how will schools decide who takes an academic or vocational path?

The government wants secondary schools to play a bigger role in preparing students for the working world by building vocational education and training (VET) into the curriculum. But a paradigm shift will be required for that to succeed – especially from industry.

The structural reform to school-based qualifications was proposed in the NCEA consultation document released earlier this month, with public submissions closing on September 15.

If introduced, it would effectively see New Zealand return to a “tracking” system where students are grouped into either academic or vocational pathways. The vocational pathway will include a dual mix of workplace and classroom learning.

The proposed change perhaps wasn’t surprising, given support for such a policy from the influential New Zealand Institute think tank and its evident influence on the current government’s education policies.

But the idea has merit, and dual systems operate successfully in other parts of the world.

More structured vocational education and training could be a solution to the problem of low student numbers in work-based learning, low school engagement and skill shortages in key industries.

But successful implementation will be a challenge, not least for employer and industry organisations. The proposed industry skills boards, due to be launched in 2026, will be vital to making such a system work in schools.

Changing the current dichotomy of a growing skill shortage crisis and stubbornly high youth unemployment will also require industry to do its part. Training apprentices costs money.

Lessons from Germany

Details on the VET in schools proposals are light at this stage. But it is envisaged the industry skills boards will shape subjects and develop skill standards to be delivered in partnership with tertiary providers.

The New Zealand Institute has been enthusiastic about the German model, where students in upper secondary school who are not destined for university engage in programmes that combine school-based learning with workplace-based training.

But even this system – established, highly organised and with infrastructure built over generations – is experiencing problems. Recent research highlights declining participation rates, equity and access issues, and concerns about balancing practical training with broader personal and civic development.

Apprenticeships in Germany apply to a vast number of occupations, too, including banking and insurance, healthcare and social services, retail, IT and media, transport and logistics.

The German system is also highly regulated, with professional associations or chambers (which evolved from trades guilds) involved to ensure quality is maintained. There is oversight of companies certified to provide apprenticeships.

A cost-sharing model sees enterprises cover the wages of apprentices and pay the salary of a trainer. And there is a legal requirement for companies to employ at least one qualified trainer to support apprentices.

Most importantly, the German system recognises high-quality vocational education is a product of well-trained teachers. Its status (as is also the case in Switzerland) is partly due to the recognised expertise of teachers who have degree-level learning and qualifications on top of industry experience.

Teacher qualification questions

The consultation document suggests tertiary education organisations will work alongside schools to provide the new VET subjects. But New Zealand VET teachers, while highly skilled in their occupations, are not trained secondary teachers.

They may or may not have an adult teaching qualification. If they do, it will likely be a competency-based, pre-degree certificate. Their experience in working at secondary level is likely to be minimal, too.

In contrast, secondary teachers are registered and required to renew their practising certificate every three years. Beside their teaching and disciplinary qualifications, they operate under codes of professional responsibility, ethics and standards.

Under any new system, VET teachers and trainers will have to be prepared and supported, with pathways for upskilling or re-skilling. Then there is the vexed question of who will pay.

Lessons from history

New Zealand’s previous experiment with a tracking system – firstly within secondary schools and then with the introduction of special “technical high schools” – was not successful.

It was eventually dismantled amid concerns it was replicating existing social inequities, entrenching class divisions and limiting opportunities for students on vocational pathways. Ultimately, there was little public support.

NCEA was designed to integrate the vocational with the academic. But without sufficient change management, teachers and schools largely provided the education most familiar to them – the academic pathway to university. Industry had little involvement.

New Zealand has tended to borrow education policy based on overseas trends without due diligence for local needs. The Tomorrow’s Schools reforms of the 1980s, national standards in the 2010s, the most recent curriculum changes and structured literacy reforms, can all be traced back to the United States and Britain.

This time, New Zealand needs to be wary of simply adopting bits of policy from another country without careful, systematic consideration. While the German dual system might be the basis of a good idea, using one or two schools as initial case studies would be advisable.

Given the scale of the proposed changes, and in light of previous experience with technical schools and tracking systems, parents might now ask two important questions: how will it be decided whether a student takes an academic or VET track, and who will make that decision?