Month: October 2022

There seemed to be no complaints this year as the recent holiday and passes us by and even the business sector didn’t have a complaint about the millions that were squandered on frivolities and especially holidays.

I have always felt that a holiday that supports a good cause is time well spent. There could be some grizzles about these untidy times what with the urgencies of the epidemics. However one cannot begrudge the populations for the Holiday that was a kind of thank you from the royals and Kign Charles IIIand his Mum, the late Queen Elizabeth. Goodness me – most of us have been born and brought up and entered a more elderly phase under her shadow.

What really gets me is the damned behaviour of the 50% of students continue to who break the law and seem to do this in the knowledge of their parents or whoever looks after them.My observation is that this lifestyle ins continuing spread well evenly across the social  spectra.

Attendance at school is, dear people, compulsory  for people under the age of 16 years.and  those who blatantly break the law are breaking the law of the land in a very very damaging way. Will those who are young law-breakers thank their parents in their middle ages when they discover that they are good for little. Having flippantly passed their schooling.by.

In one of these postings I repeatedly asked some questions about this ugly phenomenon the most one being important being   WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SCALE OF TRUANCY TO GET OUT OF HAND?   Supplementary questions might ask   WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC FISCAL DAMAGE TO THE ECONOMY? or is this simply an out-of-hand shambles?

It is bad enough for jus to have allowed the growth of NEETs. Are we going to allow TaLTTnaTC. become the sum that officials care!!

TALTNATC  Truants at Large Thumbing Their Noses at Communities (and the Government and its agencies)

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Last Friday saw a significant event in the history of technical and skill education – possibly the most significant in the history of New Zealand education. 

In the beginning technical education had found in the secondary technical high schools which provided smooth transitions into employment. Then followed the period of the sector comprised of the polytechnic and technical institutions which was something of a sector that in its early days thought it had grown up with the right to offer degree programmes but but this was blunted by a commitment to growth. That period was relatively devoid of ideas both for increasing numbers and seeing the critical need to understand the need to create sound links between the top of the secondary system and the subtle issues faced. Students were clustered around the point where students were disengaging from Year 11 and 12 where the programmes were no longer able to excite students sufficiently – they simply left, ill-prepared to meet the needs of what was once the inevitable next step – work and employment. Instead, NEETs flourished.

So, the three waves of technical education have been replaced in a bold move – Te Pukenga. The outpouring of confidence and excitement early Friday morning last filled me with an enthusiasm for amalgamation – an amalgamation of the polytechnics and technical institutes working under one banner with skills organisations who seemed not to have dropped the plot. I suggest that with strong leadership, and it is now getting this, it could be a winner’

What will be needed will be capturing the best ideas and engaging the best of the most successful people from those already in the sector. Progress up until now has been cautious, speed will be required.

What needs to be done?  Here are three which ideas that can happen quickly.

• This amalgamation is not about continuation – it is about new ways of working such as continuing the recently learnt skills of delivering on-line.
• The Tertiary Technical Curriculum needs renewing – fewer programmes, points of difference between the University and the Pukenga, programmes taught in multiples sites (easing access for students).
• And, no apology for saying this! GET TO GRIPS WITH SECONDARY / TERTIARY PROGRAMMES:

1. There exists a finished regulatory system to deliver all Trades Academy and Tertiary High School Programmes.
2. Funding is in place.
3. Other issues have been solved (Under Sixteen-year-old-Students enrolled in two institutions, schools accept students being away in the academies, etc, etc.
4. Trades Academy/ Tertiary High School programmes belong in the Pukenga basket! Quick wins!
5. Curriculum in place – just waiting to be Pukenga People!!

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