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Issue Eleven May 2009

 

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In this month’s edition we announce the release on new Ministry reports on 2008 enrolments; skills, qualifications and wages; field of study of bachelors students; Pasifika in tertiary education and completion trends. We also feature a recent study from Ako Aotearoa on the quality of vocational education and training research and some labour market reports available from the Department of Labour.

Tertiary education enrolments - 2008

The Ministry of Education has released a short report on tertiary education enrolments in 2008. It shows that:

• The shift from level 1 to 3 certificates to higher-level and longer qualifications (level 4 and above) continued in 2008
• More young New Zealanders – students under 25 years of age – studied bachelors degrees and graduate/postgraduate certificates and diplomas in 2008
• Formal tertiary education enrolments fell from 2007 to 2008. The main contributor to the overall decrease was the fall in domestic enrolments in level 1 to 4 certificates.

The report is available on the Education Counts website. Updated statistical tables with 2008 enrolments are also available on Education Counts.

Skills, qualifications and wages - an analysis from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey

This study used data from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey to look at the extent to which hourly wages can be explained by skills and qualifications across industries and occupations. Hourly wages can be viewed as a measure of employee productivity. The results show that qualifications and literacy and numeracy skills are both related to higher hourly wages. However, the effects differ across industries and occupations. In addition, age, gender and first-language also have an influence on wages.

The report is available on Education Counts.

Trends in fields of study of bachelors degree graduates in New Zealand

This report looks at trends in the fields of specialisation of bachelors degree graduates in New Zealand over the period 2002 to 2006. It uses newly developed, more detailed, and more reliable information on field of study than has previously been available.

Teacher education, business and management, and studies in human society, sales and marketing, law and nursing were the most common fields of specialisation for domestic bachelors graduates in 2006. The fastest growing areas have been biological sciences, law, communication and media studies, and social work and counselling. The fastest declining areas were information technology, teacher education, education studies, and accountancy.

The report also analyses field of study differences between provider types, domestic and international, male and female, and between different ethnic groups.

Accompanying this report is a large range of new statistical tables on field of study.

The report and tables can be found on Education Counts

Pasifika in tertiary education

Two factsheets have been produced on Pasifika in tertiary education. The first looks at all Pasifika students and the second provides information on the ethnicities of Pasifika tertiary education students.

The factsheets include information on students, the qualifications they are taking, where they are studying, field of study, student allowances and loans. The first factsheet also includes information on Pasifika employees in industry training and some comparisons with international students from the Pacific.

Both factsheets are on Education Counts: Pasifika in tertiary education and Pasifika tertiary education students by ethnicity

A closer look at completion in higher education in New Zealand

New Zealand has one of the lowest reported higher education qualification completion rates in the OECD, significantly below Australia. Why do so many New Zealand students not complete their qualification? This paper looks behind some of the numbers in an attempt to better understand and assess New Zealand’s performance compared with Australia and internationally. It looks, for example, at the impact of part-time and partial qualification study on completion rates. New Zealand has the highest reported level of part-time study in the OECD, and one in eight bachelor’s-degree students in New Zealand pass every subject they’ve enrolled in, yet have not completed their degree after five years. What does this tell us about intentions and about how we should gauge success?

The paper takes another look at some international comparisons focussing on full-time students, and also looks at the impact of transfers, changing qualifications, and what happens to rates when a ten-year window is taken instead of a five-year window.

This paper is available on Education Counts.

Enhancing the value and impact of research into vocational education and training: an Ako Aotearoa view

Vocational educators and trainers often bemoan the lack of research undertaken in their field and that policy and practice often lack a sound evidential base in New Zealand. However, Ako Aotearoa’s National Register of Research and Implementation projects conducted on vocational education and training / workplace learning between 2006 and 2008 identifies around 120 separate pieces of work. One has to ask, therefore, why this very considerable effort has had so little apparent impact on practice. The paper, prepared by Ako Aotearoa, explores why this might be the case.

Using Stokes’ concept of Pasteur’s Quadrant, the authors assessed a sample of 40 workplace learning research outputs on two dimensions: methodological integrity (as the key driver for extending fundamental understanding) and potential impact. They found that the majority of research (70%) was classified on the lower end of the range on both of these dimensions. Of the research classified more highly, most (25% of the total surveyed) scored well on both scales.

The authors conclude that in order to enhance the overall value and impact of research on educational practice, Ako Aotearoa needs to foster improved methodological integrity of research and to encourage researchers to consider more comprehensively the applications for use.

The paper is available on the Ako Aotearoa website.

Labour Market Reports from the Department of Labour

The Department of Labour has recently issued two sets of labour market reports.

The Labour Market Factsheets are designed to give quick facts about key interest groups in the New Zealand labour market. There are factsheets on five groups- Maori, Pacific Peoples, Females, Youth and Older Workers. They include information on indicators such as labour force participation, employment and unemployment.

These are available on the Department of Labour website.

The Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports provide regularly updated labour market information at a Regional Council level.

These are also available on the Department of Labour website.

Ordering hard-copy reports

We are encouraging greater use of the on-line copies of our reports and limiting the number of people we mail hard copies to. Hard copies are still available on request for most reports. If you would like a hard copy of any of our reports please email Kate Andrew.

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