'Tertiary high school' will be world's first

Anne Tolley. Photo / Supplied

The Government has approved fast-track funding and a law change for a world-first "tertiary high school" in Manukau.

The new school at the Manukau Institute of Technology's Otara campus will take 80 to 100 students a year to start training from year 11 towards technical and vocational qualifications.

It will require a law change because most year 11 students are under the school leaving age of 16.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said in Sunday's youth opportunities package that the new school would open in February.

"While similar to trades academies, this initiative is on a faster track and will involve shared funding arrangements between tertiary and schooling funding streams," she said.

Manukau Institute of Technology executive director of external relations Dr Stuart Middleton said the school would be a collaboration between MIT and 24 high schools from Otahuhu to Pukekohe.

MIT would advertise for four secondary teachers and would draw on other MIT staff.

Students will follow a four-year programme leading to the equivalent of level 3 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement.

Dr Middleton, who developed the proposal on a scholarship in the United States in 2007-08, said the school would be a world first. "There is no programme quite like it that I'm aware of. They do have similar initiatives in America, but they tend not to work collaboratively with the schools. They compete with them."

A major problem in New Zealand was that students had been fully funded as long as they stayed at conventional high schools, but faced student fees to study at tertiary institutes.

This will change under the new "youth guarantee" policy which will provide free places at tertiary institutes for students aged 16 and 17.

Dr Middleton said he believed that staying at school for five years didn't suit every student.

"We think if students are helped in this way [through the new school] to get past the point where they would disengage in schools, they will actually go on to higher qualifications."