Dr Sandra Grey: Tertiary Education Union National Secretary on the NCEA shake up, need for vocational and trade pathway support

An announcement on the future of NCEA is imminent and the whole system could be in for a shakeup.  

A Government briefing from June shows an over-reliance on internal assessments and suggests students are gaming the system to accumulate credits. 

It's also revealed NCEA doesn't support coherent pathways for students into the likes of trades or hospitality. 

Tertiary Union National Secretary Dr Sandra Grey told Mike Hosking there’s no doubt that all systems can be tweaked and made better, but it needs to be done carefully. 

She says that we need to make sure teachers and students are at the heart of the review process. 

When it comes to vocational pathways, Grey says that schools don’t have the capacity to show kids what they're like, so we need a coherent, working system that gives kids a taste of what things like trades are like. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
An old idea that's been reheated with a briefing paper
suggesting that NCEA, which is about to get some upheaval,
of course, has failed to provide clear pathways into the trades.
Doctor Sandra Grays the Tertiary Education Union National Secretary and
is with us. Very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sandra, Good morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Have you got a view generally on NCEEA and its
suitability and how well it served us.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I think that a lot of people are saying it's
time to review, but that really needs to become very
very carefully and making sure that teachers and students are
at the heart of that review. There's no doubt that
all systems it can be tweaked and made better. There
are some really good things about MGA. There are some

(00:41):
things now that clearly people need to look at and
people need to consider how we stop some of the
aberrant parts of the system getting through.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
And as the trades thing an NCEA problem or just
a trades thing, in other words, we've always treated trades
fairly poorly, doesn't matter what sort of system we're running
in the classroom.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Look. New Zealand does unfortunately have quite a bad attitude
towards trades and vocational education. We have this idea that
if you push everybody into the academic and into universities,
we're going to get higher wages, You're going to get
a better life outcome. So you know, this is a
system wide problem. We don't take vocational education seriously, and

(01:23):
we really don't talk to kids early enough about the
many parts that you can take in your life and
the many vocations you can go into.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Is that the school's job or is that the industry
the various industries jobs to get into schools and go
Have you thought about the million different things you can
do as an engineer, for example.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
I think one of the things that we have seen
in the system over the last few years is greater
collaboration between actually tertiary providers and secondary schools with things
like Gateway and Star programs, And these are ones where
kids who have a real talent for vocational education go
and spare a bit of time in the workshops, have
stead up on the politics. If we could encourage more

(02:03):
of that so they can get a taste of how
great it can be to go into one of those
many professions. I mean everything from nursing, which is a
vocation through to being an engineer or being a mechanic
or a barista. If you don't know what it's like,
if you haven't got a clue, why would you pick
it as your future career. I mean, even something like

(02:25):
you do Mike and Journal radio or engineering and sound engineering.
Most schools don't have the capacity to show kids what
it's like. So we need actually a system that's coherent
and works really well and really does give kids those
tastes how great it can be.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Very well said, have a good weekend. Sandra gra Tertiary
Education Union Gateways winner. Our youngest went to a Gateway
program and learned from that Gateway program that what she
thought she wanted to do, she didn't. When she did it,
she didn't like it, and so she's moved in a
completely different direction.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
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