Coronavirus: Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi moves to online learning

Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi has made the decision to suspend all onsite teaching and assessments across all campuses for one week. Photo / Supplied

Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi has decided to suspend all onsite teaching and assessments across all campuses for one week, as of Monday.

This follows the latest developments announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday.

Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi chief executive Professor Wiremu Doherty said the decision had been made to make necessary preparations should the Government require educational institutions to close campuses for an indefinite period.

"We are focused on taking this time to get the right planning, systems and processes in place to ensure we can continue to deliver teaching and learning, should the situation escalate.

"While we need to be practical and sensible about changes to how we conduct teaching and learning, these are unprecedented times and we also need to be able to respond quickly and adapt to the current situation."

No classes will be conducted on-site during the one-week suspension, other than some pre-arranged Noho classes running via Zoom.

Awanuiārangi teaching staff will instead use the coming week to focus on establishing the best practice to teach remotely so they can provide an online teaching experience for students, he said.

All staff, including administrative staff, were also being asked to work from home where they can for the week from March 23.

"On Thursday we trialled a full closure of our Tāmaki campus. This went well."

Doherty said the education provider trialled delivery of the Professional Doctorate and Bachelor of Humanities programmes on the weekend and the Bachelor of Education was being trialled online as of Monday.

"We believe these measures are important to take now to ensure we are prepared to play our role in slowing down and ultimately stopping the spread of the disease.

"We are confident we will have the right measures in place to allow us to continue to offer quality education during this challenging time.

"We would like to thank our tauira [students], kaimahi [staff] and the wider community for their support and patience during this time."

Decisions will be made over the coming days about further changes to the delivery of classes and updates will be sent directly to students.