Preview of 2026 sees pick-and-mix courses and schools for each subject

Next-generation pupils will go to more than one school at a time and devise their own tailormade education, says a report on what schools will be like in 2026.

It suggests that the children of today's students will enrol, for example, in a specialised college for maths or economics or science, in an international web-based "academy" for art and music, in a wananga for tribal history and te reo Maori and in a more conventional school for other subjects and social activities.

Dr John Langley, dean of Auckland University's education faculty and an adviser on the report, said social changes required educators to think ahead.

"It's challenging the whole concept of what a school is. If I was to walk into a school in 10 to 15 years' time and they were doing the same things they are doing now, then we are lost."

The report, "Secondary Futures, Students First", will be released today by Education Minister Steve Maharey. It concludes that the present "industrial age" system will be inadequate for children growing up in an age of fast-changing technology.

The first of five reports on secondary schooling in the future, it says the present system will "require quite major transformations in education at the secondary level". One is multiple learning centres.

Dr Langley said it required quite a "radical shift" and made sense for schools to develop specialties. In urban areas - which had about 85 per cent of the school population - "clusters" of schools could each develop specialty areas.

"Instead of every school trying to replicate resources, we do have schools that put in some significant teaching and resourcing grunt and specialise in an area. What that means is you end up with students who aren't enrolled in just one school all the time, forever. They might work across several schools for different things."

The Secondary Futures project, set up by the Government and education sector, is led by Massey University deputy vice-chancellor Mason Durie, educationist Gillian Heald, former netballer and teacher Bernice Mene and founder of Animated Research Ian Taylor.

One of the thrusts of the report is allowing students to devise their own learning programmes - a practice now used for some special needs students - to increase their interest in school.

It says that by 2026, the population will be more diverse with a higher proportion of Pacific Island and Maori students and present rates of failure for those groups are unsustainable.

"New Zealand will face significant social and economic challenges if the causes of underachievement are not addressed and if the existing rates of unsuccessful students in all schools persist into the future."

Secondary Futures chief executive Nicola Meek said too many children were not reaching their potential.

"It is inevitable that in 20 years schooling won't look the same because if we continue to do as we do now we will continue to get the same results. Our system was constructed for a different time and type of teaching and learning. The idea that students form units of about 30 and they all learn the same thing at the same time in the same classes is not going to form the future."