Encouragement for more education needed—M.P.

Press, 14 July 1987, Page 6

Encouragement for more education needed—M.P.

PA Wellington Encouraging children to go on to tertiary education must begin while they are at primary and intermediate school, said the Minister of Education, Mr Marshall. Universities and the polytechnics had a marketing challenge if New Zealand’s low participation rate in tertiary education was to be increased, he said in an address at the Winter Lecture series at Massey University. A research project commissioned for the tertiary review had looked at how young people decided whether or not to undertake higher education. Children of 12 or 13 years of age often had realistic hopes and plans for their future careers, preliminary findings of the project had shown. By Form 2 there was a

sharp difference, based on the parents’ wealth and social standing, Mr Marshall said. At that age children of higher socio-economic backgrounds wanted higher status jobs, and had more realistic ideas of their possible educational and vocational futures. By the fourth form there was a difference based on race, although that was less pronounced than the effect of parents’ wealth and social position. Those effects were still present in the sixth form, but were less marked. “This is because those children most at risk of failing to achieve their full educational and vocational potential will have already left the school system,” Mr Marshall said. The value of financial incentives to encourage under-represented groups

to go to university or polytechnic could be questionable if it was proved that those young people did not even arrive at the gate. “The message must be delivered to children in the upper primary and. intermediate school, and to their parents and others who have influence on them,” Mr Marshall said.