‘Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua. I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’.
Conference 2022 provides an opportunity to look back at what our predecessors have passed on and built, to evaluate what we have achieved and learned, discuss the challenges in front of the profession now and as practitioners in our daily work, to assess what more needs to be done, and anticipate how the profession might evolve into the future.
The following table sets out the broad conference streams shaping the conference programme. The table sets out the title of each stream, a brief explanation, and presents some questions for consideration by participants when thinking about offering their contributions.
The streams and questions are intended to bring the whakataukī and conference aims to life by providing a wero to contributors. The questions are a starting guide for contributors to think about what they would like to contribute to the conference programme about challenging issues the profession is facing, you are encountering in your practice, and ideas and examples for walking into the future. They should not be seen as exclusive.
We aim to provide a safe platform for different voices and practices to be shared and heard, where we can learn from each other about what evaluation is and means in Aotearoa New Zealand now and as we generationally change.
In the final conference programme, we will aim to have a balance of the practical and theoretical, where we can remember and reflect on where we have come from, show case where we are now in our practice and theory, and think about and build some pathways into the future for evaluation in Aotearoa New Zealand.
We invite contributions aligned with these streams and associated questions. Please remember the questions are guides to start thinking and promoting a conversation, they should not be seen as exclusive.