Josh Williams

We need to make really clear what the other pathways are.

Because at the moment, we're sort of pigeonholing young people into it's university or not university.

Well, what's in the not?

I started in the team that developed the NCEA 25 years ago.

So what's happening right now is a bit of a career full circle moment.

I was also previously a policy manager in the Ministry of Education around the time that Youth Guarantee, Trades Academies, Gateway, Vocational Pathways was a hot topic at the start of the key government, I guess, 2010.

And then I was Chief Executive of the Industry Training Federation.

So sort of half my career has been in the government side and half of it in the industry training sector.

So that brings a little bit of balance to the force, I think, on these issues around, you know, what the demand side is looking for and what the education system is producing.

And now I consult, do policy and research for Skills Group, which is one of New Zealand's largest training providers.

Well, look, certainly the whole idea behind NCEA and certainly the very real potential was that it could recognise and reward learning from a much wider range of things.

Effectively, any credit on the framework could count towards your NCEA.

That flexibility was absolutely seen as a strength, but that flexibility was also ultimately a bit of a weakness.

Because the assessment system that came in under NCEA has effectively been grafted onto a schooling system that hasn't changed very much.

Picks six subjects, those subjects stay in their lanes.

The main game is to chase a thing called university entrance.

Because effectively, that's really the only clear recipe in the whole cookbook of school.

Everything else is a bit of an add-on.

And so over that time, certainly when we talk about youth guarantee, vocational pathways, trades academies, gateway, these are all schemes.

And there's a clutter of them, because they've been added over time, that are trying to provide alternative options and alternative pathways to students.