On Wednesday June 20th, Michele Whiting and I were at the Beehive to speak to the submission that SLANZA made to the Inquiry into 21st Century Learning Environments.
We were able to listen to three other presentations - Microsoft International, LIANZA and Alan Cooper who was representing a cluster of schools. It was great to hear the other presentations, especially as the key messages from LIANZA complemented ours.
Our key messages were as follows:
There is no legal requirement for schools to have either a library or staff of any kind. Every school should have a fully funded library with at least one qualified librarian or teacher librarian working in it.
Qualified library staff can work with teachers and students to support all curriculum areas.
To give our students the skills they need for tertiary study, they need to have a range of literacies and the library and library staff can assist students in mastering these skills.
The MoE funds schools' access to the EPIC databases, but each uses different search strategies, and without expert qualified staff, they won't get the best from this resource.
It was a very brief block of time, but we made the most of it. We were asked about ancillary staffing, and Michele answered the question as she is the Principal at Corinna School and has first hand experience in managing her school's budget.
We were also informed that we may be contacted again, if they have additional questions. We'll let you know if we hear anything further.
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