KEY POINTS:
In New Zealand we're calling it Schools Plus. Across the Tasman they use the cute and catchy phrase "learning or earning".
Whatever the name, many countries in the developed world are grappling with the issue of how to keep their teenagers learning for longer.
And there's a growing
push to offer trades training as a part of it.
Media-savvy students might have experienced deja vu as they listened to Prime Minister Helen Clark tell them how Kiwis need to stay at school or keep learning elsewhere until we're 18.
The idea has a familiar ring - not only from her speech in January, but also from plans previously announced in the United Kingdom.
There the Department for Education and Skills has confirmed plans to raise the school leaving age by 2013. Britons will be required to stay in school, training or workplace training until the age of 18.
Here the Government's ideas have been relatively popular in schools, despite the political storm that blew up when Clark first announced them.
Principals from privileged areas and the poorer suburbs alike say they've "got merit" and are "exciting".
The proposals require some fairly in-depth changes, which in turn raise questions.
If the Government makes it possible for students to enrol in school and, say, a polytech at the same time, how will the institutions be funded and how will the teenagers' attendance be monitored?
Others have asked if schools will get enough resources to run smaller, specialist classes.
The Government reckons there's still time to work out the answers and its discussion document, open for feedback until the end of May, gives everyone a chance to have a say.
Critics maintain this is more evidence of policy-making on the fly. National Party education spokeswoman Anne Tolley dubbed it an "eleventh hour" attempt to get community and sector input.
Whatever the case, Clark and Education Minister Chris Carter won over a bunch of students at James Cook High in Manurewa.
One student described their speeches as nothing less than "inspiring".
Outside the hall, every student the Herald spoke to said they knew people whose experiences reflected those oft-repeated figures - 30 per cent leaving school before age 17, 40 per cent not getting NCEA Level 2.
Student Troy Tuporo, 16, admitted he was "one of those people last year" until he went into James Cook High's Services Academy.
"I'd just be sick of school and jump the fence. When they bring me back in, I'd be straight over the fence again."
Now he spends half the school week preparing for Army entrance requirements and half on English, maths and computing - and school is a whole lot better.
* Martha McKenzie-Minifie is the Herald's education reporter.
