Helen Clark: Former Prime Minister on the Knowledge Wave project, scrapping NCEA

The Government's proposing to entirely phase out NCEA within five years, saying New Zealand needs a schooling system that sets students up for success. 

Within the overhauled system would be improved vocational pathways for students planning on entering the workforce as opposed to further education. 

In 2001, then Prime Minister Helen Clark launched the Knowledge Wave Project – a vision of a society with well-educated, innovative citizens who lived and worked in New Zealand. 

She told Kerre Woodham Knowledge Wave was about more than university education, it was about getting New Zealanders focused on the need to lift the level of value in the economy. 

Clark says that you won’t get a higher value economy if you don’t have a highly educated and skilled workforce. 

When it comes to scrapping NCEA, Clark is asking for more details, as she’s concerned with durable policies instead of ones that change with each government. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
As we were discussing at the start of the show,
there's excitement from the trade sector for a better pipeline
for high school students. The government is going to replace
NCA and improve vocational pathways for students entering the workforce.
Back in two thousand and one, then Prime Minister Helen
Clark launched the Knowledge Wave Project. Like many ideas, it

(00:31):
came from a good place. It was a vision that
New Zealanders would ride the knowledge wave becoming a society
with well educated, innovative tolerance citizens who would choose to
stay in New Zealand because it's the best possible place
to be. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark joins me now
in a very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Good morning, Carry good to speak to you.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
How would you gauge the success of the Knowledge Wave project.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, these things need constant investment year and year out
from successive governments. And one of my overall reflections is
that we're not that good at policy continuity with good
ideas in New Zealand. We do well stop go, so
things don't necessarily pan out on the long term as
you would like them too. But there's no question that

(01:20):
New Zealand needs a higher rate of achievement in education
and skills. We have what's sometimes a pejoratively referred to
as a long tail. In other words, we leave quite
a lot of young people behind and that's not a
good thing if you're trying to be it's more highly wayed,
more highly skilled society.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Absolutely, do you accept that university is not the place
for everybody, and in fact absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, absolutely, and I believe that our society needs skills
at all levels. We need the university educated, we need
the technical skills educated, we need the people who are
going to the service occupations, we need the whole higher
your skills.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Do you think in the drive to get more young
people educated, the trades felt disregarded or disrespected left behind.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
If I reflected my time, I don't think so, because
we have a huge emphasis on industry training qualifications and
the modern apprenticeship scheme which was very, very popular. But again,
these things tend to be prioritized, deprioritized or prioritized depending
on whos and governments, so you often lack the continuity
of investment in it.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
And have universities become become less centers for academic excellence,
more groupthink centers and places where students just get tuned
through with their degrees. I mean a lot of the
criticism that young people have with student loans is that, oh, well,

(03:03):
you guys didn't have to pay. But in previous generations
only the very very best academic minds went to university.
Nowadays it's opens leather.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
So the universities have expanded. They're offering a lot more too.
There's there's courses these days which would never been there
when there, which is a very long time ago. But
you know, by in large, we still have a pretty
good university system here. Again, it needs investment, but as
you said earlier, it's not for everyone. You know, there

(03:37):
are people who who actually want to go into a
stream of the trades' education. I might say also that
you know, the trades require often a lot of ability
mathematical skills, for example, the understanding of basic basic science.
You know, you tell it an electrician who doesn't understand

(03:58):
something about electricity, which I understand nothing about, but absolutely
you know no wind that I have to employee experts
to do it. So it's getting that right investment in
the whole range of skills that we need.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
When it came to the knowledge wave, people saw that
as being going to university where you would become higher educated,
and you would move into a profession or a vocation,
and you would be tolerant and understanding of the world
around you. I would argue that twenty four years later

(04:33):
we have been never been less tolerant.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I think the knowledge wave was about modern university education.
It was actually about getting New Zealanders focused on the
need to lift the level of value in our economy.
We are still too much a commodity exporting economy, and
we have brilliant people. We spawn brilliant ideas, innovations, but

(05:02):
they end up being captured offshore overseas invest to stack
them up, and we're left doing the same old things,
exporting them the milk powder and the raw logs and
so on, which is not the route to prosperity an
advanced economy. So the knowledge wave following that, we had
very interesting initiatives around designated sectors like biotechnology, like information

(05:29):
and communications, technology like design, and creative industries, all of
which were growth sectors in their own right, but were
also rather important to adding value to the sectors we
already had. For example, our agriculture would be nothing without
the advanced biotech now as well as the advanced ict
I mean, I have farming relatives. I came from a farm.

(05:51):
I know how useful a drone can be in terms
of knowing where your stock are, for example. So it
was really about looking at how you got that higher
value economy. But bottom line, you won't get the higher
value economy if you don't have a highly educated and
skilled workforce.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
With the scrapping of NCA in a return to almost
back to the future education, is that the right way
to go because you would have to concede that it
wasn't working.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
So I think we need to see more detail about
what's proposed with replacement of NCEA. What I'm concerned for
is that we get policies that are durable. The opposition
absolutely have to be consulted because we live in a democracy.
Power change as hands and you don't want something as

(06:41):
fundamental as the standards against which our children are being
judged flip flopping every time there's a change of government.
And I'll give you my own experience with this. In
nineteen ninety eight, the National Government which was at about
the same time and the three year cycle as this
one is now announce the decision to set up to

(07:02):
establish NCA and they had a tight timetable for implementation
of three years like this proposal just announced. We came
into office, we didn't trash NCA but we said it
couldn't be implemented in three years. We took the extra year.
That was still pretty tight, but you end up with
a system caught betwixt and between. So I would really
urge the government to swallow its pride, and so we

(07:25):
have to talk to the opposition. We have to reach
consensus on the way ahead for our kids. And looking
as I do at the news, I see the opposition
isn't trashing the proposal out of hand, but it wants
to know more. You know, it has to prepare for
government as well. That would be responsible not to So
I think the key thing is to know more, to

(07:45):
look at with the timetales realistic, to see whether it
should be tweaked to get a broader consensus about the
way forward.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Thank you very much for your time, Helen Clark, former
Prime Minster talking the changes to NCAA.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
For more from Kerry Wood and mornings. Listen live to
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