Fact sheets: $57 million boost to get young people into education, training or work

The Government is committing $56.9 million over 4 years on an integrated package of initiatives to assist young people making the transitions from school to further education, training or work.

Designing Careers

This new initiative involves a two year pilot to improve career planning in schools.

Individual Learning and Career Plans will be piloted in 75 selected schools to help students create a coherent and flexible programme of learning that leads to higher achievement and successful transitions from school into work, education or training. The plans will also help keep track of students' learning and career development. Every student in Year 10 on the pilot will prepare an individual learning and career plan with assistance from parents and caregivers, the careers advisor and their form teacher. The pilots will extend to those students in Years 11, 12 and 13 who have been identified as at risk of not making a successful transition from school.

The planning process involved will help students set goals, review and assess their achievements through the senior secondary school and beyond. The pilot will run over two years including development and evaluation time. Career Services will provide professional support and resources to these schools to support the implementation of the plans.

In addition, this initiative includes funding for research to develop a stronger evidence base on what constitutes effective career information, advice and guidance in New Zealand schools.

Career information, advice and guidance is implicit in the New Zealand curriculum, and explicitly required under the National Administration Guidelines. These guidelines require schools to provide appropriate career education and guidance for all students in Year 7 and above, with a particular emphasis on specific career guidance for those students who have been identified by the school as being at risk of leaving school unprepared for the workplace or further education/training.

Evidence shows that schools need more support to meet this requirement and this pilot will inform government decisions regarding the support needed for quality career planning in schools.

By valuing and using career planning skills, students will be more prepared to make informed education and career decisions. The way students learn to manage their careers is a key contributor to their social and economic well-being. This benefits individuals, employers and society as a whole.

The Designing Careers pilot will make a strong contribution to Government’s shared goal with the Mayors’ Taskforce for Jobs to have all 15-19-year-olds in appropriate education, training or work by the year 2007. The pilot is an initial step towards the improvement of career planning in all schools. Pilot schools will be selected to cover a diverse range of criteria, including region, school type, and decile, in order to provide accurate information about the level of resourcing necessary to effectively implement the plans.

More STAR Support for Senior Secondary Students
The effectiveness of the STAR (Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource) programme in schools is to be enhanced. STAR assists senior secondary school students to find suitable work or further study at secondary or tertiary level by enabling schools to:

- Facilitate smooth progress and access from schooling to employment, including work-based learning; or tertiary type study or training; and

- Improve retention in senior secondary schooling.

Five permanent school support positions at colleges of education throughout New Zealand and a position in the Ministry of Education will be created to co-ordinate the implementation and evaluation of senior secondary transition education programmes. In addition to providing programme support to schools for STAR and Gateway (a workplace learning programme available in decile 1-5 secondary schools), the advisors would link with Tertiary Education Commission regional advisors and Industry Training Organisations to build on the connections between different programmes.

Best practice materials will be developed in different formats, such as printed material or videos, giving schools accessible resources that can be used to improve the effectiveness of their STAR programmes.

This package further provides for ongoing monitoring of STAR and senior secondary transition programmes so that opportunities for improving outcomes for students can be identified.

Government has already committed $23.5 million dollars per year to STAR, an integral part of supporting senior secondary school students. Enhancing the STAR programme supports the Government’s shared goal with the Mayors’ Taskforce for Jobs, that by 2007 all 15-19 year olds will be in appropriate education, training or work that leads to long term economic independence and well-being.

New Youth Transitions Service

The Government is establishing a new transitions service for young people who are at risk of not finding education, training or work after leaving school.

At any point in time there are around 18,000 15-17 year-olds not in work, education or training. For some of these young people, this experience can reduce their chances of finding employment in the long-term, and increase their chances of experiencing mental ill health or becoming engaged in criminal offending. There is currently no means of ensuring this group of young people get the information and support they need to take up work, education or training opportunities.

The transitions service will be delivered by a lead provider in each area who will:
- Engage with school leavers and young people who are not in work, education or training by developing informed consent referral processes with the help of schools, families/whänau, Police, Child, Youth and Family, health, education and training providers
- Provide customised support and career planning for young people at risk of prolonged disengagement from work, training or education
- Work with local employers, training and education providers to identify and support the development of appropriate opportunities for young people
- Help integrate youth services in each area

The Transition Service will be progressively rolled-out, with five sites established early next year, ten sites in 2006, and fourteen sites in 2007. Priority will be given to those regions that have both a high number of disengaged young people and socio-economic deprivation as well as the community capability to deliver the service.

Lead providers will be identified through a joint community planning process that will include front line government agencies, local authorities and community groups. The planning process will also identify existing premises in the community from where the services could be delivered. This might be a school, a youth one-stop-shop, a community trust building or a government front line agency. The planning process will also ensure the transitions service is integrated into services already in place in the community. The Ministry of Social Development will work with local mayors to coordinate and fund the planning process.

A national advisory group will be established to support the implementation of the new service and it will include officials from the Ministry of Social Development, Tertiary Education Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Department of Labour, the Ministry of Justice, and a representative of the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs.

The Youth Transitions Service will make a significant contribution to Government’s shared goal with the Mayor’s Taskforce to have all 15-19 year olds in work, education or training, by the year 2007.

Enhancing Gateway

The Gateway programme will be expanded and enhanced. From 2005, Gateway opportunities will be expanded to decile 6 schools. Gateway opportunities will be available to all decile 1-6 schools in 2008.

Gateway is a programme that integrates structured workplace learning with senior students’ classroom based learning. Students achieve credits in the workplace, which they can use towards qualifications on the National Qualifications Framework.

There are a number of components to this initiative:
- Expanding Gateway to all decile 6 schools by 2008;
- Increasing the number of decile 1-5 schools participating in Gateway; and
- An independent review of Gateway funding in 2004/05 to enable improvements to the funding model to be developed.

While decisions on the numbers of new schools and their geographic distribution will not be finalised until Profiles are signed off by Tertiary Commissioners in September 2004, the additional funding in Budget 2004, together with existing funding, will provide for:
- Approximately 30 new decile 1-5 schools providing Gateway opportunities in 2005, which would take the total number to 150 decile 1-5 schools, equal to 74% of all decile 1-5 schools.
- Approximately 10 new decile 6 schools in 2005, equal to 25% of all decile 6 schools, with approximately 400 students taking part.

The new funding should see Gateway opportunities available to over 6000 senior school students in approximately 160 schools in 2005 compared with 4000 senior secondary school students in 126 schools this year.

The proposed numbers, and the geographic distribution of these numbers, will be dependent on having a suitable number of schools ready to deliver Gateway at a sufficient level of quality.

Gateway has a proven record of facilitating education achievement for Year 11-13 students and staircasing them into further education or moving them into employment. Improving achievement in education and employment is vital to building New Zealand’s productivity, addressing skill shortages and improving economic growth.

Gateway is a key feature of the government’s work on successful youth transitions, and contributes to the goal that by 2007, all 15-19 year olds will be engaged in appropriate education, training, employment or other options which will lead to long term economic independence and well-being.

Expanding Modern Apprenticeships

The Government is expanding the Modern Apprenticeships programme to 8,000 Modern Apprentices by June 2006.

Modern Apprenticeships is designed to increase the participation of young people in formal industry training and to reinforce the concept of apprenticeships pathways to employers and young people.

Expanding Modern Apprenticeships will increase the ability of industries to develop their skills base. Employers will be capable of planning with more certainty, knowing that the skilled workforce they require will be facilitated through options such as Modern Apprenticeships.

Modern Apprenticeships is now a proven initiative, with demand for places and interest among employers high. Since Modern Apprenticeships was introduced nationally from 2001, all participation targets set for it have been met, with growth in numbers particularly high since 2002.

In September 2003, the Government announced additional funding to the progamme to achieve an additional 500 Modern Apprentices by June 2004. This was in response to high demand for Modern Apprenticeships among young people and employers. This Budget 2004 initiative further raises the bar, aiming to achieve 8,000 Modern Apprentices over the same timeframe as the previous target of 7,500 (by June 2006).

Modern Apprentices and their employers are assisted by a “Modern Apprenticeships Co-ordinator” who recruits/establishes the Modern Apprenticeship, develops an individual training plan and supports the training through to the apprentice’s completion of a national qualification at levels 3 or 4 on the National Qualifications Framework.

Training Incentive Allowance Pilot for Teenage Parents

A pilot programme is being established to determine whether the Training Incentive Allowance could be used to encourage teenage parents to remain in, or return to education.

Under the three year pilot, 200 teenage parents will be provided with access to the Training Incentive Allowance to help overcome financial barriers to education including childcare, transport and course related costs.

Some teen parents do not meet eligibility criteria for the Training Incentive Allowance because they do not receive the Emergency Maintenance Allowance, or Domestic Purposes Benefit. The number of teen parents in this situation is expected to increase over the next five years with demographic increases in the number of 15-19 year old New Zealanders.

An evaluation of the Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) found that people receiving Domestic Purpose Benefit payments or similar are more likely to move into part-time or full-time employment after participating in the TIA programme.

The pilot will contribute to the Government’s Youth Transition goal of having by 2007 all 15-19 year olds in work, education or training or other activities that contribute to their long term economic independence and wellbeing.

ENDS

© Scoop Media