Farm-gate Intellectuals, Excellence and the University Problem in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Conventional wisdom assumes participation in higher education is a necessary corollary of excelling in international arenas. In a globalising world, nations with few universities and low higher education participation rates cannot adequately compete in the global economy. Aotearoa/New Zealand has had a greater impact on international arenas than its size and location would suggest. But those who excel are rarely products of higher education. Instead, they are farm-gate (or self-educated) intellectuals. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the notion excellence requires higher education and to legitimise the anarchist-utopian tradition in adult education. These purposes are achieved by analysing the biography and approaches to learning adopted by people like Ed Hillary (development worker), Hone Tuwhare (poet), Sylvia Ashton-Warner (educator and writer), Richard Pearse (aviation pioneer), Kiri te Kanawa (singer), Arthur Lydiard (runner), Bruce Farr (yacht designer), Bill Hamilton (marine engineer) and finally, in greater detail, Tom Schnackenberg, the America's Cup genius and leader of Team New Zealand. Captains of industry, university authorities and adult educators can benefit from understanding how and why farm-gate intellectuals go about learning.