Changes to the school system will support youth employment

19 February 2012

Changes pending in the school system, instigated by Industry Training Organisations (ITOs), will support young people into jobs, Industry Training Chief Executive Mark Oldershaw said today.

Mr Oldershaw was responding to the Salvation Army’s new State of the Nation Report highlighting low youth employment and the number of youth not in employment, education or training.

He said ITOs were a key force behind the vocational pathways work that had been adopted by the Ministry of Education as part of its youth guarantee.

“It allows the NCEA system to be used to make learning more relevant to work and will enable young people to make better choices. At the moment the senior secondary school programme is heavily structured around the ‘pathway’ to university. The 70% of students who don’t go to university are not given the same clarity as to what they need to do get on a pathway to further training and work.

“ITOs have been working with the Ministry of Education to match up the standards in NCEA to broad industry groupings. These will be noted on NCEA results.

“Ultimately vocational pathways will create pathways to different industries and then allow for contextualised learning material to support those pathways. They will help engage young peoplewho do not currently achieve in the school system and make the school learning and qualifications more relevant to industry. Students will be more work ready when they leave school.

“While the work is in the early stages of implementation, it is going to make a difference to some of the poor statistics for youth employment highlighted by the Salvation Army in its report,” Mr Oldershaw said.

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