After more than 20 years at the helm of NetNZ, Ken Pullar is preparing to step back from his full-time operational leadership role. But rather than seeing this as an endpoint, he views it as an opportunity to pursue new projects that could reshape education

At the heart of Pullar's educational philosophy lies a profound belief in recognising the unique potential in every student. This conviction stems partly from his own experiences with the education system and witnessing its limitations.

"My personal experience of teaching was I got to the end of my secondary, even degree level, and I felt that we were so processed and spat out the end and we did not recognise the talents of some very uniquely intelligent students," Pullar reflects. "They were sort of put on the scrapheap because they weren't in that sort of university-focused mode."

This perspective was reinforced by encounters with students throughout his career. He shares a poignant story about a former student named Leon, which clearly still affects him deeply. "He would have been graded a failure at school. He struggled with the formality of maths, and you would have said from an English point of view, he struggled with literacy, but he was a genius. You could give him a car and he could make sense of car manuals like no one else."

Tragically, Leon later died of an overdose, a loss that Pullar partially attributes to the system's failure to recognise his unique abilities. "Part of it was the system sort of almost branding him a failure that contributed. It's sort of why I think we need a system which recognises the genius of all students."

Looking ahead, Pullar has identified three major projects he hopes to pursue. The first centres on the concept of learner agency. "The whole notion of putting the learner in the driver's seat is really, really important to me," he explains. "Even the development of NetNZ was about, hey, okay, how can we give agency?"

He draws inspiration from the work of Guy Claxton's building learning power approach. "He talks about how you've got your subject matter, your content stuff, but your real focus is on building resilience, resourceful learners. That's actually the point of education, not actually that you're brilliant at biology."

The second project involves developing knowledge-building communities, an approach that Pullar believes could revolutionise how we think about education. "I've been looking for the silver bullet in education, and the knowledge building community is as close to it."

His third initiative is perhaps the most ambitious: establishing a NetNZ foundation to address equity issues in education. "There are some kids who can't participate in this space," he notes. "I would love to sort of see what we can do in terms of actually bridging some of those equity issues."

Throughout his career, Pullar has maintained that online learning should enhance, not replace, community connections. "That was never the vision to create a network or an online school," he emphasises. "What I want to see is a really strong network of schools, a community of schools."

This commitment to community is reflected in countless success stories. "I can look at my own daughters who ended up being the early beneficiaries," he says. "I've got one boy next year who's going to be doing four or five NetNZ subjects."

The scale of Ken Pullar's contribution to education in Aotearoa New Zealand is remarkable. Under his leadership, NetNZ has grown from an initiative serving 11 schools in Otago to a nationwide network that has transformed educational opportunities for thousands of students.

The importance of this work cannot be overstated. In rural communities across New Zealand, students who would otherwise have limited subject choices can now access a full range of curriculum options.

This impact extends beyond academic achievements. The network has helped preserve rural communities by ensuring families don't have to choose between quality education and staying in their local area. "It wasn't typical, like if we went up to Ranfurly, a lot more affluent sort of community at the time, almost 80, 90% would go off to boarding school," Pullar explains. His work has helped create an alternative to this urban drift.

The model he helped pioneer has become so successful that it's now attracting attention from major educational institutions. “I would love to see Te Kura recognise that and sort of say, look, you offer psychology, you offer Korean, there are some things which we can't do," he notes, highlighting how he hopes the network continues to grow and evolve.

Most significantly, Pullar's work has helped demonstrate that rural education doesn't have to mean limited opportunities. By creating a network of connected schools rather than a centralised online school, he's shown how technology can enhance rather than replace community-based education. This approach ensures students get the best of both worlds: access to a wide range of subjects while maintaining the personal connections and community involvement that are crucial to development.

As he prepares to transition out of his operational role, Pullar is careful to give space to the next generation of leaders. "I want to give them the space. If I'm just lurking in the background, it may be counterproductive for them."

However, he's far from finished with education. "I suspect I won't let go of education. I've got those little projects which, you know, I'll probably be saying to Darren, 'Hey, look, I want to do this.'"

His vision for the future of education in Aotearoa remains clear and compelling: a system that recognises and nurtures the unique potential in every learner, supported by strong communities and enabled by technology. It's about "growing you as a learner, nurturing you as a learner," he says, emphasising that education should be about developing the whole person, not just delivering content.

As he looks toward retirement, Pullar's commitment to education remains unwavering. While he may be stepping back from day-to-day operations, his vision for a more inclusive, responsive, and community-centred education system continues to inspire the next generation of educational leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand.