FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 6 2013
Next week, a range of teachers, principals, government officials and copyright experts are getting together to discuss
how New Zealand teachers can legally share and reuse teaching resources.
Speakers include Andrew Matangi from Buddle Findlay, Stephen Lethbridge, principal of Taupaki School and Carolyn Stuart,
Education Sector Lead for the Network for Learning.
Taking place in Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington on 12, 13 and 17 March, the events follow the rapid uptake of
Creative Commons licensing policies by New Zealand schools. These policies make it legal for teachers to share their
resources without asking advance permission from the school.
As Matt McGregor, Public Lead of Creative Commons Aotearoa NZ, points out, more than forty New Zealand schools have now
adopted Creative Commons policies, up from four in March 2013. These schools include Tawa Intermediate, Albany Senior
High School and Taupaki School.
“New Zealand has over 50,000 teachers working in over 2,500 schools,” says McGregor. “If teachers were encouraged to
legally share and collaborate – rather than reinvent the wheel – the savings of time and money across the education
sector are potentially enormous.”
Stephen Lethbridge, Principal of Taupaki School, points out that it’s in the nature of teachers to share.
Taupaki School passed its Creative Commons policy after noticing that, as Lethbridge puts it, “teachers were sharing
more on more resources online and connecting with a great many schools who were visiting us. It would have been a
nightmare to seek permission from the board, more likely the school principal, every time a teacher or student wanted to
share information.”
Mark Osborne, former Deputy Principal of Albany Senior High School, points out that the use of Creative Commons has had
broader cultural effects at the school.
As he said in 2012, “The big change taking place is that teachers are collaborating more, and they’re also involving
their students in the development of those teaching and learning resources. This is quite different from what happens in
most schools.”
Creative Commons policies have been supported by the New Zealand Government’s Open Access and Licensing framework, or
NZGOAL, approved by Cabinet in 2010. This framework outlines massive cultural, economic and educational benefits of
sharing publicly funded copyright materials.
To find out more about these free events, and to register, visit www.creativecommons.org.nz/schools
ENDS