Alternative education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Secondary students who become disenfranchised from mainstream schools are directed to attend Alternative Education (AE) centres. AE was a grassroots’ initiative in the 1990s led by youth organisations, iwi, community social service agencies and churches to meet the education and pastoral needs of rangatahi. Due to the tenuous links held between AE and the mainstream system and with no government policy work occurring within the sector for the decade prior to 2009, the sector struggled for adequate resourcing and professional recognition. Through a poetic inquiry approach this paper explores three key AE government policy directions over a ten-year period, from 2009 to 2019. Unbuckling prose found within official documents, concrete (visual) poems were created to perform a critical reading of policy. The policy poems form a narrative arc that show the discrediting of AE providers and demonising of students in AE has recently given way to more hopeful directions in policy.