Louise Shaw, Learning for Life: The Origins of Auckland University of Technology, 1895-2000, Auckland, Auckland University of Technology in association with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2002. 197 pp. $38. ISBN 1-877314-04-8.
Reviewed by Kirstie Ross.
Auckland Institute of Technology made history in 2000 when it became Auckland University of Technology (AUT), the first polytechnic in New Zealand to gain university status. Learning for Life: The Origins of Auckland University of Technology, 1895-2000, commissioned by AUT, celebrates this historic occasion. The book is also an account of one of New Zealand's oldest technical education institutions, which over the years has distinguished itself as the country's largest technical high school and polytechnic. As the institution lacked a book-length history, Learning for Life should also be welcomed by readers with a specific interest in the history of AUT and its predecessors, as well as by those interested generally in the history of education and vocational training in New Zealand.
In her preface to Learning for Life, commissioned historian Louise Shaw observes that the elevation of the institution marks 'the end of a chapter' in its history and the 'beginning of a new one' (p. 8). She also notes that the book was 'conceived' after this 'significant event' (p. 7), rather than in time for its centenary in 1995. That her focus was on this 'metamorphosis' (p. 7), rather than on the writing of a 'stocktaking' centennial narrative, suggests that the institution has a faintly Whiggish view of its past. As this view is conveyed via particular narrative emphases and absences, the structure of the book warrants closer consideration.
The motto, 'We learn for life, not for school' (p. 13), was adopted in 1928 by Seddon Memorial Technical College (the institution's name from 1913 until 1964, when it became Auckland Technical Institute). But given the book's narrative concern, it is just as likely that the 'Hawke Report' of 1989, Learning for Life, was the inspiration for its title. It was this document that set into motion the far-reaching reforms of tertiary education in the 1990s - including institutional bulk-funding, the replacement of the Department of Education with a Ministry, and the establishment of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority - that enabled AUT to realise its lengthy quest for 'parity of status' with universities (p. 12).
The chronological organisation of Learning for Life tends to underline the importance of political and legal changes in the education sector to the institution's historical transformation. The years 1895 to 1984 are compressed into three chapters that take up three-fifths of the text. This means that some issues and contexts - credentialism and entrenched attitudes towards vocational training, for example - along with broader social, cultural and economic shifts during this period, are discussed rather hurriedly. The remaining sixteen years, a comparatively short but critical period for the origins of AUT, are dealt with in the rest of book. This chronological weighting is brought into sharp relief when comparisons are made with histories of other institutions that gained far less from the reforms. Victoria University of Wellington's most recent historian, for example, dedicates just one chapter of thirteen to them [1]. However, while the politics of the 1980s and 1990s dominates Learning for Life, the narrative is surprisingly apolitical. There was no need, it seems, to probe the politics of AUT's origins too far below the surface.
Learning for Life is also the story of AUT's 'struggle for autonomy' (p. 7), and of its emancipation from a model of secondary education that was imposed on the institution a century ago by the now defunct Department of Education. Its focus on the institution's senior technical and vocational activities, rather than on technical high school work, is justified by this metanarrative. I suspect that some readers will be disappointed with this decision to downplay the 'tech' side simply because it does not assist in developing the theme of institutional independence and exceptionalism.
The need to cover so much, historically, means that opportunities to reflect on institutional culture are squeezed out of the narrative, leaving the reader with little sense of the learning or the lives of the students. The virtual absence of quotation from contemporary sources adds to Learning for Life's lifelessness. Illustrative material which could have enlivened the text is used halfheartedly. Too many of the book's numerous black and white photographs are accompanied by terse labels imported verbatim from jubilee booklets. The inclusion of more contemporary maps, in addition to one of the institution's original site on Rutland Street, might have added extra visual interest.
AUT provided only six months' funding for its 'origins' to be researched and written. Perhaps the commissioners were unaware of the amount of time required by an historian to 'make history'? Primary research had to be limited to the institution's written records, which gives Learning for Life an institutional perspective. The shortage of time may account for the book's brevity and stylistic weaknesses mentioned above. Does it also explain the absence of sustained reflection and analysis? Despite this, Shaw has written a coherent and concise institutional history, one that does not resort to hagiography and provides a satisfactory case study of the vicissitudes of vocational education in the twentieth century. Yet there are reasons for speculation about what else Learning for Life accomplishes. The commission's parameters, the relegation of much of the institution's past to an historical preface, and the want of a measured appraisal of the political origins of the institution's latest transformation, all suggest that this history may be above all a cosmetic addition to AUT's freshly-minted corporate identity.
[1] Rachel Barrowman, Victoria University of Wellington, 1899-1999: A History, Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1999.
Kirstie Ross has degrees in music and history. After completing graduate studies at the University of Auckland in 1998 she carried out research for two Waitangi Tribunal claims. She currently curates the Ephemera Collections in Special Collections, Auckland Central Library.
