The National Aquarium of New Zealand is among 26 organisations around the country who have been awarded education contracts. Photo / File
The National Aquarium of New Zealand is among 26 organisations around the country who have been awarded education contracts. Photo / File
The National Aquarium of New Zealand is among 26 organisations around the country which have collectively been awarded $2 million in education contracts to provide schools with learning experiences outside the classroom.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has awarded the contracts to organisations across New Zealand in an effort to exposestudents to experiences "that can't be recreated" in traditional learning spaces.
"The Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom initiative complements the local curriculum and supports around 500,000 students each year to participate in learning activities at zoos, museums, historic parks, art galleries, outdoor education facilities, performing arts, and virtual learning experiences," Mr Hipkins says.
"These kind of learning experiences increase students' awareness of their community and give them hugely valuable experiences that can't be recreated in the classroom.
"This initiative provides opportunities for schools to work with the community to provide unique and interactive educational opportunities and for students to further develop life skills such as collaboration, communication and problem solving," Mr Hipkins says.
The 26 community organisations will provide experiences covering maths, science and technology for a three-year contract period.
They are in addition to another 46 ongoing contracts covering arts, health and physical education awarded in 2015 and social sciences and languages awarded in 2016.
The total annual amount of funding for the initiative across the curriculum is $4.9 million.
