Dr. Michael Johnston

And I think that is born of a time when, first of all, I would say university education was of higher quality and when far fewer people went to university.

And so it had this elite status.

And to be fair, in those days, it probably did lead to the higher incomes on average.

But I think those days are gone.

Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

And I know starting salaries can be pretty similar too.

So, and you don't have the debt if you do a, typically apprentices graduate without much debt of any.

So the university track, if we're conceiving of it in purely financial terms, which by the way, I don't intend to reduce education to purely financial outcomes, but a lot of young people will focus on that.

And if we told them,

the truth about what various pathways could lead towards, then again, I think some of them would make different choices.

I'm hoping that the industry-led subjects that will be developed for the new qualification that will replace NCEA

will be a game changer.

And they could be.

There's no guarantee of that.

But if we get the settings right, it will be a really good start.

The Ministry has already proposed industry-led subjects for the new curriculum and for the new qualification.

And what's different this time around is that these are specifically geared towards the needs of industry.

So they're set apart, or they would be obviously supported by the more traditional technology subject.

But for the first time,

those subjects that are absolutely facing towards industry and tertiary training and apprenticeships will have their own fully formed curricula for secondary school so that is a new departure and these curricula will be written or at least written in collaboration with the industry skills boards which have replaced the workforce development councils early this year