ZB ZB
Opinion
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

"No question" higher education and skills achievement needed, former PM says

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Tue, 5 Aug 2025, 12:21pm

"No question" higher education and skills achievement needed, former PM says

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Tue, 5 Aug 2025, 12:21pm

The Government's proposing to entirely phase out NCEA within five years, saying New Zealand needs a schooling system that sets students up for success. 

Within the overhauled system would be improved vocational pathways for students planning on entering the workforce as opposed to further education. 

In 2001, then Prime Minister Helen Clark launched the Knowledge Wave Project – a vision of a society with well-educated, innovative citizens who lived and worked in New Zealand. 

She told Kerre Woodham Knowledge Wave was about more than university education, it was about getting New Zealanders focused on the need to lift the level of value in the economy. 

Clark says that you won’t get a higher value economy if you don’t have a highly educated and skilled workforce. 

When it comes to scrapping NCEA, Clark is asking for more details, as she’s concerned with durable policies instead of ones that change with each government. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you