Developing the Next Generation: Employer-Led Channels for Education Employment Linkages

Recent research in New Zealand has identified that young New Zealanders in education are experiencing problems as they prepare for employment. The New Zealand Council for Educational Research Pathways and Prospects study, for example, is following over 100 young people in their first four years after leaving school (Vaughan, 2005; Vaughan et al, 2006). It reports that many young people in the first months of choosing a post-school pathway feel they have not received enough good guidance at school to make their decisions. A year later, many remain confused about how to get help. The Marsden Fund project, In Transition, identified similar concerns among another group of over 100 young people as they left school (Higgins and Nairn, 2006). Apart from a minority who had made an early career choice, these young people did not find the career information provided to them helpful in their choicemaking. The majority found it confusing to be faced with so much information and so many apparent choices; few were able to make judgements about the quality of the material they encountered. A PhD thesis at the University of Canterbury highlighted the particular difficulties young Maori students experience after leaving school (Phillips, 2003).