Inception Workshop

On Wednesday 10th May 2023, the Ministry of Education (MoE) conducted an Inception Workshop for the new Education Strategy to key stakeholders and partners including Government Ministries, Private Sector and NGO representatives.

While work on the development of a new Education Strategy for the Cook Islands commenced much earlier with internal stakeholders such as Ministry headquarters, schools and providers, the Inception Workshop signalled the beginning of MoE’s external engagement discussions with our wider education community on our collective aspirations for education in the Cook Islands – acknowledging the importance of building the next strategy together.

The Inception Workshop provided the opportunity to share with close to 100 participants a snapshot of education to date via the Education Master Plan 2008 – 2023 (EMP).  Presentations covered the focus areas of the EMP, including interactive group activities designed to generate discussion and feedback on the current system, shared challenges and future focussed priorities looking towards launching the new strategy in 2024.

Acknowledging that designing a new strategy for education cannot be done by the MoE alone, nor in one single workshop session, discussions and feedback from the Inception Workshop has been synthesised and will be further used as a baseline for discussions that will follow with respective Government Agencies and organisations via one-to-one consultations.  This information will also be shared with our communities in the Northern Pa Enua at the end of May when a small MoE team visits, and with the remaining Pa Enua on their return.

The new Education strategy consultations will continue to focus on defining a new vision for education in the Cook Islands covering all sectors of the education system from Early Childhood Education through to Vocational and Tertiary learning, drafting possible key goals and considering appropriate indicators for progress and success.

The Ministry of Education extends our sincere thanks and gratitude to all those who availed their time to support the Inception Workshop.  Presentations from the Workshop can be found below.