ACE providers operate from hundreds of locations across the motu. From small, isolated communities through to our larger cities and towns, we know there are people, groups and organisations delivering quality adult community education across a broad range of subjects.

We also know that often smaller providers are forced to operate in isolating circumstances for a range of reasons, including financial constraints, geographic location and resource restrictions. A key question for these independent providers is: how do we know that we are delivering good process and quality learning? Providing the support needed to confidently answer that question is central to ACE Aotearoa.

The membership body is tasked with supporting our sector to deliver centrally coordinated, structured learning, with our three key focus areas being strategic sector leadership, sector capability building, and sector coordination. To assist with ensuring quality delivery, the ACE Quality Assurance framework, or ACE QA tool as it’s known, was created in 2008 by sector representatives.

The QA framework demonstrates to learners our providers’ commitment to quality learner satisfaction; it fosters a culture of improvement, improves work processes and efficiency, and it gives our providers the confidence that they are delivering according to best practice. It provides a valuable tool to help ACE providers understand how they are performing and gives suggestions to address identified improvement areas. The framework uses a self-assessment approach and can be adapted to fit the size of the organisation. Importantly, the focus of the ACE QA tool is on quality not compliance.

Central to delivery of the framework is the description of a capable learning organisation, underpinned by the values of rangatiratanga, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, and the guiding principle of ako.

The framework was developed by reviewing a range of ACE providers’ systems and processes across governance, management and teaching and learning areas. As part of the review, ACE Aotearoa assessed the framework by comparing it with the requirements of those providers who participate in the NZQA external evaluation review process, commissioned analysis by EvaluationConsult and linked with outcomes model achievement with line-of-sight contribution to government goals and priorities. We also invited the Academic Quality Agency for New Zealand Universities to review the document and give feedback. They provided support and recommendations to add more opportunity for learner involvement in measuring quality for learning services.

The ACE QA has been routinely reviewed over the years to ensure currency and to maintain relevant standards in line with sector expectations.

In 2010 ACE Aotearoa commenced sector workshops for socialisation, training and mentoring of the ACE QA tool. These have subsequently become a core service, offering a credentials’ pathway for staff and providers working towards achievement of the Quality Mark.

Analiese Robertson, QA workshop facilitator, has completed delivery of a series of QA workshops during 2024 with valuable attendance from a range of organisations within the sector seeking the assurance that comes with achieving the ACE-approved certificate or Quality Mark.

“It’s important to view the QA framework as part of a system of delivery,” Analiese says. “It doesn’t sit alone but is part of a larger quality delivery structure. Within that structure sits the Teaching Standards and Learner Pathways, which are professional tools designed by and for the sector.

“The objectives of the Teaching Standards are to ensure increased recognition of good teaching practices and ensure reported improvement in learner experiences in ACE programmes, while the Learner Pathways support our learners to identify various education roadmaps for their learner journey. This ensures that they are partners in the design and delivery of their individual learning experience.”

Any ACE practitioner and provider can register their interest in being assessed for the certificate and/ or Quality Mark. The process includes attendance at one of the ACE Aotearoa regional workshops, followed by tailored support from ACE with the review process. Providers then undertake an individual or organisation-wide self-assessment, provide information to show how well they or their organisation is performing and identify areas for improvement. Once the improvement plan has been developed and implemented, they will be assessed for the certificate and/or Quality Mark.

“I really encourage staff and organisations delivering adult community education to start the organisation self-assessment process and get underway to achieving the Quality Mark. The process is designed for immediate applicability of the ACE Quality Assurance Framework and its management tools. The approach is strengths based, a focus on celebrating what is working well, and it’s an opportunity to develop an organisation transformation plan. The intention is to increase visibility with the quality mark branding, so that learners are able to identify providers who meet the ACE Quality Assurance requirements,” Analiese says.

QA – a continuing journey

Introduction
Skillwise in Ōtautahi has received the ACE Quality Assurance quality mark and staff share their story of discovery and delivery.

SkillWise
Ōtautahi-based SkillWise works alongside people with learning disabilities to help them develop the skills and knowledge to participate in their communities in a positive way. Every year more than 170 people access SkillWise services with 80 of them undertaking ACE learning.

In 2021 SkillWise had a new leadership team in place, and they were asking themselves challenging questions around service transformation and delivering against best practice in a learning environment. At the heart of their transformation ideals lay the need to align their practice with Enabling Good Lives Principles (EGL) which take a bottom-up approach to empowering and enabling everyone to live good lives.

With this at the centre of their objectives, the SkillWise project team made up of learners, family/whānau members, frontline staff, leadership team and the Board chair looked at their business strategy, services and systems alongside the EGL principles. As part of the analysis and review, the team specifically looked at learning opportunities for the people they work with.

Group Service Lead, Frank Manzano says research quickly bought the team to the realisation that they needed to understand what “good” looked like as an ACE provider.

“We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. We knew there would be resources available to help us with developing our systems and that’s when we discovered the QA documentation on the ACE website. This helped us to identify what we were doing well and what we needed to do to fill the gaps,” he says.

“This isn’t a box-ticking exercise. It’s not about being perfect, but it is about progressing and moving forward on the spectrum of continuous improvement.”

The first step for SkillWise was asking the question – how can we create good systems that ensure we don’t continue to make the same mistakes, and that we fix things in a more permanent fashion as we go about providing opportunities and quality learning?

Frank says the QA Framework documentation was easy to follow and had good guidelines that enabled them to unpick process and pack it back together in a way that suited their needs. The team met fortnightly for six months and held a half-day workshop with a focus on working through the process.

“The process has given us a clear idea about the outcomes that we want our learners to have from being a part of ACE. We developed an outcomes model to provide context for our decisions, which helped us to clarify and share where we wanted to contribute within the wider sector. It helped us to answer the question about our unique place within the sector and it helped us to collect evidence about outcomes around the development of new programmes and courses that reflect learners needs and wishes.”

Frank says he would 100% recommend the exercise to others within the ACE sector.

“Having the Quality Assurance mark speaks to the work you have completed as an organisation to ensure you have best-practice measures in place. This is about our learners getting the most out of their experience. It helped us understand how we can improve our processes.”

All the documents are available online and completed documentation will be reviewed by QA workshop facilitator Analiese Robertson.

“This is an ongoing journey. It’s not like you get to the end and say OK, we’ve done that. We are continuing to trial, improve and tweak,” says Frank.