The three initiatives below were selected to receive funding in the first round. 

Initiative 1: Auckland University of Technology (AUT)

The design and delivery of a whole-of-university, student-centric service delivery model that is technology-enabled and data-informed, supporting success for all AUT students

AUT is a large university with many students from underserved learner groups. While this initiative is designed to support all students, it is expected to be particularly beneficial for priority learners.

It is a logical next step from existing successful work with their deaf and disabled learners and builds on the established pastoral care framework.

This initiative will deliver a whole-of-university service delivery model. It will require the capability and capacity to review and redesign the end-to-end service model including recruitment, enrolment, and academic and pastoral support.

The project will bring about significant organisational change, including:

• agreement and understanding across the organisation of the approach, including all teaching staff and academic and pastoral support services
• leveraging and extending the use of existing digital tools to underpin this revised approach, and the requisite training required to upskill parts of the staff community, and
• the development and delivery of a resource model that is founded on robust data insights and provides timely, targeted and effective support to students at a sustainable cost.

The design and delivery of a whole-of-university service delivery model is intended to support AUT’s strategic priority of being a “university of opportunity”, where all students receive the support they need, when they need it, for as long as they need it.

Initiative 2: Future Skills

Accelerating the implementation and increasing the scope of learner success initiatives to improve learner success outcomes

Future Skills has a mix of learners from a variety of backgrounds, abilities and aspirations. Funding will support two learner success initiatives, Learner Journey Mapping and Just in Time at-risk App Extension.

These initiatives aim to support Future Skills to identify and provide support to underserved learners who are disproportionately represented in their at-risk group of learners and to provide earlier interventions and support them to achieve. 

• Learner Journey Mapping: Develop learner journey maps and personas to deliver tailored services and plan student success services effectively.
• Just in Time App Extension: Extend the current at-risk app to identify learners before they become at-risk, ensuring a higher number of successful learners.

These initiatives aim not only to improve learner retention and completion at Future Skills but also to serve as exemplars for other private training establishments.

Initiative 3: University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington consortium

He Kokonga Whare e Kitea – Data coaching for student success in the tertiary sector

University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington will be funded as a consortium to accelerate student success. He Kokonga Whare e Kitea will focus on leveraging data effectively to work at scale, ensuring staff can have greater influence on positive student outcomes. 

The initiative aims to address learner equity gaps by using data and leadership to bring about system- and sector-level change. The proposed activities include developing a coaching programme which combines data literacy with organisational and infrastructural development, to identify system-level barriers.

This builds on work by the tertiary education organisation (TEO) consortium partners already being undertaken as part of their learner success programmes. Outcomes of the project will include the development of a set of resources that can be used sector-wide. 

Sharing initiatives and learner success achievements

A key part of the Accelerating Learner Success Fund (Tūwhitia) is for recipient TEOs to share information and updates about their initiatives. We will share updates on current and future funded initiatives on this page and will feature them as part of our Learner Success Community of Practice.