Deputy Chief Executive, Education Council
The Education Council puts the teaching profession at the heart of everything we do. And lately, we’ve been doing some exciting work to bring all the Council’s services online so that we can provide a teacher-focused platform that is user-friendly, secure and future-proofed. To kick-start the online services project, we tested the most common application type, renewing a full practising certificate, with a small sample of teachers and principals last year. The feedback we received gave us some pointers on where we needed to make improvements, and once those changes were made we released the EC30 online application to a wider audience in January this year. To date, we’ve had over 1200 teachers apply online, and we’ve found that the average processing time is four days. When you compare that with a paper application – 22 working days on
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average – the benefits of teachers applying online becomes starkly apparent, and that can only be a good thing for the profession. Online services in action Feedback from teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. They like being able to do everything online and have found the new process to be quicker and easier than submitting a paper-based application, freeing them up to get on with their job. Evidence shows that most teachers take about ten minutes to complete their part of a renewal application. However, there has been a mixed response from principals, some saying that the new endorsement process takes more time while others have said that it’s simpler and easy to use. A principal who recently submitted two EC30 forms, one online and one on paper, said that the paper application took several weeks to approve compared to just a few days for the online process. Ensuring teachers are legally able and available to teach takes the risk and pressure off principals. A great example of the benefits of completing a renewal application online. Some principals said that moving the responsibility on to them to record each teacher’s ID document details is time-consuming. ‘When you’re trying to manage a school, that five or ten minutes can mean you’re not getting the time to help a beginning teacher with an aspect of their practice or applying for any extra funding your school needs,’ remarked one principal. And that’s a fair point. While we’re not able to make changes to improve that situation immediately, it is something we will change when we go fully online later this year and discontinue paper applications altogether. Next steps Our new online services will increase the support we can give teachers and the public when they contact the Council, eliminate our current paper-based processes, and we will introduce new communication and collaboration tools. All these improvements will help teachers focus on their work more easily and effectively. Delivery of this aspect of our online journey is imminent, and we know the benefits will be realised quickly. Delivery of the entire package to take everything online will take a little longer, but we’re aiming to do that before the end of this year. Online communities With online communities the possibilities are endless. For example, if a teacher in a small school in the Chatham Islands comes up with an innovative way of engaging students who are struggling with maths, that teacher can log on to the online communities’ platform and start a discussion group inviting
NLINE – SUPPORTING
teachers from all over New Zealand to share in the topic. Suddenly one teacher’s innovation is adopted by a larger cohort and the benefits are gained more widely. Also, strategies to accelerate digital learning will become more accessible. Teachers will be able to share their successes and information on activities that have been tried, tested and shown to work in real time with teachers all over New Zealand. Online communities facilitate a deeper connection and greater collaboration within the profession, with the potential to connect every teacher in New Zealand with other teachers and leaders in the profession. How to access the platform With any move to an online platform, security has been at the forefront of our thinking. Anyone gaining access to our systems needs to do so in a safe and secure manner. The Council has adopted the Ministry of Education’s Education Sector Logon (ESL) as the authentication tool. One of the reasons we chose the ESL was that it has role-based access built into the platform. That means we can display the right information to you, based on what role you have assigned to your ESL. In practice, that means teachers can open and submit an application while principals can open an application, assert identity and endorse an application submitted by a teacher in their school. We know that not all teachers currently have an ESL, but with the newest version of the ESL now up and running our hope is that it will be adopted sector wide. It’s going to be a rapid journey for all of us, and we want to make sure we can make use of all the benefits going online will provide. To that end, we want to encourage every teacher who has an ESL and needs to renew their full practising certificate to use the EC30 online application. We encourage principals to try the endorsement and ID verification online for teachers in your school. The more people who use the current online application the more feedback and ideas we’ll get on how we can improve the process for when we go fully online.
More information If you need a refresher on endorsing applications or asserting identity online, please visit: www.educationcouncil.org.nz/ content/ec30-online-useful-hints-principals We welcome any questions or feedback about EC30 Online – you can call us on 04 471 0852 or send us an email at enquiries@educationcouncil.org.nz. When we go fully online you’ll be able to get in touch using online chat as well. About the Education Council We are the professional organisation for teachers. We represent all teachers from early childhood education through to primary and secondary schooling in English and Māori-medium schools. We promote all that’s best about teaching: good practice, new ideas, and inspirational leadership. We provide leadership and help strengthen the regulatory framework and disciplinary regime for teaching. We work to boost the status of teaching, strengthen accountability and bring consistently high standards across the education system. About the author: Lesley Hoskin – Deputy Chief Executive, Education Council Ms Hoskin began her career working in a large IT company before running her own e-learning business for 15 years. She was Associate Deputy Secretary Student Achievement at the Ministry of Education for two years from 2014 where she was responsible for driving the overall direction for the digital technology strategy, and during 2013 she was the Associate Deputy Secretary Novopay, leading the teacher payroll recovery project. For the past ten years, Ms Hoskin has worked in senior roles that combine her strategic thinking ability with her passion for bringing about solutions that deliver. She has a reputation for leading change, solving complex problems and being a trusted advisor to senior leaders. Lesley has a Masters in Public Sector Management and a Diploma in Te Reo Māori.
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