Tag: work

Talk-ED: The Aspirations of a Three-year Old

Published on April 22, 2013

Chatting to a friend over the weekend she was telling us about her grandson. I will call him Taylor for that is his name; he is three years old, lively and normal. In response to a question about what he was going to do in the future he told his Nana that when he was five he would go to school and after that he would go to university. “Why will you do that?” his Nana asked. Quick as a shot the answer cane back – “To get a job!”

And that is the middle class advantage, growing up with a possibility that develops into an expectation and becomes an aspiration. I would be certain that Taylor doesn’t really understand at this point just what it means. He will know about school because they walk past the local school often enough. He will know about jobs because Mum and Dad both have them. But already the connections between schooling, postsecondary education and training and jobs are starting to grow in his mind.

Middle class children get all this with their cornflakes. It’s part of the chatter that goes on in those homes and it becomes a powerful factor in sustaining young people such as Taylor through the 16 or so years that come between his simple plan and the future.

So starting the talk about jobs as an outcome of education is very important. But it often is hidden behind a number of myths.

Myth 1.

Most of the young people we are teaching will end up in jobs that have not yet been invented.

This is patently untrue. Most young people in education now will go into jobs that exist now and many will work in jobs that have been around for a long time. Those who do go into the cutting edge of employment, into the jobs that are really new are not these novice workers starting out but the experienced, highly skilled and workers. The jobs the children in classrooms now will need to be skilled and prepared for are the jobs that are out there now.

Myth 2.

We have to prepare young people for a future in which they will have seven careers.

“Career” is a very funny word. Can you set out to have a “career” or does one simply emerge from the set of activities and experiences that are accumulated over time? Is a “career” something you look back on, a useful term that means all the bits and pieces I have done? Is there a difference between changing your job quite a bit and a career that is usually applied to substantial experience in the same vocational area? And that’s the point – we have changes in our jobs bit not necessarily a change of jobs. I have had one job all my working life but I have had six positions. I am an educator – I guess that is my career – but I have added skills as different positions have demanded them.

Preparing young people to get into the workforce – to make a start in a career by getting a job – is a key outcome for schooling and tertiary education and training.

Myth 3.

There aren’t any jobs out there.

Try telling that to employers desperate for skilled workers. There are jobs for those adequately prepared. The sad truth about youth unemployment is not that young people are unemployed, although that in itself is not to be desired, but that so many young people are unemployable. You hear quite a lot of talk about university graduates who are clearly under-employed, that is to say that they are working in jobs that require skills and knowledge at a much lower level than their qualification demands. That is not a good thing at all. But with young people who are perhaps early school leavers, the skills of employment are a balance of practical skills as well as what is called the “soft skills” demanded by employers.

These so-called soft skills are attributes such as a strong work ethic, a positive attitude good communication skills, time management abilities, problem-solving skills, acting as a team player, self-confidence, ability to accept and learn from criticism, flexibility/adaptability, and working well under pressure. How would our students score if those were the heading on their report card? And could we point with confidence to our programmes and show that each of these is explicit in them?

Add to this that employment also requires knowing other things as well – language, mathematics, science of one kind or another and so on.

Yes, Taylor has got quite a lot to do before he gets that job!

Announcing the Bridging the Divides Conference

For more information, please contact the Manukau Insitute of Technology Centre for Studies in Multiple Pathways, Colleen Young:

E: [email protected] or P: 09 968 7631.

Talk-ED: It all seems to work!

Published on September 5, 2011

Stuart Middleton
EdTalkNZ
5 September 2011

An interesting report[1] recently released by NCVER in Australia paints a picture for us of impact of work on school and postsecondary outcomes. This is timely with the general concern that so many students and especially those from lower socio-economic stressed areas, have to work to keep themselves and their families moving forward or perhaps even just standing still.

It is popularly thought that it has a negative effect on their educational progress.

This is a new worry really because in a previous generation after-school work was common and a welcome source of that little bit extra. But those jobs have increasingly been taken over by adults who cobble together a living through a collection of casual work.

What did the researchers find out?

That typically, students work 11-12 hours each week and females work a little more than males. The impact of this becomes slightly negative when the hours worked become greater but females manage the balance better than males. The most positive impact is that work while at school will lead to a better outcome in terms of finding fulltime employment after schooling has been completed.

This is in some ways not surprising but it does raise the question of what school systems do to assist with the sound management of a balance between work and schooling. School timetables can be relentless in their requirements and do not seem to be flexible in so many ways. Ought it to be possible for students to be able to undertake some work in a coherent manner without added pressure either to be at school so much and perhaps even being given credit for the work that they are doing?

This is simply “work experience” I hear some say. Well yes it is and there is a consistent drive on currently to see that increased work experience, becomes part of the senior school years. So perhaps the addition to work experience within a programme of work experience that students have the initiative to get outside of the programme could be given as much credit.

The skills of employment are learned by practising them in real settings with real employers and real customers – they do not lend themselves so well to classrooms although some of them can be simulated and certainly others can be practised – punctuality for instance.

I admire greatly the commitment in the USA to service education in education institutions. The way in which where possible students are employed creates a feeling of acknowledgement of the interface between education and employment that the faculty have successfully negotiated but which still faces the students. When I was a secondary Principal the school employed a number of students and I regretted that they did not receive formal credit for it but they were early days of qualifications frameworks and suchlike.

School to work is yet another transition that is hard and occurs too often at a point in time. The US makes very effective use of internships (often unpaid) and cadetships to provide work across transition points in education. Industry projects characterise some courses and of course the earn / learn options are becoming increasingly common. But they are generally a feature of postsecondary education and training. What about secondary education?

All the evidence increasingly points to the importance of work and career orientation for young people during their secondary schooling. Perhaps we should be negotiating agreements with local employees for work opportunities like we used to have – the after school job, the weekend job, the casual job.

Rather than get all tied up about youth rates and suchlike, let’s place value on the experience that it brings to young people, not to mention the positive impact on outcomes when it is balanced and in proportion.

[1] Alison Anlezelark and Patrick Lim (2011) Does combining school and work affect school and post school outcomes?, Adelaide, National centre for Vocational Education Research.

Talk-ED: The Great Big Smouldering Issue!

Published on August 23, 2011

Stuart Middleton
EdTalkNZ
22 August 2012

It’s funny how you can be busily engaged in something at home and yet you can smell the pot starting to burn on the stove. You only hope that it is not too late and that neither the veges or the pot are beyond retrieval.

I instinctively feel that I can smell an educational pot starting to burn – the issue of youth unemployment, youth disengagement from school and teenage parents.

Increasingly you read reports and studies that have titles such as The Silent Epidemic and The Forgotten Half. Such titles capture pretty well the nature of this building crisis. It is reaching proportions where half of youth between 15 and 24 years are caught up in youth unemployment and/ or disengagement and it has crept up on us. This is at least worrying and at worst disastrous.

In twenty or so years time this considerable part of a generation will be aged between 35 and 44 years old, be parents, and be a critical segment of a New Zealand economy. Can we maintain our standard of living if this group has little potential to create wealth? Can we expect their children to succeed where they have failed? Can we expect this large group not to be a charge against the state?

I have written plenty about disengagement and policies such as the current Youth Guarantee set of initiatives that will help. But more fundamental changes are required in our schools. Multiple pathways through which young people have a range of options that lead them through to university and polytechnics, through to real qualifications that will ease their entry into the workforce, bring incomes (both to them through wages and to us through the tax they pay) and provide them with the wherewithal to support their families well through education.

So we need to keep on working on those areas but with greater urgency, wider reach and more marked impact.

I read in the newspapers that the Irish are to supply some of the labour required for the reconstruction of Christchurch. I can accept that we could be short on middle level experience – just as a basketball coach cannot teach height, an education provider cannot teach experience. But when it comes to raw grunt that is qualified to entry level, those jobs should go to New Zealanders and young New Zealanders at that.

This might require the Government to create jobs. But we are dealing with crisis here, both in post-quake Christchurch and in the slowly awakening education community. It would be my guess that we could easily train 5,000 young people to enter the workforce in Christchurch to work under supervision within 6 months and to maintain a supply after that. We did it after World War II, why not again now? Polytechnics could be challenged to meet these deadlines and to put into place an ongoing training capability in Christchurch. What about reinventing the “night school”? Drawing a workforce for Christchurch from across the youth of New Zealand has the advantage of returning qualified and experienced workers to many parts of New Zealand when the task is done.

What a golden opportunity we could make out of the unfortunate events. Construction, infrastructure, plumbing, painting, concrete workers, structural engineers and many more – we are here presented with real work to put alongside real training and real qualifications.

I can imagine that all this would not be greeted with joy by those managing the construction contracts but surely some additional support could be given to them to get this major training endeavour under way.

It is said that the needs of Christchurch in terms of rebuilding will take 10 or more years to complete so the timeframes here could change a whole generation and be the step change required if we are to return to an education system that will set most young people off on the pathways to prosperity. An approach like this could take the shape of a NZ Trades Corp.

Teen parents also require a special effort. There are it seems 28,000 young parents who were they not young parents, would be included in the statistics for NEETS (those not in employment, education or training). It seems crazy to simply accept that this group should be inactive (granted there is the not underestimated activity of parenthood) and special programs could easily be put into place for them surely. The great success over many years of units for teen mums would encourage us to set our sights high for the larger group.

There is an urgency about our seeking responses to the unsustainable size of the half of our young people who are dropping out of education and training and possibly out of sight. Bill Gates used to say that we should do something about all this because it is hurting them. He now says we should do something because it is hurting us!

Do I smell a pot burning or is it Rome?

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