Source: Radio New Zealand
Students in Years 9-10 should be able to enrol in a trades academy or similar programme to gain basic vocational skills, say experts. File photo. Supplied/ UCOL
Secondary schools will have to work a lot closer with polytechnics and employers to realise the government’s goals for its new “vocational subjects”, say industry leaders.
The government has designated some subjects “vocational” meaning their curriculum and qualification will be developed by the Industry Skills Boards it is setting up next year to set trade training standards for apprenticeships and work-place learning.
Industry and school sector delegates to the Vocational Education and Training Research Forum run in Wellington this week by training providers the Skills Group and the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation told RNZ the reform would require a huge step up in the availability of work experience placements and in schools’ use of training options like Trades Academies where students attended a tertiary institute for trade training.
Skills Group head of consulting Josh Williams said the changes could rebalance the school system to better recognise vocational and trades subjects, especially if teenagers could enrol in tertiary courses and get work experience at the same time as attending school.
“At the moment there is a lot of fantastic innovation and a lot of very good vocational pathways delivery happening, but it’s capped and it’s trapped in schemes like Gateway and Trades Academies, and there’s little pockets of money here and there,” he said.
“To make this systemic we really do want to promote more of that kind of dual-enrolment opportunity that’s already enabled, that doesn’t require legislation change.”
Williams said students could spend some of their time in school, some with a tertiary provider, some with an employer and seamlessly progress into an apprenticeship.
“I think that’s a fantastic vision and I actually think it can be done,” he said.
Williams said the main shortcoming for employers in terms of school-leavers’ skills and knowledge was not so much industry-specific skills but basic foundation skills, literacy and numeracy.
New Zealand Initiative senior fellow Michael Johnston advised the government on curriculum changes and advocated for a stronger vocational education in secondary schools.
He told the conference vocational subjects could use “skill standards” rather than unit standards in the new secondary school qualification that would replace NCEA from 2029, but the standards might have to be assessed on-the-job rather than in a classroom.
He said schools could not possibly teach vocational subjects on their own.
“A lot of these vocational subjects are going to require some work-integrated learning, that is students out in the workplace learning on the job. They’re going to have to be able to have dual-enrolments with polytechnics because schools are not set up to just teach across all of the vocational areas,” he told RNZ.
“They’ll need support from the ISB’s. They’ll need to be partnered with industry, with polytechs and other training organisations, and there will have to be some changes to the funding model to make that happen.”
Johnston said the ISBs could be tasked with arranging work placements for schools.
Engineering teacher Dave Brewerton said schools in small centres would certainly need help.
“Each school or each careers space within that school will need to go out and talk to local industry, build up those relationships, and effectively beg and promise to be able to gather those placements for those students,” he said.
“That’s quite a large ask not only for the schools, but it’s also a big ask for the local businesses and it makes it really difficult, particularly for more regional schools that don’t have the same access to those resources.”
The co-chair of the Construction Centre of Vocational Excellence and director of training provider Vertical Horizonz Phil Hokianga said he wanted to see more opportunities for rangatahi who needed direction in their first years at high school.
He said students in Years 9-10 should be able to enrol in a trades academy or similar programme to gain basic vocational skills.
“Then they go through the process of learning the skills required to then get to a stage where they can be doing taster programmes to see if they want to be a chippy, to see if they want to be an electrician, to see what tickles their fancy and do that in the comfort of being already in the system,” he said.
“They’re getting a pathway into a journey to be able to start an apprenticeship. I think that’s the part that’s missing.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
