommendation seems to lead to a severing of these links, at least at the levelof funding.

A third priority identified by the commission is that of ‘developing the competen-cies and attributes, and the environment for a distinctive knowledge society’ (2001b:26). The Commission rejects any narrow or specific definition of what is meant by aknowledge society since it argues that it is desirable to sustain a diversity of under-standings of what counts as important knowledge. On the other hand, it doesconsider that there are some competencies and attributes that are fundamental tothe development of knowledge societies. These include:

●

‘creativity, critical and reflective thinking, problem solving, technologicalcompetence, information retrieval, interpersonal and team skills, changemanagement and an ability and desire to continue lifelong learning’; and

●

‘multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary thinking, learning, and research, thatlooks beyond the traditional classifications and boundaries of knowledge forthe intersections that can produce new areas of knowledge, services, and prod-ucts, and which address national priorities’ (2001b: 26).

It is only in relation to this priority that the Commission engages once again with life-long learning discourses. The Commission emphasizes that its focus on the priorities

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described in this Report does not mean that the other outcomes identified are notimportant. On the contrary, it argues these must continue to be supported in orderto achieve the vision of a knowledge society supported by access to lifelong learningfor all (2001b: 49).

In November 2001, TEAC published its fourth and final report entitled

Shapingthe Funding Framework

. Introducing this report, the Hon Steve Maharey, AssociateMinister of Education (Tertiary Education), draws on lifelong learning discourses.He reiterates the view that the government’s broad aim in establishing the Commis-sion had been ‘to identify how New Zealand can develop a more co-operative andcollaborative tertiary education sector that will better assist us in becoming a world-leading knowledge economy and society. Lifelong learning’, he declares, ‘is the life-blood of a knowledge economy and society, and the Commission is committed tothe development of a tertiary education system that is capable of fulfilling thatvision’ (Tertiary Education Advisory Commission 2001a: i). The Commission itselfaffirmed this when it stated:

The Tertiary Education Advisory Commission was established by the govern-ment in April 2000 to devise a long-term strategic direction for the tertiaryeducation system. The overall aim of the strategy is to make New Zealand aworld-leading knowledge society by providing all New Zealanders with oppor-tunities for lifelong learning (2001a: vi).

This rhetoric, which locates lifelong learning at the heart of the tertiary educationsystem, and which gives priority to co-operation and collaboration, however, issubstantially modified as the Commission moves to look more closely at theproposed funding framework. Two things appear to happen. In the first place, theseand other principles, which had been seen as fundamental in the earlier reports,come to be seen increasingly as compromised or contingent in this final report. Inthe second place, the thinking of the Commission seems to become increasinglyeconomistic, individualistic and competitive. For example, the Commission statesthat it used eight principles to guide its thinking in the development of the fundingframework. It states that:

Although it recognizes that trade-offs between these principles may be neces-sary, the Commission believes that the new funding framework should:

●

promote the desired steering of the tertiary education system;

●

be transparent;

●

have low transaction costs;

●

assign financial risk where it is most appropriate;

●

ensure equitable access to lifelong learning;

●

promote allocative, dynamic, and productive efficiency;

●

recognize and respect academic freedom and provider autonomy; and

●

accord with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. (2001: viii)

The qualified nature of the Commission’s commitment to lifelong learning isevident in the ‘trade-offs’ referred to and particularly in the statement that: ‘Thefunding framework should promote equitable access to lifelong learning as far aspossible in the context of constrained funding, differing learner needs, and theencouragement of excellence’ (2001a: 5).

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This economism and managerialism is reflected at many points in this finalreport, not least in the language and key concepts. For example the notion of ration-ing in relation to education, which the Commission sees as inevitable and which iscentral to the proposed framework, is problematic. It is grounded in a notion ofeducation as a commodity. Moreover, the approach to rationing reflects neoliberalassumptions. The Commission does not argue the case for it. It merely asserts thatrationing is necessary: ‘The fundamental question is not whether to ration publicresources for tertiary education but how to do this’ (2001a: 56). Moreover, theCommission fails ultimately to move very far from a competitive funding framework,which is driven primarily by the apparent demands of individual students. These fail-ures, which I believe stem from the Commission’s failure referred to earlier, toground its recommendations in an adequate social theory and philosophy, give riseto real difficulties, as we are forced for example to choose between a range ofoptions which assume the necessity of rationing education.

In spite of these criticisms, it may be argued that the Commission did succeed inmoving the lifelong learning discourse some distance away from the kind of prosti-tution to multi-national finance and global capitalism, which Boshier (2001a) hasdescribed so eloquently. Where it was less successful was in its failure to link itsphilosophies of education and lifelong learning with a ‘critical theory of society’(Murphy 2000: 176–177). Without this, it is likely that the commodification oftertiary education under global capitalism will continue apace.

Conclusion

In this article, I have examined New Zealand experiences and understandings of life-long education and lifelong learning over the past thirty years or so. I have investi-gated the role of lifelong education and lifelong learning discourses in shapingpublic policy in Aotearoa, as well as questions about the similarities and differencesbetween the discourse in New Zealand and in Europe and the UK.

A number of themes and issues have been discussed. Attention is drawn to theinfluence of global forces. These include the impact of changes in global capitalismas well as changes promoted by international agencies such as UNESCO and theOECD, on lifelong education and lifelong learning discourses in Aotearoa. At thesame time, the article highlights the impact of internal political factors and theunique trajectory of lifelong education and learning discourses within the NewZealand context. Its findings raise questions about the centre of gravity of the liter-ature on lifelong learning. Much of this literature is Euro-centred, and more specif-ically centred on the UK, with only occasional glances at other parts of the world(see, for example, Field 2000, Field 2001, Jarvis 2001).

A pattern of change in the discourses of lifelong education and lifelong learningin Aotearoa is described in the article. The 1970s may be characterized as an expan-sionist and experimental decade, with policies being driven predominantly by socialdemocratic discourses. This was followed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by aperiod that saw a retreat to conservatism. However, it was a form of pragmatic andpopulist conservatism, and hence although funding was withdrawn from some keyagencies, a number of educational initiatives and policies were retained. In 1984, aLabour government was elected, and the following six years witnessed a strugglewithin government. On the one side were advocates and supporters of a new

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progressivism, which looked to build on the social democratic agendas of the 1970sand extend these policies to achieve a range of anti-nuclear and egalitarian goals, inparticular in relation to gender and the Treaty of Waitangi. On the other side wereneo-liberal ideologues who looked to dismantle the welfare state and eventuallyprivatize most if not all the functions of the welfare state including education.Discourses of lifelong learning played a key role in these struggles in particular inrelation to progressive programmes and policies. However, the struggles were even-tually won by the neo-liberals, though in the late-1980s most policies continued tobe challenged and remained widely contested.

This period of struggle was followed in the early-1990s by a period of almostcomplete dominance by the forces of neo-liberalism. Many of the measures adoptedby National and National-led governments in the 1990s were grounded in discoursesopposed to or unsympathetic to any involvement by the state in lifelong learning.Little reference in public policy discourses was made to lifelong learning, and littlerecognition was given to the potential significance of a range of lifelong learninginitiatives. Policy, it would seem, was driven firstly by neo-liberal ideologues who sawno need to participate in such discourses and who saw tertiary education largely asa private good, and secondly by conservatives, many of whom rejected the prioritiesadvocated by supporters of lifelong learning. In 1999, following a decade in thewilderness a Labour government was elected and with it there has been some revivalof lifelong learning discourses and the article traces some of the ways in which thediscourses were played out and contested especially in the four reports of theTertiary Education Advisory Commission and the point is made that the contestsand struggles are very far from over.

Not surprisingly therefore the article points to significant differences betweenNew Zealand experiences of lifelong education and lifelong learning and thosewhich have been described in Europe and the UK. In the first place, Field is oneof those who suggest that, in spite of the long-term significance of the debates inthe 1960s and 1970s, little was achieved by way of practical developments at thattime. He argues that it was only in the 1990s that lifelong learning ceased to befirst and foremost ‘a slogan promoted largely through intergovernmental debat-ing chambers, and became increasingly a tool for the reform and modernizationof aspects of national education and training systems’ (Field 2001: 3). By way ofcontrast, this characterization does not fit with the New Zealand experience.Although there were undoubtedly significant differences in the relevant policiesand discourses between the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and the current decade inAotearoa, the 1970s and the 1980s in New Zealand were years of highly significantpolicy development, whereas lifelong learning barely featured in policy formationin the 1990s.

In the second place, there are those such as Gustavsson (1995) and Boshier(2001a) who have argued that the discourses on lifelong education are very differentfrom those on lifelong learning, that the former are associated with the social demo-cratic debates of the 1970s and the latter with the neo-liberal policies of the 1990s.

As far as the New Zealand experience is concerned, however, it is by no meansclear that these differences can readily be encapsulated in any sharp distinctionsbetween lifelong education and lifelong learning. The evidence suggests that, inNew Zealand, it is inaccurate to associate the notion of lifelong learning exclusivelywith neo-liberal, individualistic policies. Notions of lifelong learning have beenemployed within the social democratic tradition whereas neo-liberal regimes have

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not necessarily found it useful to engage at all with discourses of lifelong learning.For example, the National government of the early- and mid-1990s, which was moreheavily influenced by neo-liberalism than any other during the period, scarcely usedthe concept. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that (a) both lifelong learningand lifelong education are contested notions, and (b) both have been used to advo-cate or oppose contrasting political and educational agendas.

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