Education

November 2009 - Education Update

At the NCWNZ National Executive meeting held in Wellington on Suffrage weekend, 18 - 20th September, a resolution was passed: That NCWNZ urges the Government to reinstate full funding to all Adult and Community Education (ACE) programmes.

It is estimated that only about a third of schools presently offering government - subsidised programmes had applied to continue by 11 September. Many of the 212 ACE providing schools chose not to apply after seeing the stringent rules around funding. Schools had to provide a minimum of 400 ACE places per year and 50% of those taking part had to be Maori or Pasifika, have low literacy or sub-standard English. The courses had to have a graduation rate of 80% or more. The various factors mean that there is a strong possibility that only urban centres would have the necessary populations to run the government subsidised programmes. We will continue to work for the reversal of the government funding decision.

Forty percent of the 2000 places in tertiary education that will be provided for 16 and 17-year-olds under the government's Youth Guarantee initiative have been allocated to Auckland for next year. The places were allocated to regions of high need, based on the number of unemployed young people in the population and high quality proposals. Eighteen institutes of technology and polytechnics and 10 private providers throughout New Zealand have been approved to deliver the programmes. These include courses in tourism and travel, agriculture, building, plumbing, hospitality and catering.

According to a new Ministry of Education report, the proportion of early childhood education (ECE) services with waiting times over 6 months has increased by over 10% since 2006. The report noted that it was important to reduce these waiting times as children who attended ECE gained benefits that lasted through their early years in school and beyond.

The latest Education at a glance report said 41% of New Zealand's population aged 25-64 had a tertiary education in 2007, up from 27% a decade ago. (Education Review, Vol 14 No 35, September 11 2009, pg 5). The figure compares favourably with other developed nations, with 32 % in the UK and Australia's figure being 34%. A quarter of New Zealanders aged 25-64 had a degree as their highest qualification. NZ also had a relatively high proportion of adults with sub-degree tertiary qualifications as their highest qualification.