Source: Radio New Zealand
Less than 50 percent of trainees are completing apprenticeships. RNZ / Dom Thomas
Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds says she is seeking extra funding so new industry bodies can investigate low apprenticeship completion rates.
Speaking at the Vocational Education and Training Research Forum in Wellington, Simmonds said she was concerned that less than 50 percent of trainees completed their apprenticeships.
“It’s a problem because it’s a waste for those individuals that start and don’t complete. But it’s also a waste for the government in terms of investment so it’s really important that we do get more employers taking apprentices on, but also that we get more completions,” she told RNZ.
Simmonds said the government could help through policy settings and funding but the nature of the problem was likely to vary between industries.
She said she would put the issue to the Industry Skills Boards the government was setting up next year to replace Workforce Development Councils as standards-setting bodies for vocational education and training.
“I want the industry skills boards next year to be doing some research into this. It’s probably different by industry, it’s not a blanket across all. Some industries have high numbers of apprentices going into employment and some have better completion rates so I want it to be done by industry, by the industry skills boards,” she said.
Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds. RNZ / Mark Papalii
Research for the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, BCITO, presented at the conference indicated personal circumstances, redundancy, and poor support from training advisors were the most commonly-cited reasons that stopping an apprenticeship.
BCITO director Greg Durkin said it commissioned the research because its completion rate had been about 65 percent but withdrawal rates had risen.
He said it found the rate of withdrawal from its apprenticeships increased about 50 percent after the Covid-19 pandemic began and pay was a factor for some of those who left.
“We found that, simply put, where apprentices were moderately to well-paid in their apprenticeship role, they were less likely to withdraw from their apprenticeship than if they were poorly paid,” he said.
Durkin said it also found that apprentices were more likely to stay on if they felt their employer took a personal interest in them.
“Employers thought that some of the reasons for withdrawal might have been generational. That they weren’t understanding some of the needs and some of the things that would help them understand apprentices who were from a different generation from them,” he said.
Durkin said anecdotal reports suggested industries with high expectations for school-leavers’ NCEA qualifications seemed to be report better completion rates, and that link was worth more investigation.
MAST Academy chief executive Chris van der Hor said the marine technologies institute asked its apprentices several years ago the main reasons they stayed with an employer.
“What they told us, which we suspected but they confirmed, was that the culture of an organisation is critical to them staying,” he said.
“If they feel they belong and feel supported, part of the team, regardless of how big the organisation is, they’re more likely to be happy to turn up to work.”
Van der Hor said apprentices also said they wanted to learn, so their workplace trainers and mentors were critical, and they wanted work that matched their aspirations.
He said the institute had trained 100 workplace trainers so they understood what good training and mentoring looked like.
Global Apprenticeship Network executive director Kathryn Rowan said completion rates varied internationally but were higher than 80 percent in countries with a focus on work-based learning and apprenticeships.
“Strong alignment between educational institutions and the private sector is absolutely critical and making sure that what individuals are learning is applicable to the world of work so making sure that it stays up to date,” she said.
“Probably the most important thing I would say is the role that the coaches and the mentors play in advising young people. I think you can see that as well here in New Zealand that if there is a strong alignment and a connection between the coaches and the apprentices, the likelihood of them succeeding and completing their programme rises tremendously.”
Meanwhile, Penny Simmonds said the cost of standing-up independent polytechnics next year would be within the contingency the government had set aside several years ago.
She said 10 polytechnics would leave super-institute Te Pūkenga next year and become locally-run institutes next year, though two of those would belong to a federation designed to support weaker institutes.
Simmonds said the remaining four institutes would be considered early next year, but were expected to be part of the federation.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
