The Takina Accord: One Path Towards Inclusive, Scalable, & Sustainable Education

Speaker A: Sa.

Speaker B: Welcome to season seven in Silver Lining for Learning, episode 278 we're going to talk about the uh, Takana Report or Accord one path towards inclusive, scalable and sustainable education. The Taquita Report was created by 250 different education leaders and experts who came together for a pre conference activity in Wellington, New Zealand at the world conference for icde. We're gonna hear about what ICD stands for, what goes on at icd. But they were concerned about globally the lack of youth literacy. More than 272 million children are uh, out of school. 7 in 10, 10 year olds live in low income communities that are unable to read a simple story. The data goes on and on and on. And so we have with us the editors of that report today from the International Council for Open and Distance Education, Mark Nichols who's president of the ICD and Executive Director of Learning Design and Development at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. He's a leader in open, distance and innovation education. His contributions are tremendous. Let's just say the podcast interviews that he's done with experts around the world is worth taking a listen to me. We'll plug that one Mark, uh, during the show so people can find out how to access those expert interviews. We also have Professor Giselle Burns with us who's provost at Massey University. I visited there once a long time ago. Um, I think she's a resident historian as a professor there, but she's in many other areas in the arts, in English and assorted other interests. Um, before I ask you a couple of questions then open up to my co host, Dr. Chris Dede at Harvard University, Dr. Punya Mishra at Arizona State University. Lydia Tao and Yang Zhao are not with us today. They're off traveling I think. Um, but Mark, first, uh, fill us in a little bit about your background and interests and tell us a bit about icd. Tell us a little bit about flans. No one knows what flans is here in the usa. Um, but I know it's extremely important because I published in one of the flan's journal, uh, tell us a little bit about other organizations that they might want to um, uh, attend their conferences there in New Zealand and other parts of the Pacific Rim. Um, and then we'll move to Giselle and she can provide a little more background on herself and then we'll ask you a bit about the report.

Speaker A: Great.

Speaker C: Well, Tina Koto Kote. Uh, Uh, Uh, So that's a pepiha, uh, a uh, personal greeting, uh, and information about me just to Introduce myself using Te Reo Mori, the indigenous language of Aotearoa, New Zealand. So I've just introduced myself as New, uh, Zealand being the land, uh, that is dear to my heart. Uh, I live in Raimati south, which is just north of Wellington. Actually, if any of you have had the pleasure of, of um, flowing uh, into Wellington during the gusty winds. Uh, and I'm the Executive Director, Learning Design and Development with Open Polytechnic. So k, a few questions there. Um, what is icde? So ICDE is the International Council for Open and Distance Education. Uh, it's a global non government organization. It's been around since 1938. So we're actually I think 88 years old. Uh, but you wouldn't know that from the innovation that uh, we have there. We've got over 350 members from around the world. Over 90 countries are represented. And ICDE is a leader international thought around inclusive, scalable and sustainable education. So what we've noticed over the past few years that the classic distinction between on campus and distance education is now very, very blurred. Uh, it's hard to point now at any organization which is just on campus face to face. There's a whole lot of blended learning now taking place out there. So ICDE is positioning itself around the sort of organization that brings together global thought leaders around that inclusive, scalable and sustainable, uh, banner. Uh, we do international advocacy. Uh, we have astounding conferences. So 2025 last year in November was the ICD World Conference held in Wellington as you mentioned, which uh, I was able to co host with Giselle, a, uh, wonderful partnership there. Giselle, it's really good to see you again and work with you again. Uh, the conference brought together over 500 delegates from around the world. And for the first time ICD decided to have a policy forum. Now ICD's members, it's worth pointing out, uh, include the world's largest universities. One of our members, the Open University of China, has something like 4.5 million students enrolled each year. So that's the sort of scale that our institutional members tend to work at. And I'll do a plug for a book released at the conference later. I'll get to that. Uh, about mega universities. There uh, are now four universities around the world that are called GIGA Universities. They have more than a million students enrolled each year. And the challenges you face in trying to provide quality education at that scale are immense. But so is the policy alignment and the policy environment. So for the first time in the world conference last year, we brought together uh, delegates to have a workshop to talk through the policy issues, the things that matter from uh, funders perspectives, quality assurance perspectives, professional body perspectives. We uh, also had uh, two students and their input was fantastic. And I think we probably need to come back to what they said later, uh, because taking a student centered view of how education is offered was a very important part of the Takina record. I uh, think you also asked about flans. So FLANS is the Flexible Learning association of New Zealand. It uh, used to be called deans, the Distance Education association of New Zealand. Uh, but you can tell that the word distance now is becoming less and less important as more organizations now breach the distance through the use of online learning. And I understand in the US in particular the term distance is quite unhelpful because uh, there are so many different ways of interpreting it. So around about 10 years ago, Deans moved into Flans, the Flexible Learning association of New Zealand, similar to ICDE in some ways to help broaden the conversation, uh, less around a mode of delivery distance, more towards how education should be offered flexible. And their conference is coming up in October and I'll put a shameless plug in for a book there that I'll be launching at that event as well. Perhaps ah, later on in this podcast. That's a long winded answer for uh, me. I think you'll find Giselle much more engaging and interesting. So happy to hand over that ARCO

Speaker B: to you Giselle before she jumps in there. Let's just say we've had an episode on the Open University of China and um, my recurrent research is on the Open University of China, uh, with their professors. They're looking at how they um, are ah, get professional development with, with AI and about AI. Yeah, we've also had Mark Brown on uh, Silver Lining who's probably a member icd. We've had um, Melinda Bandeleria from the Philippines who's probably a member as well. We've had Tian Belawati from Indonesia who's also probably a member as well in Seongjong. I'm not sure if she's a member but she's been on the show coming from Japan and Korea, uh, and many others. We had a few shows early on. Zoraini Watia Bass, my good friend who's uh, deceased now. But um, she set me up with many conference, um, planning and many gigs that we've done together. Um, there's many folks there we've had on this show, let's just say from Malaysia, from Thailand, from Indonesia, from China and Other parts of the world. We've had what, 50 some countries represented on this show uh, over the past six. Yeah, something like that. So um, yeah, let's pass it over to Giselle and I'll ask a couple of questions after that.

Speaker D: Kia ora kaito katua Namihinuiki akato called Giselle Burns Taku ingwa. Um, I have the privilege of being the provost at Massey M University Tekuninga Kipuri Heroa here in Aotearoa New Zealand. That's ah, a position that I've had the privilege of leading in for the last decade. Um, as you noted Kurt, I'm uh, trained as an historian, uh but for the last uh, 20 years or so I've been working in senior leadership positions in Aotearoa New Zealand and also in the far north Australia uh, working for a very interesting distance provider uh there. Um Massey University has been a ah, um long term member of the icde. We're a university that uh, is probably in international terms considered a kind of medium sized university. We have about 28,000 students. 60 to 65% of our students will study online or in hybrid mode. Um, we like you Mark, are uh, reluctant to use that term distance because it has all sorts of I think negative connotations and in fact we want to see the learning experience of our students as being a sort of a seamless spectrum really and that is the way that students are consuming their learning these days. We know that uh, massey uh, turns 100 next year. So uh, we're a long standing provider and university, uh, Research intensive, top 3% in the world university, uh, and also deeply committed to providing high quality university education to students wherever they are in the world or around Aotearoa New Zealand. And we uh, had the opportunity to partner with the open Polytech of Aotearoa and particularly with Mark um, uh, a couple of years ago to bid for the opportunity to host the ICDE World Conference which as Mark said we held at Takina in Wellington in November last year. It was a fabulous experience and in fact Kurt, uh, many of the people uh, you've just mentioned by name there, who you've hosted on this podcast series, uh, were there were engaging at the conference and the ICD is a wonderful global community and I think as Mark and I will probably share with you in today's conversation, many of the issues, while they are deeply specific to the local environment, uh, when you frame them in regards to inclusive, sustainable, open and accessible education, uh, really resonate across many different jurisdictions, cultures Policy environments and so on. And particularly, and this will be my final comment, particularly uh, from an Aotearoa New Zealand context, the role of indigeneity, the role of Indigenous perspectives, the value of Indigenous knowledge and how in the current techno centric, uh, context and world in which we are navigating, um, the power of indigenous knowledges, if harnessed with respect and uh, you know, if we work alongside uh, indigenous peoples, uh, with respect and with true partnership, can be uh, truly uh, liberating and can be uh, enormously beneficial for learners and institutions alike. I think I'll just leave it there, Kurt.

Speaker B: Well, I'm going to come right back to you with a question, but first I'm going to let Mark read the name of this book. I did a bad job with the title. Can you help me out here, Mark?

Speaker C: Yes. It's the Taquina Accord. The AA Mikron is long pronounced Long. Taqina.

Speaker B: Taqina. Thank you, Giselle. What do you hope people will uh, get from this? What, what do you think they should attend to in this report that they might find beneficial to them?

Speaker D: Yeah, thanks, Kurt. Um, I think there are probably three things for me. One, one is the uh, point I just briefly alluded to and that is while the local conditions really do shape our uh, education systems wherever we are in the world, um, when you are looking at education through the lens of scalability, accessibility, openness, uh, and then there are more commonalities than there are differences and I think that would be the first one. The second one I think would be the power and the value of indigenous knowledges and indigenous learnings. And I say that in the context of the techno centric age in which we are living through at the moment, the importance of keeping knowledge human and you know, the ability to harness and leverage the affordances of the new technology and particularly generative AI, while at the same time remaining very focused on developing human capabilities that are aligned with values and skill sets that we designate as being ah, very human. The other thing that I would note, Kurt, is the importance of lifelong learning. We know that learners, I think around the globe now are uh, demanding, actually not just expecting, but demanding that their education journey is a seamless and ongoing one and, and uh, funders and regulators and I'm thinking specifically in the context that we're operating here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, really need to think about aligning the policy settings and the incentives and the kind of theoretical apparatus uh, that we have to operate within, uh, alongside those learner uh, demands for lifelong Learning. So here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, as you all know, Kurt, we tend to talk about tertiary education. My personal bugbears is that tertiary education, even the nomenclature, uh, implies that there's a primary education, a secondary education and tertiary, and that education is somehow linear and that it may even cease at the tertiary level. But we know that's not the case. Learning is a lifelong endeavor, a lifelong engagement and indeed, as you've alluded to, the Open University of China doing some amazing things with uh, people who are over the age of 80 years and beyond, you know, to ensure that we can really leverage education, health, well being and really create benefit for everyone. So I think they would be the three things for me about the sort of local specifics, but the general, um, uh, you know, the themes that we have in common and particularly uh, around openness and scalability and accessibility, indigeneity and also the power of lifelong learning.

Speaker B: And you know, Open U of China started a second university for the seniors and like they had a million people within a year or two of opening. It's just amazing. Uh, we have a secondary study going on there as well. We had like three different projects with them just, just starting. Mark, uh, I'm going to throw the same question to you, um, but, but added to it the issue of quality, because quality is a tough thing to measure and you volunteered for that section of the report. I don't know if someone twisted your arm on it or if there's another reason you decided to jump in there. Because a challenge, I guess. Um, QA measures need to be flexible and holistic. You say um participants saw opportunity for quality to drive innovation and reshape educational practices towards becoming more sustainable and inclusive and scalable. Um, so you want to talk about what you hope people will get from the report also, what is it going to be a follow up to all this? Is this a one off or are there, is it going to be a part two or a part three? I mean, I'm just curious. And then the quality issues, um, sure, talk about that.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I'm hoping there will be a part two. There's uh, the next OCD World Conference taking place in Cebu in the Philippines in November next year. And the hope is that this tradition will carry on because it's really important that we're able to have conversations at the policy level because ultimately it's the policy that frames a lot of what we do. We also have to innovate within the bounds of what policy enables us to the quality, um, presentation we're really unfortunate to have. Ah, Dr. Grant Clinkham, who's the chief executive or was the chief executive of NCQA unable to join us at the last minute. So I stepped in and I actually drew on an illustration which the previous chief executive of Open polytechnic once provided. Dr. Carolyn Selig. She talked about quality being a Procrustean bed. And I don't know how well you know your Greek mythology, but uh, Procrustes was an innkeeper and if you stayed at his inn, uh, he gave you one size bed and if you were too long he'd cut you down to size. If you're too short he'd stretch you up to size. And I think to some extent that's uh, an interesting metaphor for quality systems. Uh, they tend to shape what you do, whether or not it actually suits what you're trying to achieve. So I started with that metaphor. Um, but you asked Giselle the main takeaways uh, from her for the report. One of mine is policy is hard. You're having to balance so many different variables in quite a difficult context. And you've also got uh, every provider screaming for more funding so that they can actually innovate the way they want to. So one of the takeaways for me from this is policy decisions are very, very difficult. Which I think makes um, agreements like the Taekino Accord so important because you're able to draw together experts from international perspectives uh, at funding, looking at quality, looking at professional organizations, uh, hearing the students voice and actually making some policy recommendations. So uh, that was one of my takeaways I think. The other would be the importance of considering education at three different levels. I'm indebted to my colleague, um, Professor Olav Savakirichter from Oldenburg University who highlights the importance of thinking about education from macro, meso and micro perspectives. And what we tried to do during the Takina record is to focus purely on that macro so that we can start influencing the meso and eventually uh, the micro experiences that both learners and teachers have in the classroom or the virtual equivalent. Um, the third one for me actually is the importance of the student voice. And one of the uh, principles of the Takina record is we need to listen more. The uh, old assumptions about what challenges uh, a school leaver faces as they go into full time university are long past. And unfortunately many of our uh, current policies still echo that original policy environment. And as Giselle pointed out very rightly, we need to start looking now at lifelong learning as a real phenomenon. I find it interesting Actually that the OFSC office for students in the UK and also I think your EPID service in the us, uh, you don't measure learner outcomes based on whether it's distance or face to face. The most important distinction is now part time and full time. And I think that's a really interesting lens for us to consider as we think uh, about the future of education, but also too what our policies should be enabling. I think we need much more focus now on the part time learner, much more focus on changing education systems so that we can improve the inclusivity, the scalability, the sustainability of education. Uh, so yeah, a bit of a preach for me in some ways because uh, very, very passionate about this, having seen through icde the potential of different education models to make such a huge difference and that quality. Kurt, just to come back to the last part of your question there, uh, ICD does offer a quality service and one of our members, uh, the university has BUKA in Indonesia, has made the most of that over the last few years. These large scale universities, these GIGA universities, these mega universities, uh, Giselle with Massey in their distance systems or online systems, us at Open Polytechnic with ours, we're very acutely aware of the importance of quality systems. And so there's a lot of um, self reflection and in the case of Universitas Tebuca, inviting international experts in to take a look at their quality systems because we're just so wary that uh, having so many students go through your system can mean poor quality. But it doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

Speaker B: Well, I was smiling at your mention of Olaf in his um, mezzo macro and micro model, um, because I just saw him present on it a few weeks ago in Germany and I had lunch with him a couple of times in Germany as well. And, and also thinking about bringing him in for a future show of silver lining featuring his handbook of distance learning, or is it distance education education anyhow, that, that they produce, that he and Insung Zhong produce. So that's in the works, but we'll see if, if I can pull that off. Um, um, now I think I should open this up to Punya and Chris and, and see if they want to jump in here on any of the issues that you've raised so far. I have, I have more questions. I sent you some.

Speaker E: Chris, do you want to. I have a couple of quick things. Do you want me to go do

Speaker A: or do you know, you go first.

Speaker E: Okay, thank you. So first of all, uh, thank you, uh, Mark and Giselle for joining us. Um, give us your Saturday morning. Um, here. Ah. On Silver Lining and Giselle, I just want to underline something you said which I thought was so critical. I think it'll lead to the question, which is the importance of the local and the contextual. Recognizing that. Because if one thing I think in education, we all know that context literally trumps everything. If you don't pay attention to that, if you don't address that in your thinking, um, chances are whatever innovation you're trying will not translate, will not transfer. So I really do, uh, value that comment. It leads to. My question is, you have this document, uh, and all these people have agreed to it, all these experts have come together. Um, what kind of, you know, and then the whole discussion that we just had about quality, for instance, so is there some kind of a commitment on part of the nations or the signatories to, um. Is there some kind of. I mean, I don't even know if that's the right word, but sort of compliance mechanism, or is that not something that you, uh, would like to go for? Because that changes the nature of the conversation once those kinds of words come in. Um, or is this more sort of like an aspirational, um, sort of, you know, that this is where we want to be. These are the kinds of values we hold dear. Um, so how do you see that document? And in particularly given sort of the variety of nations that we are talking about, you know, there are low resource, medium to high resource, um, you know, contexts. Um, how do you see, like, there is also a tension there. Right. Because what may be feasible for one may not be for other. There might be opportunities. Opportunities here and not others. So broadly speaking, what do you see this report as doing? Is it a compliance thing? Is it like a vision thing? How, uh, do you reconcile some of these diversities that exist within that, even while you value and recognize the importance of the diversity? Right, but there's a tension there. I just want to. Whoever wants to go first and just, uh, we'll open it up.

Speaker D: Yeah, Kia ora, uh, punya. Um, uh, I'll jump in here. Um, thank you for the question and the observation in spotlighting that tension and also thank you, thank you for calling out context. Um, as I mentioned, I'm m. A historian, and so for me, everything comes back to context. Um, I want to acknowledge Mark because it was his idea to have this education policy forum. Uh, it is the first time there's been such a gathering at an ICD World conference, and we really hope it will Continue. Um, to answer your question, Punya, it's a little bit of both. Uh, the document is both aspirational and uh, also pragmatic. So aspirational in regards to uh, acknowledging that there are many jurisdictions and that we can put a document out there that may resonate uh with policymakers, with leaders of institutions, with leaders of systems in other contexts and specifically sending uh messages to try and assist our own policymakers here in Aotearoa, New Zealand more locally. As Mark said, making policy is really tough and the people that we work with uh, in various government agencies are constantly negotiating a number of different competing priorities. We're public providers, we respect that and we understand the work that they need to do. Um, some of the pragmatism comes in with um, the plea I think for quality uh as Mark noted, you know, in the past I think there's often been assumptions that the dominant mode of uh, teaching and learning and studying as a student is face to face. And we know that post Covid that is utterly shifted around the world. And certainly that's the case here in Australia and New Zealand in fact. And so the quality of online uh, distance and flexible hybrid, whatever words you're using is really, really important. The verifying learner identity, verifying assessment. We're all very concerned and very deeply interested in maintaining our high quality uh assurance standards uh around that. And that actually was one of those sort of meta conversations that we had at the conference uh and it included providers from various parts of the world here locally in uh, Aotearoa. Um Mark and I are both concerned I think about the fact that we need to uh, ensure that our own policy settings here are uh, keeping pace with the expectations that learners have around lifelong learning. Most of our policy settings here it's probably fair to say are very focused on uh learners who come out of the secondary compulsory system and then go to university. They really design the policy settings and the incentives around funding really designed for school leave it uh, possibly I would argue more than uh, uh later life learners. And we don't yet have the architecture there that is in sync with lifelong learning ambition. So we want to help our policymakers in that regard. We want to help the people who are uh, designing funding and so on. Um, we are seeing some green shoots there as well. So for um, some time, uh, many of us in the education space have been calling attention to the way in which we measure uh success uh particularly across part time, uh, full time and on campus and off campus learning modes and the need to take more Holistic uh, metrics into account when we're looking at student uh, success. So our uh, Ministry of Education here in Aotearo, New Zealand over the last 18 months or so has been listening to that. So we're seeing some really positive signals in the latest tertiary education strategy where there is reference to a distance traveled metric, uh, which uh, would we think add real value for learners and for institutions and providers who are very committed to a very diverse and open cohort of students. Uh, and it signals I think for us a willingness to on the part of the Ministry of Education and other policy uh, agencies here in New Zealand to really think more expansively about access, openness, scalability. Finally Punya, um, you know we also talk about equity and the importance of equity alongside quality and access uh, in the Takina Accord. The equity piece is really important here in Aotearoa, New Zealand and in fact equity is um, and equity metrics and equity targets are hardwired into the funding expectations for universities, for polytechs, for all tertiary education providers. I think that's a really good thing. Uh, our um, government agencies have for the last um, 10 years or so acknowledged that we need to call out historical inequities and see the ways in which those historical injustices uh, wrought out of the process of colonisation which continue to this day need to be actively addressed. And so I think that's a really good thing. We have priority groups that we need to frankly privilege in our systems. We need to privilege indigenous knowledges. We need to provide uh, support and guidance and provide access to indigenous learners and people who have historically been excluded from the academy. So I'm really proud that those kind of metrics and expectations are part of the policy environment that we work within. And I think that would be part of the kind of um, sharing of information that we also want to highlight and share with others in other jurisdictions, noting that we don't have influence over those other jurisdictions but I think making the knowledge accessible, providing examples of what works in our context. There may be some high level learnings and principles that we can share with others in other places. So hopefully that answers your question Punya, about that tension I think between the local and the global.

Speaker E: Thank you. Uh, um, when my kids were little I used to joke with them that I don't believe in quality parenting. I believe in quantity parenting. You're going to get a lot of me. It may not be very good but that's what you're going to get just for fun. But um, Mark, anything you would like

Speaker C: to Add, uh, yeah, I think just two points. I think Giselle's quite right that there is a gold standard sense to face to face education which I think is now long overdue for uh, renewal. And one of the important things that ICD does globally is advocate for different models of education that are inclusive, scalable and sustainable. Just return back to those three words. In the Global President's Forum, it was actually the Secretary General Turan uh, Jelswick's idea to bring this forward, uh, that hopefully will give it um, longevity long after I'm president. Uh, but she was very, very keen for us to actually bring that to life and have important conversations that could advocate for this around the world. Um, many of our members are uh, quite unique in the country conte contexts that they're in. For uh, example universities. Tebuka I mentioned earlier is one of the only online uh, distance education institutions in Indonesia. Open, uh, Polytechnic Massey University. Uh, we have slightly different models, um, but it's a space that we've uniquely held for uh, quite some time. But now of course every university, every polytechnic is entering into this online space. So in some ways policy needs to catch up with the natural progression of how education is moving uh, more towards online flexible uh, solutions. So ICD is very, very active in advocating for that sort of thing around the world because historically our members have been a little bit strange in the countries that they're in. And I think quite often policymakers don't really know what to do with them because they operate so differently, they operate at a different scale. Uh, in our case in Open Polytechnic, uh we offer our courses on a monthly basis, sometimes uh, twice a month we'll have a new cohort of learners in. So we've got a very strong asynchronous focus. Many policies aren't built to deal with that but uh, we're proof that those things can actually be done at scale, at high quality. So yeah, it is one of the key components of ICD's global work to actually advocate for policy that will actually enable that sort of educational lemoire.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker E: And I'm at Arizona State University. Just one final comment. One of the things that we also hold very dear is the learners who have dropped out who have done a year, six months, two years, sometimes three or years and then have nothing to show for it. So we have a very intensive sort of uh, an effort to meet the needs of those people and they're usually a couple of years out of school. They haven't been back in a while. They have Full time jobs, they have lives and families and their needs are very different from what your typical vision of an undergraduate student in a university is. Um, so this is something that we hold pretty close, um, in our sort of broad values about how to approach this lifelong learning base.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was, yeah, I think it was Alvin Toffler who talked about, um, people needing to learn, unlearn and relearn. And I think that's part of the challenge we do face now in lifelong learning. Um, yeah, yeah.

Speaker E: And that's actually one of the things that Chris often says about unlearning. So, Chris, this is the cue to go to you.

Speaker A: Well, I really appreciate the report and the themes that it addresses and I also think the timing is quite important. Um, three years ago I co authored an article in the journal Education Sciences arguing that we're ready for massive learning 2.0. Uh, we all remember 2012 and all the wild promises that were made about MOOCs massive learning 1.0. And many of those promises went unfulfilled, but we learned from that experience. And then we remember, you know, the inception of silver lining fair learning was when the pandemic shut everything down. Because as people who knew a lot about online learning, we knew that those who were prepared would do wonderful things and those who were unprepared would do problematic things. But online learning would be blamed for any failures that occurred as opposed to lack of preparation. And so we learned a lot about that too. I think moocs were a lot about delivering information at scale, and the pandemic became a lot about delivering engagement at scale. And that was, you know, some of the themes in the article that I wrote. Um, but I also am associate director for research in the National AI Institute here in the US that's about adult learning and online education. It's essentially oriented towards workforce entry, upskilling and reskilling. And we're, um, finishing up five years of building different AI tools, um, trying them out, rebuilding them, understanding where they've succeeded and where they still have work to go. And, um, recently found that we'll be funded for another five years not to do the same thing again, but to look at adaptive expertise and how workers can develop the kind of adaptive expertise that if you have worked all your life with internal and combustion engines, when, um, the electric car comes along, you don't have to start all over again. You can draw on your knowledge and skills. So, um, I'm, I'm curious. I, I certainly resonate to the fact that technology has often been misused in distance learning and that continues to this day with Harvard selling $699 courses taught by chatbots. Um, but I also believe as a member of this institute that the technology can be used well as long as the human factor is kept in the center. And I wonder to what extent you see any promising, um, uses of technology, whether they be involved with AI and anything exotic or whether they're just kind of good uses of mature information technologies that you highlight in the report. Mhm.

Speaker C: Well I think firstly congratulations. We've gone for about 35 minutes without mentioning AI, but it did come out. Yeah, I think your observations really well made Chris. Um, in the Takina record, we didn't specifically go there. We did mention open education resources. We did talk about um, uh, near medium long term strategies, but we didn't specifically go into the use of technology. But I do want to echo your concern of having humans in the center. One thing I think we would all agree on, AI, it's very, very easy to underestimate, but it's also very easy to overestimate what it can do. And it's hard to talk about mature practice when the tools themselves are still growing and quite difficult to harness. So my understanding is around the world most institutions are actually in the pilot stage. We're just experimenting, we're seeing what can be done. Um, I mean following the work of um, George Siemens quite, quite carefully and of course he's come up with Precision Learning now, uh, working with Paul LeBlanc there. Uh, so I think the future models of education will be very, very interesting. At the moment, I'd imagine many institutions are trying to harness AI into their current workflows and how they currently offer education. But there are some very, very important policy decisions to be made there. I hope the Taekina records though do steer us in the right direction there because one of them is looking at uh, education from a student perspective, um, both in terms of who they are and their life stage and their life challenges, but also in terms of the sort of education that they might benefit from and in some instances maybe a chatbot might be sufficient for some forms of education. I suspect though, when we get into the critical thinking and the really serious elements of learning, AI will have more of an augmented part to play. But definitely want to give way to Giselle's thoughts on this.

Speaker D: Um, kia ora. Thanks Mark. Uh, Chris, you raised some excellent points. And as Mark has noted, we purposefully did not mention specific AI platforms in the Takina Accord, but of course are hoping to signal a ah, very um, kind of ecumenical approach uh to the use of AI and not to make moral judgments around it. I mean certainly in regards to all learners, uh, mature learners, returning students, uh, part time learners as well as school leavers. Um, you know our research at Massey shows that we can't make assumptions about their technical literacy in terms of where they are starting. But we do know that the affordances that agentic AI particularly can offer can um, be astonishingly helpful particularly for learners who have learning difficulties, uh, for uh, people who need to um, you know, really kind of harness the power of uh, technologies in ways that will really supplement and amplify the human agency that they have. And that's a great thing for me it comes back to the curriculum and I know that's a very kind of teacher centric perspective but I think um, teachers are feeling pretty overwhelmed in the current moment that we're living through as well. And uh, the more support and advice and guidance that we can provide to our uh, teaching colleagues the better I think in regards to how to productively leverage uh, genai not just in course design for instructors and so on, but critically for assessment. So at Massey we've like many organisations we have just recently adopted what's called a two lane policy of assessment where you'll be familiar with that. But that even in itself requires you know, a massive pivot for the organisation in terms of the expectations that we have of our staff. And I think that we have to at the same time balance that with the uh, evident aspiration that we all have, I think to be much more student centric, to be student focused and to think about you know, the student journey and the student experience um, in service of democratizing education whilst at the same time not um, diluting the quality uh, on which we are judged ultimately because at the end of the day um, learners come uh, to universities uh, like the one that I work for uh, and Mark's organisation to be credentialed and you know the value of that credential has to stand up. So um, you know all of this I think speaks to that need to ensure that the quality piece is aligned to our use of technology and that we are doing that in thoughtful ways. But for me the curriculum is the thing that, that kind of ties it together, the curriculum. As Australian ah, scholar Sally Kift often says, the curriculum is the one thing that all students have in common. So you know, for someone like me who is um, you know, charged with you know providing leadership in terms of the innovation and the Support and the guidance for our staff and students. At uh, my institution, the curriculum is the place to really drive the change and to make that visible, but also to ensure that staff and students have agency.

Speaker C: I think Chris, just returning to the principles of the Takina record, I think we navigated that space fairly well. So if you take a Look at the UM8 principles, we've tried to couch them firstly in a very very high macro series of objectives for inclusive, scalable and sustainable education. And any education practice can fit under that. Any uh, technology can potentially contribute to that. But we've also been uh, quite strong on um, having policies which are ah, evidence based. And I think at the moment the evidence around AI is in very early stages. There's quite a few reports and studies now talking about the benefits and the disbenefits of AI under certain conditions. I think there's a lot more scholarship to come there. But those sorts of um, evidence studies should be informing policy as to how technology is used. I think too you'll see the um, focus on digital transformation, the sixth uh, principle there. We've actually placed it in the context of a digital divide and avoiding technocentrism. And again coming back to those values of inclusivity, scalability, sustainability. I think that's the sort of lens we should be immediately applying to these technologies. They can do wonderful things, but can they do wonderful things for everyone? That's really the challenge I think that the Taquina Accord offers. Uh, you'll also Note the number 7. So we certainly think that policy should be promoting innovative education. But in the tension of all of those principles together which do also emphasize um, evidence based application of teaching and learning. So I mean we talked about policy being complicated earlier. I think the principles when taken together form quite a strong mesh, but also quite a complicated mesh to navigate for policymakers. But in some ways if policymakers aren't forced to think through things carefully, I don't think the policies that will come through are going to be much use to anyone.

Speaker A: I agree with, with what both of you have said and also the themes that you stress in the report. Uh, I think theme seven is important about innovation. Um, technology can be used to do the same things better or it can be used to do better things that were never possible before. And the big wins with technology are always in the latter. Um, MOOCs in a way were an attempt to just take the industrial era classroom and scale it. Uh, the unsuccessful uses of online education during the pandemic tended to be similar and the successful uses were the ones where people innovated and they said we, we know how to get high engagement and face to face. But that's not the way that you get high engagement online. Online is a different medium. And you know, if you're given apples instead of oranges, you don't make um, the same things with them. You, you take advantage of what the apple offers. And that was where a lot of the doing things better started to come from. And I think similarly, whether we're talking about XR and immersive learning or AI or um, sort of next generation social media, whatever the technology happens to be, uh, to really make massive learning work, we're going to have to get beyond teaching by telling and learning by listening for sure. So um, Kurt, I'm going to toss it back to you. I'm sure that you have other.

Speaker E: Actually can I jump in with a quick question? I'm always curious about people who um, work on these. We're trying to get so many different voices together. So I would be curious to hear from you about what were the biggest sort of points of tension or sort of the compromises that were made in order to get everybody to agree on something. Because that's the thing that blows me away that you got so many people uh, uh, together on one page almost literally and metaphorically. So I'm just curious what were the points of, of. And again those are all legitimate. I'm not trying to delegitimize anybody's point of view but again we all come at it things with a different perspective and so on. So I'm just curious from uh, sort of how the sausage was made. Kind of a, kind of an angle. What were the, what were some of the tensions there?

Speaker B: Yeah, like 250 people. Punya. Just 250.

Speaker E: I know we can't get consensus on where we go out for dinner.

Speaker C: Well I think the, I think the methodology was important. So we had um, international experts who were briefed to actually contribute to this conversation. We also had Professor Judith Sachs um, actually provide MC services for us. But we deliberately structured it in ways that we could have different conversations about different parts of policy in order and then bring it all together at the end. So we had people in small groups and tables uh, discussing the issues raised by specialist presenters. So we had presenters talking about those different elements I mentioned earlier and you'll see who they are in the reports. And we asked uh, those small group conversations to also contribute to a mentimeter so we're able to capture their ideas from the table. They could share the table's ideas, they could share their individual's ideas. Uh, and when we had all of that data, it was just a matter of running it through and picking up the common themes. And to be honest, I think if you do look at policy, it doesn't take long before those actually in the action, those caught in the policy soup, uh, come to see the changes and improvements that can be made. So one thing we didn't do is distribute this report across everybody who was there, all 250 people saying, is this a valid representation of your views? Uh, so it is to some extent a high scale, a high granular view of the conversations that took place. But I think reading through them there's a lot that resonates and I think that was a bit of a surprise for uh, me as Jessell and I put this report together just to see how naturally those eight principles came through. So um, yeah, I don't think it's a pure study in terms of being finely tuned to include every single voice, but I think it is a reliable view of all of the perspectives that are in the room on that day.

Speaker E: Thank you, Giselle.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So, um, thanks for the question around there. Um, for me it really rested on, as Mark said, um, the pre work that we did and the conversations that we had with participants, particularly around the themes not just of uh, sustainability and uh, accessibility, but also around uh, the importance of place. And for us here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, that always comes back to uh, indigeneity. And I've mentioned a few times this morning, you know, the power of indigenous knowledges. And we found in our prior conversations, both for the main conference as well as for this particular policy forum, that that thread of conversation drew people together because there was a realization that there's commonality, ah, irrespective of where you are on the planet. In fact, I think one of the points of tension um, was really around the idea of the digital divide that Chris just alluded to a moment ago. Um, and that is realizing that access to digital tools is starkly different depending on where you are uh, in the world. And for some communities that's ah, an absolute out of reach privilege, whereas for others it's infinite. For many of us who live in privileged societies we take it for granted. Um, so I think the sort of disjunct in thinking about the power imbalance, the access to technologies and so on, on the one hand, um, we had to take that into account and yet on the other hand also, um, there's Kind of a rising narrative which you'll all be aware of around the skepticism and the weariness about big tech, global tech entrepreneurs and so on. This is a very real and live concern around digital and data sovereignty here in our ah, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Um, we're very aware that um, large language learning models are ah, developed in the global North. And so how do we ensure that those learning models can be of benefit but they're also ethically and morally uh, adjacent to the kind of values that we hold dear and that's a really large political issue for us. So I think, you know, bringing those issues together in this particular forum and at the same time, you know, Mark and I representing along with our colleagues who were speaking by and large the leaders of higher education organisations and we really wanted to spotlight the student voice. And so we did have student uh, speakers and contributors as Mark has mentioned and they provided a starkly different perspective in many respects. And a bit of a wake up call I think too Mark, you know, reminding us that whilst we might think that the uh, from the delivery side of uh, the business, if I can uh, frame it in those terms that what we're doing is student centric, it doesn't always look that way. And particularly, yeah, particularly you know, if you're a part time uh, mature learner who's also juggling family responsibilities and you're living in a, you know, a very remote part of the country, uh, you know, suddenly from your perspective the university's kind of policies and uh, expectations don't align with child care, um, arrangements don't align with what another government policy, you know, that is available. All of the things don't talk to one another, you know, and you don't actually get that insight until a student stands up in front of you know, two hundred and fifty people very bravely and says this is my story and this is my truth. So I think we've got to do more of amplifying those student voices. So for me I think Punya, that was another tension about you know, the institutional voice and perspective. Let's not get too comfortable and complacent in telling ourselves uh, comfortable things. Let's disrupt that narrative, let's keep um, centering student voice so that we, that we're constantly reminded of the reality um, and what it looks like on the ground. Because you know, people like Mark and I are getting further and further from that student experience, at least for young students.

Speaker C: I'm really glad you raised that Giselle, because I think that the big shock was really at the end when those two students shared their stories. We deliberately opened with the Ministry of Education and Dr. A.H. faye Al Khan who was also a keynote at the conference to provide that, that um, high um, government and also international perspective. And Kurt, the stats you read out at the very start of this episode uh, were from Fayo Khan's presentation. So we did want to actually set it up as a very high level policy, important conversation. But I think we learned to uh, actually put the students first. And next time when we do do another one of these, I think we'll actually be asking for those student voices right up front because it really does frame the conversation quite differently. And I think both Henry and Michelle did a brilliant job and their accounts in the uh, report are well worth reading.

Speaker B: So are there any additional challenges that are mentioned in the report or alluded to that you want to pull out? Any additional opportunities that are mentioned in the report that you might want to pull out? And then I uh, was going to ask this separate but I'll ask as an additional take along question, uh the immediate action section right below the principles on the fifth page. Um, I was going to ask what can organizations like yours do in terms of immediate actions. But you've got some of them listed there. Any those you want to pull out any of those things either. Uh, actions, opportunities, challenges that you might want to mention.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, I can kick us off. I think one of the tensions actually just come back to that earlier was open education resources and their role in higher education. And we carefully navigated that suggestion because uh, to some countries oer are very very important but in others uh, the use of those is quite mixed. Um, I think the first point there investigate the challenges to education access, benefits of participation from a student perspective we've just talked about. There needs to be much more research in this space uh at a national level so that we can actually understand the challenges that learners are facing now in lifelong learning. And again both uh, Henry and Michelle gave us a real wake up call there. Um, our role, um, it's more an ICDE to advocate for these sorts of studies to be done international and to bring the results together to a national audience or international audience. So uh, we do have a journal Open Praxis. Uh we do welcome contributions there. It recently received a 2026 Open Education Award for Excellence. That's a very very high quality journal. We do have mechanisms within ICDE for distributing that sort of scholarship. Um, I think though the series of high education positions and long term strategies that draw together Those international voices is so important. And agencies such as icd, Flans, ascalight, others internationally have a really big part to play in drawing attention to what these strategies might look like, especially now that we are dealing also with AI and disruptive education. Um, Giselle also added, actually I'm pretty grateful to her for this, the need of a detailed lifelong learning strategy, at least in New Zealand. But uh, she did mention, of course, that the tertiary education strategy now in uh, New Zealand is picking up on those things.

Speaker B: Giselle.

Speaker D: Look, for me it's uh, all of uh, the points that Mark has raised. But in addition, and I just want to amplify it is around student success. Uh, so here at Massey University and also, um, in partnership with other institutions across the country, uh, we've been looking for some years at what Georgia State University is doing, has uh, done in the past. Um, we're also really, ah, deeply connected to the Sia Pumalela network in South Africa. Um, so my point is, you know, connecting ecosystems of learning there. Uh, to go back to that point about, you know, the sort of micro meso and the macro, we're looking at the sort of macro ecosystems of learning. Uh, how do we learn from one another in different jurisdictions, but also bring that together with the kind of principles that we think matters at that very high level. So student success, understanding, uh, what that means from the student perspective and how students are navigating both the curriculum, uh, both the uh, diversity of different, uh, learning modes. And then how does the institution successfully pivot in that context without at the same time isolating teacher, uh, agency? Because I think that's something that we can lose in the current conversation. So, um, kind of a roundabout way of responding to your question there, but for me it's all about student success.

Speaker B: Well, we got a minute or two left and I just want to get a sense of who your heroes are. Um, this is one report. Anyone can download it, go to the blog post, you can get it, or just go and type in the counter report and, and you can find it very easily. But, um, you had 250 people there helping with this report who are one or two or three thought leaders, who people should be reading from, or what are one or two or three books that you'd recommend for people who are listening to this episode. And Mark, along with your answer, can you, um, tell people why they should be go to your conference every year, recruit some people.

Speaker C: Definitely, definitely. Look in terms of books, uh, this is one that was actually launched at the conference. Um, mega universities and Opening Education by Design. So it includes um, some solutions actually for some of the policy matters that are included here. Um, some very, very good chapters in here. It was actually Inspired by um, Dr. Wang Kaiming of the Open University of China. He gave a keynote at the 2023 ICD Conference in Costa Rica. Uh, and he basically opened my eyes to my goodness. We used to think in terms of mega universities when Sir John Daniel wrote his book in 1996. Now we have GIGA universities. So this book is published by ICDE. Uh, it includes a chapter from Professor Paul LeBlanc of Southern New Hampshire University des how uh, SNHU went from 2,800 students uh, to over 250,000 20 years later by uh, adopting the sort of systems that open universities have long known about. So that's highly recommended for anyone wanting to actually pick up on the Takina Accord and get some strategic views as to how these things are being done internationally. Um, the authors there, uh, most of them are ICD members, very senior scholars, Very, very good piece of work. Look, the other one I'd recommend, and this is my shameless place like Blendagogy, which uh, is a book which I've just received the proofs from yesterday which looks at blended learning but from that macro micro meso perspective. Uh, so it's designed to help tie together the uh, objectives of available, inclusive, scalable, sustainable education uh, with the macro meso, uh, micro view of how education policy actually works. Uh, so that'll be released at the FLANDS conference and it's available now on Amazon.com um for Kindle. But please, please do consider joining ICDE. It is a wonderful community of international scholars all dedicated to very innovative, large scale, very student centered education at quality. Um, the Secretariat in uh, Oslo, Norway would love to hear from anyone interested. ICDE.org, there's some incredible benefits to joining ICDE including coming up in November, a President's Forum where we bring together institutional leaders from around the world to discuss areas of interest at the highest level. And this year's theme is Sustainability for Institutions. It'll be an international forum. There's two time zones, a, ah, very good opportunity to be a part of and of course we've got our conference next year in Cebu in the Philippines and also a lifelong learning conference taking place in Nilihama, uh, in I think February of next year. So plenty of really interesting activities coming into icd. Uh, please do join us and become a part of the conversation.

Speaker B: Well, well said. Uh, Giselle, we have a half minute or minute left for you.

Speaker D: And then everything that Mark said, you know, the ICD is a fantastic community to be a part of. It's a great global community, uh, of like minded, uh, leaders, learners. And um, Massey's been a member for a number of years and we really appreciate, um, uh, our membership of that community. So, uh, well done, Mark. Uh, great, great. Fully endorse everything you've said. Namihi.

Speaker B: Mark, you also have interviewed people around the world, uh, about the field. What's that link called?

Speaker C: It, uh, was the Leaders and Legends of Online Learning. It was originally, um, an. Loll. A bit of a lull, a laugh

Speaker B: of online learning.

Speaker C: That's right. Now unfortunately, the podcast is now finished. Uh, became too much work for Nev Allington and I, my partner in the uk. Um, the problem was when we started the podcast, workflows were very different to what they are today. And we were caught in that workflow and unfortunately neither of us could justify the time anymore. But we hit, I think 103 episodes. Uh, wonderful interviews there with international scholars, including yourself. Kurt, it was wonderful talking with you there and learning more about you and your work. There are some incredible scholars out there who, some of whom we may not have heard of. And of course some of these scholars hadn't actually met one another other, but they're familiar with one another's work. So the podcast, uh, helped introduce these scholars. I've, uh, got them talking about their work, the current themes that they're interested in, what they think of learning at the current time. So I think the episodes are still available online. They're well worth listening to.

Speaker B: Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Giselle. It's been a wonderful hour with both of you talking about your new accord. Uh, Chris or Punya have a final comment. Um, so I'm going to introduce you.

Speaker E: Thank you. Thank you for joining us. And uh, have a wonderful Saturday. I have never been to Nivzi, England, you know. Would love to come by and watch a cricket match at some point. I'm, um, originally from India, so cricket is my sport. You know, not playing, watching. Would, uh, love to do that at some point.

Speaker C: Yes, thank you.

Speaker A: Wonderful.

Speaker C: Come join us in the basin in Wellington.

Speaker A: Chris, thank you for your important work.

Speaker B: Very important work. And next week we'll hear from someone who's doing also important work with youth in Southeast, uh, Asia. And the new report on tech enabled alternative education for out of school children and youth. Evidence from Southeast Asia, Andrew Swindell's new report with his colleague, uh, Kate Radford from Amsterdam. Andrew's from ucla, and they might have a third, uh, colleague from the UAE with us next week at 2pm on Saturday. We hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you. Sa.