During secondary school, New Zealand’s education system’s aim is to not only teach and impart knowledge but to prepare adolescents for tertiary study and entry into the workforce.
The University of Auckland’s Youth’12 Overview tells us that “many things are going well for New Zealand secondary school students; positive family and school environments are reported by most. The majority have good health and are not involved in serious risk taking or problem behaviours. Conversely, small but significant numbers of young people do not feel well supported in family, school or community settings” (Clark et al., 2012, p. 30).
In New Zealand, there are nearly 10,000 students that leave school with almost no qualifications every year (Statistics New Zealand, n.d.a). Who are these young people and why are they struggling to move through New Zealand’s education system successfully?
Highest Attainment of School Leavers 2002 to 2004:
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| (Statistics New Zealand, n.d.b). |
These students are dropping out, getting expelled, and leaving without the necessary qualifications to take them into tertiary education or into wider opportunities within the workforce.
Being absent from class and being consistently truant could be where these students are initially struggling. Of course there can be all types of reasons for being absent and some are legitimate and some aren’t. There are three different types of absence;
- Justified absences (e.g. holiday and illness)
- Unjustified absences
- Intermittent unjustified absences (e.g. truancy and consistently skipping class) (Statistics New Zealand, n.d.b).
Here is a comparison between both legitimate absences and truancy:
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| (Statistics New Zealand, n.d.b). |
The University of Auckland’s Youth’12 Overview found that truancy was “more common among older students aged 17 years or older and among students from more deprived neighbourhoods” (Clark et al., 2012, p. 17).
How many of these unqualified school leavers are in turn being expelled or alienated from school? And for what reasons?
Stand-downs, suspensions, exclusions and expulsions are said to be more of a measure of the school’s reaction to specific behaviours not a direct reflection of student behaviour and can differ from school to school (Education Counts, 2016). The three main reasons for exclusion and expulsion in 2015 were:
- Drugs
- Continual disobedience
- Physical assault on other students (Education Counts, 2016).
Currently, stand-down, suspension and exclusion rates in New Zealand are at their lowest in 16 years (Education Counts, 2016).
- Stand-down rates have been steadily decreasing since 2006
- Suspensions have decreased by 49.1% over the last 15 years
- Exclusion rates have been constant over the past 15 years. There were 883 exclusion cases in 2015 which were received by 869 different students
- There were 156 expulsion cases in 2015, received by 155 students, but rates have stayed constant very much like that of the exclusion rates (Education Counts, 2016).
- “Schools continue to stand-down, suspend, and exclude more Māori students than any other ethnic group” (Education Counts, 2016, para. 2).
- “Pasifika returned to being the group with the highest expulsion rate in 2015” (Education Counts, 2016, para. 2) with the rate of Maori expulsion just slightly lower than that of Pasifika
- European/Pākehā expulsion rates were similar to that of Asians and both were considerably less than Pasifika and Maori.
Age-standardised expulsion rates by ethnic group (2001 to 2015):
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| (Statistics New Zealand, n.d.b). |
“Male students are more than twice as likely to receive a stand-down, suspension or exclusion, and over four times more likely to be expelled than females” (Education Counts, 2016, para. 2). Ministry of Education’s recent research into the achievements of boys brought about these key findings:
- “Girls perform better in reading and writing at all school levels and across all ethnic groups and are improving at a greater rate than boys
- From year 11, boys are leaving school at a faster rate than girls
- More boys than girls - particularly Māori and Pasifika boys:
- are stood-down and suspended - are excluded or expelled- gain early leaving exemptions - Boys are less likely than girls to gain University Entrance, NCEA, or higher qualifications, or participate in and attain degree-level qualifications
- Māori and Pasifika boys are less likely to leave school with University Entrance or higher qualifications than boys from other ethnic groups” (Ministry of Education, 2007, para. 5).
“The link between parents’ socio-economic status and a child’s educational and health outcomes is relatively close on some measures. A higher proportion of Māori and Pasifika live in chronic poverty, underperform in employment and education, are overrepresented in prison and as victims of crime, and have poorer health and access to care” (OECD, 2015, p. 6).
What indicates differences between socio-economics groups?
New Zealand schools have a decile system where each school is rated based on 5 socio-economic indicators for their local community (Ministry of Education, 2016). This then determines the level of funding the school will receive. These 5 indicators are:- Household income
- Employment and skill level of parents
- How many people are living in one dwelling (household crowding)
- Educational qualifications of parents
- Parents receiving income support or benefits (Ministry of Education, 2016).
There's a big difference between students that come from middle income families and those that come from lower income households, with the latter often having lower attendance rates, achieving less academically and struggles with health and welfare (Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2002).
Key indicators for a low socio-economic community or household:
- Low household income (within the lowest 20% in the country)
- Unemployed parents or employed in low skill level jobs
- Overcrowded houses, lots of people living under the same roof
- Parents have little to no educational qualifications
- High percentage of parents on benefits or income support (Ministry of Education, 2016).
Here we have a clear group of learners at a secondary school level that don’t quite fit into our mainstream education system. They are consistently absent, being expelled and leaving school too soon. The outcome of the above research has shown that the students most at risk are more than likely to be Male, Pasifika or Maori and in low socio-economic groups. Yet we must not exclude those within other ethnicities, genders or socio-economic communities as they do make up the minority.
The NZ government is currently looking into:
- Increasing participation of disadvantaged groups in early childhood education (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015)
- Helping students to stay in school longer, encouraging students to get involved with programs like the Youth Guarantee and work together towards further study or getting ready for the workforce. “Youth Guarantee initiatives are about improving the transition from school to further study, work or training. They provide a wider range of learning opportunities, make better use of the education network, and clarify pathways from school”. (Youth Guarantee, n.d., para.1). Initiatives like these make it easier for some students to get back on track to gaining NCEA Level 2 qualifications (OCED, 2015)
- Raising teaching quality (OCED, 2015)
- Supplying Alternative Education programmes. For example: “Separate alternative education programmes have been formally available since 2000 for students… who have become alienated from the education system and are either unwilling to attend a regular school, or schools are unwilling to enrol them, in a mainstream setting. In 2007, 1,318 students were enrolled in alternative education programmes” (Statistics New Zealand, n.d.c).
