Qualifications for ITP Professional Staff (New Zealand)/Initial request

At TANZ last week we agreed to explore a qualification for general staff, to parallel the teaching qualifications we have for academic staff - and I agree that we would make the initial running on this in conjunction with Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, i.e. develop the graduate profile(s) and high level structure/course content.

I am inclined to look at a two-tier structure:


 * A level 4/5 certificate
 * A grad cert

Could you please task EDC to pull something together in the first instance, then we will contact BOPP. They may want to assemble a small development team including HR, Student Services.

We had in mind flexible qualifications which were geared to building general staff capability to support learning, and to help get better outcomes for learners.

Dimensions might be (not an exhaustive list):


 * Understanding adult learning
 * Training skills (often general staff have to train other staff - so having skills here will help, and will also help them understand the teaching process)
 * Learner support, e.g. student advising: disability, basic career, mentoring
 * Skills for "helping" a basic helping model a prelude to those who might develop further in counselling)
 * Customer service
 * Technology for learning, e.g. moodle, elluminate, wikieducator

If we could have an initial draft by end of May that would be great.

Phil Ker 26 April 2010