Chris Abercrombie: PPTA President says students are more likely to choose life skills over subjects

The PPTA says the popularity of school life skills and personal development classes reflects a shift in what students want from school - not just parents.

Ministry of Education figures reveal nearly 68 thousand students enrolled in courses in this field in 2025 - up from about 49 thousand in 2021. 

PPTA President, Chris Abercrombie, told Andrew Dickens that parents are more aware of their children's goals. 

He says students are less likely to take subjects because they’re told to - and more likely to choose courses matching their own aspirations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
More high school students are choosing life skills and personal
development courses over traditional subjects like English and science. New
Ministry of Education data shows one in five Kiwi students
took a life skills course this year, up eight percent
over the past fifteen years. Over the same period, enrollments
in English have fallen, particularly among year twelves, and interest

(00:37):
in science has also declined. To talk about this, I'm
joined by the Post Primary Teachers Association President, mister Chris Abercrombie.
Welcome to the program.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Chris, good, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
So what's behind this uptake in the life skill courses?
Are the course subjects getting too hard with the changes
to the curriculum.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
No, I wouldn't I want to say that, but I
think those life skill courses are a really good example
of schools responding to need. I can know from my
personal experience, like our financial literacy where a new princi
will come to our school and he asked the students
what do they want and there was a really clear
message they wanted financial literacy. So we started adding that
to our course. So there's a real sort of being

(01:16):
able to meet student needs and community need in that space.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, but the government wants us to actually do the
three hours you know, writing, reading, arithmetic. You know, are
the life skill courses seen as the subjects that the
kids who think they might struggle with the basics choose.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
I think, yeah, this could be an element of that,
But I think there's also an element of, like I
know from you know, Paris, speriences, how to write a CV,
you know, those kinds of things, aspects of it, which
are really important skills for for our young people. But
I don't think I don't see it as a sort
of dumbing down. I'd see it as a widening of
the curriculum and meeting student need.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Is there a point though, in teaching how to write
a CV if they can't spell well?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I mean hopefully by year twelve the senior school. That's
not this year. And you mentioned English in the uptake
and sort of why why it's dropped down, And there's
a really simple reason for it. So for this is
on the history teacher. So over that time period, other
subjects could count as your literacy credits for history, because
right essays you do research, they could count towards your

(02:18):
literacy credits you needed to get your certificate, and so
students didn't have to do English anymore to do that,
so they looked at another subjects.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Pretty much all other subjects are down. And of course
parents are part of this decision as well, not just
the kids. So has the thought process for how these
subjects are chosen changed in the past decade?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Oh definitely. I think parents are a lot more aware
of sort of where the students are, where their children are,
what their goals are. It's very Really when I first
had a teaching it was quite common it's sort of
I'm doing these subjects because my parents told me to,
you know, they want me to go to university or
and a lot more now has changed into sort of
what the students want well, what their goals are, what

(03:01):
their aspirations are, and not just sort of what my
parents think.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Okay. Do you think, though, getting back to the curriculum,
that the just to the curriculum we'll excite kids enough
to return to course subjects or do you think this
trend will continue.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
I think this trend will continue. I think it would
be really interesting to see We've always had approved subject
list for say university entrance for instance, So I mean,
of those students who had university aspirations, they still have
to do those approved subjects. So I don't think it
will affect that in a sense, But don't I don't
think we're going to see a rushback to sort of

(03:35):
English or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Chris and I thank you for your time today, and
you've got to say, in many ways, it is quite good.
How long have we been have we been talking about
kids having to learn financial literacy. It's real mass for
a real world.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
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