Profile & Trends 2008: New Zealand's Tertiary Education Sector

Workplace-based learning  

The number of learners in industry training reached nearly 200,000 in 2008. Reducing long-term skills shortages in New Zealand’s key industries and improving our labour productivity has been a goal of government and industry for a number of years. Supported by continuous funding increases, the number of industry trainees has   increased over the last five years by 8.1 percent, on average, per year. 

While the latest increase in the number of learners in industry training was smaller than in previous years, it was still significant and occurred at a time when domestic student enrolments in equivalent provider based study declined. This growth also surpassed the increase in workers in the labour force, so that the proportion of workers involved in industry training, at 9.0 percent, was higher in 2008 than in 2007. 

The Modern Apprenticeships scheme, a part of industry training, increased strongly in 2008. There are now more than 12,000 apprentices. 

Gateway, established in 2001 to broaden educational options for senior secondary school students by offering them workplace-based learning, has continued to expand. Over 9,690 secondary school students participated in Gateway in 2008, the year in which it was scheduled to expand to all decile 7 to 10 integrated and state   secondary schools.

Industry training, Modern Apprenticeships and Gateway programmes   are all linked to the National Qualifications Framework. This means that participants earn credits towards national qualifications and, in the case of Modern Apprenticeships and the majority of industry training programmes, participation is linked to the completion of national certificates and diplomas. Learners in industry training can gain credits through flexible limited credit programmes and   supplementary credit programmes, or study towards national qualifications such as national certificates, national diplomas and, less frequently these days, trade certificates.

All three programmes saw increases in credit achievement over 2008, with the number of credits attained in industry training increasing   to over 3.8 million for the year, after a consolidation year in 2007. National certificate attainment increased to 36,000, following a drop in the number of national certificates awarded in 2007. 

The Ministry of Education published two analytical reports on industry training in 2008, providing further participation and attainment information on both industry training and Modern Apprenticeships programmes. An extract article from Industry training – exploring the data is included in chapter 6. It summarises the findings on the importance of various demographic, programme and provider   variables of the likelihood of success in workplace-based training, as measured by programme completion. 

Figure 1.4: Participation rates for industry training and provider-based   students