KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark today announced a new age of 18, instead of 16, for students to either stay at school or be in approved vocational training.
She also announced the roll-out of an extensive new youth apprenticeship scheme across the schooling system, in a bid to keep more young people in education and training.
The policy, finalised yesterday by the Cabinet, vastly extends what is to be piloted this year in 10 schools in a bid to bring the world of work and school closer together.
The policy is expected to cost more than $150 million a year.
The scheme allows Youth Apprenticeships students - as young as 14 - to gain NCEA credits, work towards a tertiary, industry or trades-based qualification and get a head start on an apprenticeship while still at school.
Helen Clark said: "The policy I am announcing today is for all young people to be in school or some other form of education or of training until they reach the age of eighteen."
She gave hints in her speech to the Labour Party conference in November that major moves on education and training and the school leaving age were being contemplated.
She made her announcements at a business breakfast in Henderson this morning, her first major speech of the year.
Part of the state-of-the nation speech by National leader John Key yesterday addressed a similar theme.
He announced a Youth Guarantee entitlement for school leavers to limited free training or education courses - a policy he estimates will cost $100 million a year.
But much of his speech focused on youth crime and punishment policy, including allowing the Youth Court to order surveillance of youths through ankle bracelets, extending the court's jurisdiction beyond 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds to 12- and 13-year-olds, and reviving boot camps.
Helen Clark said yesterday that Mr Key's speech had "lacked ambition".
Her speech this morning also touched on Labour's economic record saying her Government had led the economy "through its longest run of economic growth since the Second World War" and created 360,000 more jobs.
"What we build has to be solid and substantial - not a flash in the pan - and it has to endure," Helen Clark said.
Climate change was again one of the focuses of her speech, saying the good news was that "the New Zealand clean and green brand is strong".
She said last night, in a swipe at Mr Key's speech: "I will be giving a speech which is more broadly focused but also focuses on potential and opportunity rather than what you might call 'deficit'."
The participation levels of young people in education or training has been of concern to the Government.
Ministry of Education figures show that in 2006, 29 per cent of school students had left school before their 17th birthday.
The figures are much worse for Maori students, those in low-decile schools, and regional areas.
The schools that will be involved in the pilot are Aotea College, Porirua; Ashburton High; Hamilton's Fraser High; Te Puke High; Hauraki Plains College; Howick College; Otahuhu College; Queen Charlotte College, Marlborough; Queen's High, Dunedin; and Whangarei Boys' High.
The Distance Education Association of New Zealand, which promotes open learning for students and teachers, said keeping students in training could be difficult for teachers.
President Sally Rawnsley, who also works at the Open Polytechnic, said the funding model of tertiary education needed to be looked at because providers were encouraged to "go it alone" with the equivalent full-time students funding model in place.
"In the past, polytechnics were funded, and still are to a large extent, based on the number of students they have and that means you're not going to share your students with someone else," Ms Rawnsley said.
She said that could get in the way of partnerships being forged.
Ms Rawnsley said keeping all students in school until the age of 18, some against their will, would make teachers' jobs difficult. She said imaginative solutions would be needed to find education providers or training for those that didn't want to stay in school.
Ms Rawnsley said Ms Clark made the point that no one agency could do it alone and there needed to be a collaborative approach.
She said there was an important role for distance education in the retraining of the current workforce, a point that Ms Clark also picked up on.
"For example the trades, the distance part of it will mainly be the theory and then there will need to be partnerships and collaboration to do the practical part of it," Ms Rawnsley said.
She said there could be a role for government in bridging the gap between education providers and employees.
additional reporting: Claire Trevett, Edward Gay and Martha Mckenzie-Minifie.
