Two-thirds of pupils fail university challenge

MANDY SMITH
Almost two-thirds of Hawke's Bay pupils who left school last year did not have the marks to get into university.
The region has a higher percentage of pupils who did not gain university entrance than Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago, which has concerned at least one Bay principal.
Others say the numbers indicate pupils are opting to enrol in lower-requirement polytechnic courses or head directly to the workforce.
The statistics were extracted from a newly released survey of school leavers, which revealed 62 per cent of Hawke's Bay pupils left school without the 42 credits at NCEA level 3 required to make university entrance.
Napier Girls' High School principal Mary Nixon said 38 per cent obtaining university entrance was too low.
One reason, she said, could be that some pupils did not have people in their families who finished school to look up to.
Many were just staying on to complete NCEA level 2 which, she said, was the new School Certificate.
The figures were, however, improving - the number leaving with university entrance rose 5.5 per cent last year.
``We are raising the bar and I think that takes a lot of effort on everybody's part.'
At William Colenso College in Napier, principal Mark Cleary said more schools were encouraging pupils to follow career pathways early, offering a plethora of specialised subjects at secondary level. Because there were so many options -including Gateway programmes and other national certificate qualifications - the record of university entrance qualifications was low.
``But university is only one party of the field,' he said.
``There's a whole group of people, particularly boys, who go into apprenticeships in technology or trades and are really successful. The new rich in Hawke's Bay are tradesmen, after all.'
Wairoa College acting principal Bryan Stubbings said 5 per cent of his pupils went to university, so many did not see university entrance as important.
``We're a low-decile school with a high Maori percentage and our clientele are students who tend to go into trades or to polytech.'
Hawke's Bay Secondary School Principals' Association head Richard Schumacher said the figures did not tell the full story. Only about two thirds in Year 11 continued to Year 13, and many of those took subjects which did not count towards university entrance ``so it would be wrong to say 62 per cent of students are deficient or failing'.
``Many have met really good targets and have gone on to apprenticeships with good qualifications under their belt.'