By RCNZ CEO Andrew Olsen
Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters says his song, We don’t need no education, was actually about British schools being more interested in keeping kids quiet than teaching them anything useful. I think New Zealand is in a similar place. I’m not anti-teachers – many do a fantastic job – but the education system desperately needs reform.
Our rural contractors and the farmers they support constantly struggle to attract skilled labour. Yet offer any primary school boy – and many girls – the chance to ride in a tractor cab (or fire engine) and their eyes light up. Sure, many kids grow out of childhood dreams about being a tractor driver or fire fighter – but not all. Our education system is poor at fostering and supporting those who are not suited to a more academic stream of study.I know of a provincial college principal who’s been frustrated by a long-serving careers adviser who tries to steer every pupil into a university degree. Lots of pupils give up and are often lost to alternative training options and potentially successful careers.
You’ve got to take your hat off to those who provide skills training, often done on a shoestring budget compared to a uni campus. Their intake regularly includes people who went to uni and then decided it wasn’t for them. Some could have been steered in the right direction from the start – not to mention avoiding student loans which don’t currently apply to trades. We need an education system that truly recognises the value and contribution of trades and skills training. There’s also a need to focus on lifting literacy and numeracy which often sees woeful results even when people finish school. NZ children used to lead the world in reading. Now our literacy rates have fallen so sharply that almost half our students are below their expected reading level when they finish primary school and one in five 15-year-olds do not have basic reading proficiency
Yes, Covid has impacted attendance and achievement but when a teenager finishes school unable to read, he or she will not have much of a career future; what job doesn’t require at least a basic level of literacy?
Rural Contractors NZ has been ramping up its focus on skills development – but they all involve an ability to read. We’ve worked with HanzonJobs to promote its initiative where trainees input their day’s work into a program which is then available to them and their employers as a work record. Obviously, they need to be able to read and write. We’ve established a National Training Council which is now driving the establishment of an apprenticeship-style qualification. Much of it will be job-based because our members can only get the results they need by showing recruits what needs to be done – and how – in a cab. Again, we need a level of literacy to make this work – and an education system that encourages young people to look at an option that quite literally is a bum on a seat, with only a fraction of the funding that is usually attached to this model.
The people I talk to – rural contractors, farmers, Government officials, trainers and even some in school sector – all agree that the biggest challenge this country faces is actually getting our education system re-focused. We can’t solve climate change or social inequality if we don’t have enough of our next generation equipped and trained to take on the challenges. Be that coming up with the climate mitigation to methane or driving the farm machinery that delivers that solution while helping feed the world.
Are any politicians listening this election year? Or will they all regard this plea as just another brick in the wall…
- Andrew Olsen is the Chief Executive of Rural Contractors NZ and a fan of better vocational education and Pink Floyd.