Plan to chase leavers as school ends

'One of our challenges is to ensure that every single one of our kids is not wasted' Dale Williams, Mayor of Otorohanga. Photo / APN

A new national service looks ready to start next year to make sure every 16- or 17-year-old ends up in work or further training after leaving school.

Under the plan, driven jointly by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs, contact details for all 16- or 17-year-old school-leavers will go to to a national call centre.

The call centre will contact them and refer those who need help to local youth transition services, which already operate in 45 of the country's 73 local council areas.

"Sixty per cent of school-leavers are covered now. We are aiming for 100 per cent," says Otorohanga Mayor Dale Williams, who chairs the mayors' group.

The project dovetails with an election promise by Auckland mayor-elect Len Brown to set up a comprehensive transition service for Auckland school-leavers.

"One of our great challenges is to ensure that every single one of our kids is not wasted, that there is no loss of hope, that they have a very clear pathway coming out of school," he says.

It is a top priority for the new council and the Government because the recession has hit young people hardest, with obvious social consequences.

"If they are not in employment or training, they are a cost to the taxpayer in terms of maintaining them, and they are a cost to the extent that idle minds and idle hands [find other things to do]," Mr Brown says.

Enrolment caps on universities and polytechnics are making it harder for many to get into tertiary education, although the swelling rolls suggest that this effect has been limited.

"Youth guarantee" places for 16- and 17-year-olds with poor school achievements will increase from 2000 to 2500 next year, and Tertiary Minister Steven Joyce took $55 million out of industry training this week to finance an extra 3000 university places next year.

But careers advisers say many South Auckland school leavers need foundation courses before they can qualify for tertiary training, and some find it hard to get to any courses because of transport barriers.

"A lot of these kids will lack literacy so they won't get entry into tertiary, so they go to Skills Update and other Tertiary Education Commission (TEC)-funded providers," says Aorere College careers coordinator Diane Smith.

Her Mangere College counterpart, Ruth Luketina, says it can cost $5.50 each way to travel by bus between two parts of Mangere.

"That's $10 a day, or $50 a week," she says.

TEC can reimburse travel costs up to $75 a week for foundation courses for 16- and 17-year-olds, but only if they have low school qualifications or have been referred by Work and Income or a youth transition service.

Youth transition services were started in 2005 in an attempt to reach those teens who do not contact Work and Income because they cannot get most benefits until they turn 18.

A 2008 evaluation found that 61 per cent of the first 10,000 young people to pass through the services moved into either work or further training, with most of the rest (33 per cent) unaccounted for because they had left the area, could not be contacted or did not want to talk to the evaluators.

But the service is still patchy.

Even within Mangere, where it is run by the Manurewa-based Solomon Group, it seems to work differently in different schools.

At Mangere College, Ms Luketina refers all school-leavers to the service and is enthusiastic.

"I get a report on each student and their involvement with them - how many visits they've had," she says.

"For example, I had one young man who left who was very shy. When he got rung up he said, 'Oh no, I don't need any help.'

"I said to the YTS worker, 'That's not right, contact his mum.' He did. Mum said, 'Please come round, he's just sitting on the couch.' He took him to a course and he's attending the course now."

But at Aorere, Mrs Smith says she sees the service only in the fourth term when it interviews 30 to 35 of the 150 final-year students who are about to leave, and she does not get regular reports.

"We are disappointed about feedback," she says. "We did it all ourselves before, we took the kids to courses ourselves. We have good communication with Best Training and some of those providers and we hear that the kids are still there. I think that system did work well."

This patchiness reflects the limited nature of the current services.

Solomon Group is contracted to work with 2500 of the 5500 youngsters who leave high schools in Manukau, Papakura and Franklin each year but, with only nine staff it can work intensively with only a fraction of them.

Youthline holds the contract for Auckland City and uses its wider fundraising to top up its state funding to employ 12 fulltime staff on the service, with 2000 young people on the books and about 500 in "intensive support" in an area where 6100 youngsters leave high school each year.

Chief executive Stephen Bell says some schools are totally involved, but others "have other priorities".

The most comprehensive scheme in Auckland is in Waitakere, where Youth Horizons Trust enrols 1300 of the area's 1900 school-leavers each year and works intensively with 350 of them.

"It's available for every school leaver," says trust chief executive Cath Handley. "They do a roadshow in the colleges and the kids sign up."

Mr Brown said he was inspired to improve the system when he visited Otorohanga, which has held an extraordinary zero youth unemployment throughout the recession.

It contacts all school-leavers, connects them with local employers and training providers and employs a co-ordinator to support local apprentices.

In February, Mr Brown announced a scheme for Manukau schools to give the transition service contact details for all their school leavers, with the service working intensively with 1200 to 1500 young people.

There was no council funding, and Solomon Group was expected to fund it by shifting resources from other areas into Mangere.

Eight months later, the scheme is still not operating. But some foundations have been laid.

First, the five schools have agreed to provide contact details for all their school leavers.

Mangere College principal John Heyes says the Education Ministry eventually gave its blessing.

Second, a business advisory board has been formed of about 10 leading employers including Progressive Enterprises, Villa Maria, Fisher and Paykel Healthcare and Westpac.

The Tindall Foundation has been asked to fund someone to link other employers into the scheme.

Mr Brown also negotiated with Westpac to sponsor buses to take students from Mangere to MIT.

Mr Williams says the new national service can be funded within the $12.7 million budget for existing transition services by focusing the money on connecting school-leavers with other local services.

Ms Bennett says in written comments that she asked the mayors for advice on the issue and is "very interested" in their proposal.

Meanwhile in the old Auckland City, Mr Bell at Youthline says he has watched Mr Brown's moves in Manukau with envy.

"To have a mayor who wants to stand with the work and provide leadership would be amazing."

THE NUMBERS

* 10.8
Percentage of 15- to 19-year-olds not in employment, education, training or caregiving in March

* 7.6
Percentage recorded by Statistics NZ in June, as some drifted back to school and tertiary study

* 15.3
Per cent, the figure for Maori teens. The figure for Pacific people is 10.6 per cent.

* 10.3
"Not in employment, education training or caregiving" rate for European New Zealanders in the 20-24 age group where tertiary course graduates could not find jobs in June. The Maori rate was 20 per cent and the Pacific rate 21 per cent.