KEY POINTS:
Teenagers dropping out of school too young and without basic qualifications are in the sights of both Labour and National.
The major parties announced multimillion-dollar plans to attack the problem as early as January this year but months on, many in the education sector say they are still in the dark how the politicians will actually do it.
Neither Labour nor National has released its full education policy yet. The complete documents - expected from Labour today - could include more details.
Educationists believe the big gap between the country's highest achievers and those at the bottom is a huge problem.
About 34 per cent of students leave school without level two NCEA.
Manukau Institute of Technology external relations director Dr Stuart Middleton said Labour's Schools Plus and National's Youth Guarantee plans both took aim at the issue and were the most important education announcements so far this campaign.
"It is absolutely critical that we have some change happening between the age of 15 and 19. There is just so much evidence that what we are doing is just not working for a group of students - and the cost of that to the country is huge."
But some critics said high school was too late for turnaround measures and more needed be done in the earlier years of schooling.
Dr Middleton said there was "some truth" in that but large numbers of students in their mid-to-late teens could still benefit from being offered different choices.
National leader John Key was first to show his cards in January, revealing the party's Youth Guarantee scheme of a universal education entitlement for all aged 16 and 17.
He said it would remove the cost barrier of returning to education by offering free study towards school-level qualifications at approved institutions.
National's education spokeswoman, Anne Tolley, told the Herald this week it would target the 8500 16 and 17-year-olds who "had fallen out of the system" at an estimated $65 million cost.
"Once they've gone from the school environment, too many of them are just loose in the communities ... They're the ones who are most at risk and are going off the rails and getting into trouble and then their lives really become chaotic."
National's policy to increase trades training in schools complemented the scheme, she said.
But Education Minister Chris Carter said National's plan was light years behind his party's and would not re-engage teenagers who had left school. "By the time they've dropped out, you've already lost them."
Just after Mr Key's Youth Guarantee speech, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced a plan to introduce a formal education and training age of 18.
The Labour Schools Plus scheme to "transform the education system" was estimated to cost $150 million to $170 million and anticipated keeping an extra 15,000 teenagers in education or training by 2011.
Helen Clark also unveiled a $40 million initial package in September, including $12 million to extend careers advice in high schools and $21 million to extend the STAR programme of schools buying "out of school" programmes for seniors.
A $1 million tertiary high school pilot project to educate up to 100 students as young as Year 11 not suited to school at Manukau Institute of Technology was also among the first initiatives.
Mr Carter said students as young as Year 9 would be able to start trades training.
Introducing a school leaving age of 18 would effectively make it compulsory to stay in some sort of training, a major difference from National's policy.
Mrs Tolley said that was wrong.
"We know that there are many kids who are actually better out of the school system and should be able to go out into a workplace and develop according to their needs rather than to a Government dictating how that should be shaped."
Secondary Principals Association president Peter Gall said many principals were still unsure of expectations on schools under Labour's Schools Plus plan. "One suspects that there's a hell of a lot of work that has gone on that hasn't been published yet."
