May 22: Ministry of Education

Our visit to the Ministry of Education left me wondering what New Zealand is doing for their secondary students to help them in the area of career development. There is so much pressure for students that are still in secondary school to take the necessary steps needed to attend university and students, in my opinion are having to choose their career path much sooner. This pressure comes from how they fund tertiary education along with making the decision to take the needed classes to get into tertiary education much sooner. IN the United States our education system “prepares” us for higher education. Obviously the better the education the better students perform on standardized tests. The point is, students, in general are required to take the same kinds of classes (math, science, English, etc). This isn’t necessarily true for New Zealand…the decision to go into tertiary education must be made a couple of years before they are 18 years old. One of the goals of the Ministry of Education is to get more students to level 2 (the base level).

As an academic advisor I work with many students that are undecided (or they choose a major and hate it). The Ministry explained that there is a cap on money, yet there was little talk about what kind of career development is being done in secondary schools to help.

I think it’s amazing that student loans are interest free if students reside in New Zealand after graduation. If a student moves out of New Zealand (basically, to Australia) there is interest placed on the loans. However, with the higher pay in Australia, the amount of interest is easily made up in pay. I remember Bay of Polytechnic talking about “Aussie fear” which is the fear that New Zealand will lose scholars to other countries because of job availability and a better economy. Sounds like they need to raise the interest rate ey? 

I feel like the government in New Zealand cares more for its students and understands the importance of tertiary education. However, I”ll be honest, I don’t know a lot about the government. I’m the type of person that just goes with the flow that will pay extra fees if that means I don’t have to read the fine print. I never said that was a good thing, but I’ll admit, it’s hard for me to compare New Zealand’s government to the United States without being more informed about what the U.S. does for loans. However, I know that my loans have interest and I know that I was never given an allowance to live as a student (two things I wish I had) , so I definitely can appreciate what the New Zealand government does for the students.

Another aspect of the education system that I think is a great idea is their teacher education. For those that want to be teachers, they get a degree in an area of study like English or Math and then get post-secondary education in education (before they can teach). IN the U.S. teachers are required to get a Masters after so many years (in some states), but it is not an initial requirement. I think making it harder to become a teacher could definitely have its benefits. The idea is not to increase the number of teachers that we have but to increase the required qualifications to be teachers… I think that would make all the difference.

Overall I believe there are a lot of things that New Zealand is doing right with their education system. The only qualm I have is that career exploration is not a subject that is talked about (which is apparent in the lack of career services offices on campus). If students have only a certain amount of time to obtain their degree (With financial help), I think we need to help they make the best use of that time. However, I don’t think that’s happening quite yet. However, who am I to judge, when in the U.S. it’s an issue too.

 I’m not sure what exactly can be done to help, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could implement a careers class in high school or junior high to help students learn about their strengths and things they enjoy and learn about what kind of things they can do. Yes, some exploration needs to be done on their own time, but I don’t think it would hurt to help. Or maybe, financially we benefit from the undecided student that has to stay in school longer

changing major=more requirements=more semesters=more money

I really hope that’s not the case.

May 21: Victoria University of Wellington

I just want to say, I LOVE WELLINGTON. It is a great mix of big city and homey. Wellington, in many ways, reminded me of Bowling Green. Obviously Wellington is MUCH bigger, but there was something about the atmosphere and the people that just felt very comfortable and familiar. I never felt overwhelmed when walking around Wellington (unlike Auckland of LA), and I think it would definitely be a place I’d want to live someday. 

The beginning of the day didn’t start as planned, our bus was totally out of commission and we had to WALK there. Now, the walk wasn’t necessarily FAR, but living in Ohio my entire life has helped me get used to FLAT areas, something that Wellington is NOT. However, it was nice to get a bigger tour of the city in its entirety (when we went to the gardens we just took the trolly-thing up and didn’t walk much)

I believe the experience that we had at the marae in the Vicotoria, University of Wellington was the more thorough and explained than the marae at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (see, it can’t be PERFECT). In this marae there were tons of carvings. Towards the back, it was expland, were the earlier gods and the front had stories that wer about the area. The marae had a “pole” for each area so that Maori, regardless of where they are from in New Zealand, feel at home. Something interesting to note, each pole was carved in the style of the area, and tell a story.

In the marae we all had to stand up an introduce ourselves. I felt this important to bring up but of the WAY we were told to introduce ourselves. In the Maori culture, they often say what river and mountain they are from, talking about their heritage FIRST, and then ending the introduction with their family name rather than their first name (something not used). So I’m from Finland and England from the Sims side and Germany and France from the Hoover side, I currently reside in Ohio, and my name is Claire. I really thought it was cool that the hertage had such an emphasis.

Career Development:
Note: Liz Medford from the career center was originally from New York so she has both a United States and New Zealand perspective.

Still a very new concept in NEW Zealand (see what I did there… NEW, NEW). However, with the governments press on education outcomes, they are hoping this will be something that is going to grow in the future. Victoria is the first institution that I feel truly has a grasp on career services and it’s importance in higher education.

Something I found interesting is that Victoria goes around to other campuses to help with career counseling (so more than just Victoria). Not only that, but they work with prospective students, current students, and graduated students. 

Although Holland’s theory is something we often use in the United States, it is controversial in New Zealand because of how it fits with the Maori and Pacfic population (just like my concerns on my pre-reflection assignment). However, they have implemented a program called future selves, a tool developed by Geoff Plimmer (works in the Victoria Business school and developed this tool for his PhD).

http://www.futureselves.com/

"FutureSelves programme is a quick, effective way to engage clients and build a positive future. It is designed for busy practitioners who must cover a lot of ground quickly."

From what I’ve gathered, in our equivalent of high school, students are not forced to take English and math and only do so if they wish to go on to college. I wonder if this is why career counseling (or at least the need for career counseling) is see as something unneeded or rare. I say this because a student is having to decide much sooner (like in high school) whether they want to go off to college, thus, figuring out their plan much sooner (at least this may be the view they have). However, it’s far from the true. The woman we met with explained that career counseling is in HIGH demand and there are MANY undecided students who end up doing something they don’t want to do because they were stuck choosing so soon (and they are only given financial help for so long).

Counseling
The counseling center at this institution is very similar to counseling centers in the United States. The physican and counseling center are in the same place so by going it isn’t apparent to others that students are visiting the counseling center or the doctors office. The type of counseling is solution focused because it is the quickest counseling method (Which is needed because the number of sessions a student can have is limited to 5 sessions per trimester)

The counseling center at Victoria has many of the same problems as counseling centers in the United states: Demand exceeds ability to supply and they are booked back by at least a month at a time. Although this is definitely an issue, I argue that it’s still a good problem to have. Often there is such a stigma on receiving mental health help, I suppose I’m happy to see that people are seeking the help they need. However, being booked back to far does not speak well for people who are in immediate crisis. To aid this they have a counselor that is on duty for 4 hours a day and they have emergency sessions for people that are in danger of suicide.

I was happy to see that counseling was free for students and a $50 fee for international students. I now that BGSU offers free counseling, but Owens still has nothing. Owens used to have one mental health counselor for all of campus and now we have none (I’m not sure having ONE would make a different but I think it would speak bounds about how/if Owens cares about their student population). The demographics of students that attend Owens is high demand and we have NOTHING in place if a student is in need. Referral services are ready shown, and none of the academic advisors are trained in how to deal with any sort of crisis, nor told who should be contacted (all information that advisors give is found on their own). Seeeing that it is possible to have free counseling (wellington, Auckaland etc) or referral services in place (Bay of Plenty Polytechnic), it makes me angry that Owens can’t or ISN’T doing more.

 

Overall I really enjoyed Victoria. I like that it had a big campus feel (like Auckland) but didn’t feel big. Again, just like Wellington felt familiar, Victoria just felt familiar and safe. I also liked that even though they are a bigger institution they didn’t talk about it or brag. It was a great experience, and I believe that I lived in New Zealand I would want to attend this institution.

March 23 Pre-Reflection: Student Services

For our second project of the semester, we were asked to create a handout describing counseling/advising services offered at the different institutions that we are going to be visiting in New Zealand. Every group will focus on an area of student services, and I’m thankful that I’ll be focusing on Counseling and Advising services, especially this semester (I’m in two counseling courses AND I’m an academic advisor, so my mind is very much in the counseling/advising mindset 24 hours a day, 7 days a week).The handout was only to be 2 sided, and anyone that knows me knows that I have a really hard time cutting down information (I just feel like there are so many things of importance that could be focused on and I’d hate to leave out pertinent information). After everyone in our group compiled the information they felt was important when exploring Counseling and Advising services, I was in charge of creating the handout.
I had A LOT of information to sift through so I picked out the info I felt was the most important: The services available at the institution and the demographics of the population. I think getting a good comparison of the ethnicities on campus and the services given could be interesting: and it was.

Some of the demographic information I received was in numbers and others was in percentage (i.e. what percentage of the student population is Maori vs how many Maori were students in exact numbers). I felt that for the numbers to mean anything that it would be important to convert it all to percentages so that comparison of the different schools was easier (probably not exact, especially because numbers differed depending on where you looked, but it was effective enough).

The White/European population was the highest in all of the institutions besides Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi. However, the Maori and Pacific Island populations on all the campuses was still significant and I feel, in the scope of counseling services, this is very important to note.
Most of the counseling and advising-type services that were offered by the different institutions was very similar to that of the institutions in the United States. Many of the institutions offered career counseling (the Polytechnic did not, which I found surprising, especially the focus on creating a person that can serve the outside community. How do they aid this without a career center?). One noted difference is that academic advising was not something that was utilized. Disability services and mental health counseling-type services were more of the norm. Academically it appeared that a student must be much more independent and charge of their academic progress.

Because I’m in a counseling in the culturally diverse class, I am hyper-aware of how counseling techniques are often very “European” in nature and execution; New Zealand is no different. Most Counseling theories that are put into practice in New Zealand come from either the United States or United Kingdom and counseling strategies may not be culturally appropriate for New Zealand Natives (Maori) (Durie & Hermansson, 1990). Even though strategies may not be culturally appropriate, New Zealand institutions have offices specially geared toward different ethnicities. Large focus is placed on that of the Maori and Pacific Islanders something not as common in the U.S. with Native Americans. The Maori are integrated into their education systems and have an apparent focus. Services are apparent on the main website and the language is integrated into the name of the institution.

Overall, I was surprised by the lack of academic advising and pleased with the counseling services that all of the institutions offered.

Durie, M. & Hermansson, G. (1990). Counseling Maori people in New Zealand. International Journal for the Advancement of Counseling, 13, 107-118.