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Develop the skills New Zealanders need for our knowledge society

Refer to Tertiary Education Strategy text for Strategy4

This strategy is outlined on pages 44–50 of the TES. It represents a critical area of skills development to support New Zealand’s long-term goals. For many TEOs, focus on this strategy will become increasingly important during the period of this STEP. ITOs will focus on progress towards the government’s participation target of 150,000 industrytrainees in 2005.

Strategy Four: Objectives

18. Accurate and timely skills forecasting capability

19. Industries are supported in meeting their self-identified skill needs

20. Equity of access and opportunity for all learners

21. Learners are equipped to make informed choices about career and learning options

22. Broader development of skills for active citizenship and the maintenance of New Zealand’s cultural identity

23. Improved provision of, and better systems of recognition for, high-level generic skills

24. Promotion of specialist skills that contribute to New Zealand’s development

Priorities for Tertiary Education Organisations

ITOs will begin to implement their new roles as strategic leaders in skill and training needs for the industries under their coverage during the period of this STEP. This includes identifying current and future skill needs for their industries. For ITOs, this will be key to the preparation of their strategic training plans to assist their industries to meet their identified current and future skills needs and in promoting training that will meet those needs to employers and employees.

More generally, TEOs should also give consideration to current and future skill needs as they work with their stakeholders to prepare their charters and profiles in line with Objective18. They should also continue to focus on Objective19, in order to meet better the skills requirements of end-users. Activity here should have a regional flavour where appropriate. Polytechnics may access the Regional Economic Development Fund in this regard. TEOs should also include, in their plans, descriptions of the proactive measures they will take, in accordance with Objective 20, to remove barriers to access and improve opportunity for learners. This should include planning for improved access and opportunity for disabled peoples, traditionally under-represented groups and learners from low-income backgrounds.

Some TEOs, such as universities, will also be focused on Objective24, and will work with stakeholders to identify the areas of specialist skills development in which they can best contribute to the overall portfolio of tertiary education provision, given their distinctive strengths. Universities, in particular, will also be maintaining their commitment to Objective22 and Objective23.

In preparation for a greater emphasis on this strategy area in the next STEP, all providers and ITOs should be considering how best to ensure that the tertiary education services they deliver are providing learners with the generic, transferable and high-level specialist skills required by the labour market. Those providers and ITOs investigating the development of unit standards or national qualifications in these areas should work with the NZQA to ensure that such development results in common understandings and applications of generic, transferable and high-level specialist skills.

PTEs may be considering a range of objectives under this strategy as they focus on their specialist areas of provision and prepare interim profiles in line with their defined and recognised strengths.

Priorities for Agencies

The Skills Action Plan will be implemented in accordance with Objective18 and Objective21. This is designed to speed up the matching of people’s skills to the job opportunities that are currently available and to reduce skill shortages in the future by helping people make better decisions about education and training. The Department of Labour is responsible for a number of key projects within that plan. These include an integrated website (workSITE Pae Mahi), which includes ‘what you want to know about the New Zealand labour market’, a six-monthly publication; Work INSIGHT; integrated data on employees and their jobs; a survey on job vacancies (the job vacancy monitoring programme); and designing a survey on the employment and earnings outcomes for tertiary graduates.

In the area of student financial support covered by Objective20, work will be undertaken to ensure that government assistance is targeted as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The MOE, the TEC, the NZQA and Career Services will respond to the recommendations of the Growth and Innovation Framework Taskforce reports, in line with Objective19 and Objective24. In relation to Objective24, the TEC will also pilot a suite of equity-based scholarships in 2004 to enable people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to undertake highcost tertiary education qualifications.

Career Services, MOE, and the TEC will focus on Objective21 in order to improve access to impartial information and advice on career and learning options.

During the period of this STEP, government will continue to extend workplace learning through its increased investments in industry training, Modern Apprenticeships and Gateway initiatives. The government, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand will increase the profile of workplace learning by way of the Tripartite Workplace Learning Initiative in support of Objective21. In liaison with other agencies, the TEC will also explore the potential for a National Centre for Vocational Education and Training Research. Career Service will also enhance the ‘KiwiCareers’ website to allow improved delivery of career and labour market information, which is tailored to meeting the needs of clients and the government.

Outcomes and successes: Strategy Four – industry training

The Hospitality Industry Training Organisation (Hospitality ITO) has recently begun offering qualifications in new areas of the industry, beyond traditional cookery apprenticeships. This provides access to qualifications for people who may never have had the chance to study in the past.

Today, well over half of the ITO’s trainees work in areas of the hospitality industry such as food and beverage services, accommodation services and hospitality operations such as functions servicing. Approximately two-thirds of the trainees in these new areas are female, and a significant number are Maori and Pacific peoples.

Many of these trainees had low qualifications when they began industry training with the ITO. These trainees now have the opportunity to progress through qualifications at levels 1–5 on the NQF while they are at work. With the support of industry the ITO has implemented several initiatives to enhance employees’ career pathways, including OASIS (school to work partnerships), LIAISE community liaison groups and GlobeQual International qualification recognition.

Outcomes and successes: Strategy Four – collaboration in optics

A good example of collaboration under way is an initiative involving the Open Polytechnic, Whitireia Community Polytechnic and Weltec, who were granted funding to support and develop the skills required for the optics and optical engineering industry. Optics is an important industry in the Wellington region that was facing significant problems with a lack of skilled labour. A National Optics cluster has been established to help advance the sector. The collaborative involvement of the polytechnics alongside this initiative is expected to contribute greatly towards its success.

This initiative is supported through the Polytechnic Regional Development Fund, which was established in 2002 to enable and encourage polytechnics to collaborate with local industry and enterprise. The aim is to develop skills-related initiatives that will support regional economic development. Nine projects have been funded to date.

Outcomes and successes: Strategy Four – ‘Take off to Tertiary’

Students at all levels need ready access to good information that can help guide their choices as to which course to study and which provider to choose.

On 7 November 2002, Career Services’ ‘Take off to Tertiary’ initiative was launched. This ongoing campaign aims to provide current and potential tertiary students with enhanced access to independent information and advice regarding tertiary education decisions, ultimately resulting in improved decision-making. Since the campaign’s launch:

approximately 4,000 people have accessed information about tertiary decision-making via the Career Services website (http://www.careers.govt.nz);
350 people have ‘chatted online’– this is a first-time government initiative to provide information and advice via an online chat with a CareerPoint Advisor;
students and potential students have called CareerPoint for information and advice relating to tertiary education (27,000 calls in total, of which a large number relate to the ‘Take off to Tertiary’ initiative); and
57,000 Take off to Tertiary ‘passports’ and 33,500 information leaflets have been distributed to students, potential students and key influencers.

Outcomes and successes: Strategy Four –Nelson – Marlborough seafood cluster

TEC has been actively involved in developing a ‘seafood cluster’ based around Nelson – Marlborough. The cluster aims to raise the competitiveness of this sector by networking with businesses and better aligning the government’s investments in education and research to the needs of the sector.

Part of the success has been in bringing together a diverse range of organisations to contribute to the cluster:

firms (for example, Sealord, Sanford, and Talleys);
local councils (Nelson, Tasman, and Marlborough);
educational organisations (for example Nelson–Marlborough Institute of Technology, Canterbury and Otago Universities);
research organisations (for example Crop & Food, NIWA and Cawthron Institute); and
other stakeholders such as the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, Port Nelson Ltd, Stevedoring Services (Nelson) Ltd, the TEC, the Department of Labour, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Seafood ITO.

These networks will help enable the achievement of the vision of Nelson- Marlborough as one of the world’s intellectual centres for the seafood industry.

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STEP 2 Strategy 4

Develop the skills New Zealanders need for our knowledge society

Priorities for Tertiary Education Organisations

Priorities for Agencies