Vocational training in a mess

By Richard Michael
CEO
New Zealand Contractors' Federation

Worldwide, people with practical skills are in short supply and the problem is getting worse. These skills are essential to provide the building blocks of our economy – the roads, the schools and hospitals, broadband networks and all the other things that make up a modern economy.

It is increasingly difficult to recruit experienced people. From now on we are largely going to have to grow our own talent. To do this will require our vocational training system to deliver.

However, the vocational sector is struggling to train the number of people we need with the appropriate skills. This is particularly true in historically unattractive industries such as civil construction.

It was no surprise to hear that the main concern of those recently surveyed by Business New Zealand was skills shortages. This was reported by 94 percent of respondents – an overwhelming figure for a survey of this type and an indication of just how bad things have got for vocational training in New Zealand. Somehow there seems to be a connect between the rhetoric and reality.

The Government and Opposition both talk of ambitious infrastructure construction programmes. For this they are to be congratulated. For 20 years New Zealand woefully under-invested in infrastructure. We are currently paying the price for that inaction in terms of congested cities, low productivity and unsustainable business practices.

Unfortunately, the investment in vocational training is far too little to allow those programmes to be achieved in the long run. Currently the Government invests around $140 million in core vocational training. This is about the same as the surpluses that the universities of New Zealand reported last year. The imbalance between university training and vocational training is immense.

There are even two different funding systems for the two areas, and of course university students get significantly more per year than vocational trainees.

This is all the more disturbing when you realize that vocational training is very expensive as it requires specialist facilities that can only be used by one type of student. To convince the training institutions to provide these expensive facilities requires a long-term commitment from government and industry. Currently they do not have this and the standard of training suffers as a result

What we are talking about here is much more than just a return to the apprenticeship systems of old – although this would be a big step forward. Our economy has changed markedly over the past 20 years. One thing that the vocational training system now does is offer a much wider range of training in a wider range of areas. This is a great concept. Unfortunately the amount of money provided has not increased enough and everybody has suffered.

The qualifications framework is a good system but very expensive to run properly and the Government has never put in the money to make it work properly.

Vocational training is difficult in that a wide range of starting skill levels need to be catered for, as well as how to handle those who have little experience at learning. The training needs to be pitched at the right level and one size does not fit all. A flexible approach is required and this is often more costly to provide.

There are also literacy and numeracy issues in the industry but, to be fair, the Government has devoted considerable extra funding to this area of need

In my view the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) are not up to the job. They are focused on the university sector and seem to be comfortable in that space. Vocational training is by far the ‘poor relation’ and poorly understood by TEC. We need a new body that focuses solely on the vocational area and all the subtleties and complexities that it involves.

Vocational students should receive the same amount of money as their university counterparts. Surely New Zealand values both in equal measure.

The ITO system needs a fundamental review too. Far too much effort is wasted on patch protection due to the way in which the system was set up with no coherent strategy as to which ITO did what.

The vocational training sector could deliver so much more – and must do if we are to prosper as a country in a world where experienced and well-trained people are only going to get scarcer.