Launch of “Visioning the Future of Education in Christchurch”

Wednesday 3rd December 2003

"Good morning. Thank you to the Ministry of Education for the invite to come along this morning and provide you with a "challenging" welcome to this forum. Happily, I find it fairly easy to be challenging.

Earlier this year when I opened our new Art Gallery, I challenged those present to answer how we could keep the creative spark intact and alive in our young as they journey through life’s learning curve. That event, and that question, is enormously significant for our cultural fabric.

Today I believe it is even more important for our social, economic and commercial future. Our society may like to think it faces many major challenges but I believe there are none as central to our future as getting our education sights and settings right. If we do not, the penalty for failure for all of us will be severe and lasting. If we do, the rewards are limitless and will literally be limited only by our imagination.

Christchurch has a unique role and responsibility to play in getting this equation right. New Zealand may be pushing itself as “100% pure” overseas. Christchurch should be starting to promote itself as “100% smart”. The speculation on how we can get back into the top half of the OECD nations really only has one effective core answer. By education.

By education that is inclusive, not exclusive. Education that insists that everyone gives learning their best shot. The cities able to power this return to real economic muscle are few.

Auckland is too messy, divided and mired in dealing with decades of deferred infrastructure.

Wellington, with all due respect, is too bossy. Too busy with the governing business to build much in the way of educational advances. Too busy trying to look like hobbits.

Instead, I believe it falls to the Southern bloc of cities, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill to build a robust focus on revolutionising how and where we educate our young, and not so young.

Of the four, I believe Christchurch has the size, population, scale and will to lead the charge. Christchurch already is the undisputed centre of the new high-tech knowledge economy. We have about 30 per cent more hi-tech knowledge economy action than Auckland.

We have the mix of schools, tertiary institutions and private providers to provide versatility and standards. We also have the priceless advantage of a tradition of social cohesion.

Christchurch is a city where the idea of being your brother’s and sister’s keeper has long become part of the political and social climate. We just accept as a city that we should at times be prepared to pitch in with both carrot and stick to get people to show some of their real potential.

It's part of the political climate here that has overwhelming public support. It is about as accepted here as gravity. This consensus is, if you will, our weapon of mass persuasion. It is potent and powerful when it is unleashed. I want to turn it loose on education.

It is worth noting that Ngai Tahu went through a similar exercise a year or two back. When they asked all their people what they wanted the focus for building a better future to be the answer that came back was education, education and education.

I don't think there is much need to debate or look for the answer to most of what makes up our current and present problems. The answer is always going to be the same. Education that educates.

I was pleased to hear Trevor Mallard say recently that getting education right has to be a completely inclusive process. I agree. Somehow we have to get the parents of Simon and Sarah to understand that their kids alone won't be enough to pay for their future pension. It's going to take active, educated contributions from Hone and Hinemoa and their Pacific Island cousins to let us do that.

One of the many great pluses of our new Asian Kiwi families is that they will help show us the way in attitude with this challenge. Why? Because culturally they cherish both their children and their children's education. We all need to do this.

We are all going to have to be prepared to learn new ways of doing this that reflect our growing diversity as a city and a nation. I want Christchurch to take not a role, but the lead role in revving up both the quality and the way we educate. I want Christchurch to be known as a city that provides world class education.

In the last year or two I have been working with key community players on a plan we are calling "Prosperous Christchurch". The Secondary Principals Association has a representative, Denis Pyatt on this board. The idea has been to build a framework that allows us to enjoy and expand our prosperity as a city.

To realise that prosperity is more than just the contents of your wallet. But, at the same time to acknowledge the best way to nurture our general sense of prosperity is to make Christchurch rich, on the material, natural and social levels.

This project has already made us aware that none of our other plans will work without educational excellence for all as a key driver of our positive growth.

We need to bring this sense of prosperity in our lives into our classrooms. To do this we need to move beyond finger-pointing, blame and pushing our own ideological barrows at the expense of all others.

As a city, I believe we should have the courage and vision to be prepared to send our children and their families some very specific messages and commitments.

As you go into today's sessions take the time to think about the vision that inspired you originally.

What about the teacher who made a subject catch fire for you? Can you do that?

What made you feel safe and motivated? Can you provide that?

Even ask yourself when you felt loved and supported as a child.

I believe as a city we should be prepared to make the following commitments:

(a) If it’s OK for you and I to have been loved as a child then that’s a guarantee that we should extend to every child in our city. Without love we are nothing. So let us give a commitment that this city is where every child will be loved. This is a huge undertaking. This will require us all to work together, central government, local government, schools, community, business. It’s the very least we can offer to our children.

I believe that this city is made up of a series of villages. Within each of these villages are schools. I want to see schools become the centre of all these villages. An undertaking that each child will be loved in our community starts at village level. It takes a village to bring up a child.

(b) We should also provide a “reading and figuring” guarantee to our young. The commitment should be that all our young leave school with an agreed level of literacy and numeracy. Nor do I think we who govern and those of you who teach should regard these commitments as a one way street.

In return I think we should expect families and the community to support you and to become actively involved in children’s and young people’s education and training. If they don’t, if they hamper your efforts, then we need to be prepared to ask them some hard questions about why they have the kids in the first place.

There is an absolute correlation between those who can’t read and count and those who are unemployed. The scourge of unemployment leads to poverty, depression, violence, drugs and often prison. Let us cut this cycle.

That by 2007 every young person under 25 in Christchurch will be in either education, training or work. Nobody will be left on the scrap heap, everyone will be made to realise their potential.

We should also demand and expect central government agencies to work along with the communities they serve. To not work in a “top down" style but instead develop the humility for "bottom up" governance that supports you and those you teach.

Separate from these other commitments, the community owes you the chance to restore the vision to how you work, live and teach.

To conclude then:

I believe that education is the future of our city. I believe that we as the city of Christchurch should set commitments to our children and young, that:

(a) Every child will be loved in this city; and

(b) every child will be guaranteed numeracy and literacy skills; and

To achieve these guarantees we will all have to work together. No longer will the excuse of “it’s up to the schools” be acceptable. Our society is loaned to us by our children’s children. We must plan well to hand on a better society than the one we inherited from our forebears. Every sector, public, private and community will need to hold hands together to realise our commitments.

My final commitment today is that this city will back you completely in making Christchurch’s education system the best in New Zealand. I dream of a day when people travel from all around the world to learn from this educational gem which shines in the South Pacific.