Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Elizabeth Heeg: Forestry Owners' Association CEO on the food and fibre sector's call for tertiary reform

Transcript

Elizabeth Heeg: Forestry Owners' Association CEO on the food and fibre sector's call for tertiary reform · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Our agriculture industry claims the education system is letting it down.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Leaders from farming, forestry, horticulture and seafood have joined forces
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  Speaker 1: to launch a bold new strategy. They're calling on government
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  Speaker 1: to overhaul vocational education and save our economic future. Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Heegue is the CEO of the New Zealand forest
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  Speaker 1: Owners Association and she's with me now. Good morning, Elizabeth,
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  Speaker 1: good morning. Hey, where have all our skills young people gone?
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  Speaker 1: What's going wrong here?
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  Speaker 2: Well? I think our concern is the current model is
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  Speaker 2: not really facilitating employers to do the kind of on
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  Speaker 2: the job training that we need to be able to
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  Speaker 2: do to keep a vibrant food and fiber workforce here
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand. And so we're calling on the government.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we're in the midst of the vocational education changes.
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  Speaker 2: Let's work together right now to have a system that
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  Speaker 2: prioritizes capability and not just credentials, and that focuses on
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  Speaker 2: the impact of those learners on the economy.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So if this is going to be more employer
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  Speaker 1: lead to the employees want to do.
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  Speaker 2: This absolutely, I mean certainly I can speak to in forestry,
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  Speaker 2: we've got a really high proportion of on the job training.
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  Speaker 2: But we find right now that a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: trainers and the employers are struggling with the level of
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  Speaker 2: bureaucracy that they have to work through to do that training.
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  Speaker 2: And so we'd really like, through the current reforms to
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  Speaker 2: get to a system that enables them to do the training. Obviously,
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  Speaker 2: you need to have standards, but we don't need to
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  Speaker 2: have a whole lot of red tape wrapped around those
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  Speaker 2: educational standards, and we can get out there and make
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  Speaker 2: sure that we're training people on the ground to do
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  Speaker 2: what they need to do.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I'll get to the training in just a moment.
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  Speaker 1: Are there enough lower level, lower entry level positions out
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  Speaker 1: there as well?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think there are. I mean, we've got a
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  Speaker 2: lot of work to do in the primary sector and
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  Speaker 2: obviously this year across the range of products that we
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  Speaker 2: produce in New Zealand, you know, we're seeing growth in
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  Speaker 2: a number of areas, and the government strategy is around
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  Speaker 2: further growth. To do that, we're going to need the
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  Speaker 2: people to back that up, and that's going to require
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  Speaker 2: that we're able to train those people. And I guess
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  Speaker 2: one of the concerns that we've had is some of
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  Speaker 2: the models that have been proposed would look at like
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  Speaker 2: the number of learners. In some cases, we need specialty
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  Speaker 2: skills that aren't going to have a high number in say,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a specific trade in the primary sector, but
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  Speaker 2: that person is critical to the overall success of the team,
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  Speaker 2: and so we need to be able to maintain some
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  Speaker 2: of those credentials that may not have a high number
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  Speaker 2: of bums on seats, so to speak, but that actually
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  Speaker 2: have a really high impact on our overall ability to
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  Speaker 2: achieve that growth in the primary sector.
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  Speaker 1: And of course that's where the becomes more cost efficient
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  Speaker 1: to be learning on the job. Is it expensive to
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  Speaker 1: get trained? Is it accessible for a lower income earner
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  Speaker 1: to get up skills in the sector?
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  Speaker 2: I think what we would like to do is work
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  Speaker 2: with the government. It really depends on the qualification and
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  Speaker 2: what we would like to do is work with the
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  Speaker 2: government on that balance of the investment from the employer
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  Speaker 2: and the investment of the government. And I think some
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  Speaker 2: of that right now. You know, some of the polytechnic
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  Speaker 2: models haven't been very cost efficient, and I can understand
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  Speaker 2: why the government was looking at reform of those. But
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  Speaker 2: I think our concern is you could end up transferring
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  Speaker 2: a lot of costs onto the employers if we don't
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  Speaker 2: set up a really a really dynamic system that's able
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  Speaker 2: to work effectively on the ground. And we've got some
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  Speaker 2: ideas about how we could work with the government so
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  Speaker 2: that we're getting the most out of both the industry
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  Speaker 2: investment and learners and the public investment in learners.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, elizabeth're talking us through this. Love a
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  Speaker 1: solution to a problem. It was doctor Elizabeth Haigue. There
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  Speaker 1: for more Family Edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Listen live to News Talks It be from five am weekdays,
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