Kiwi school leavers ‘not ready for Asia’

High school students preparing to enter the wider world could miss out on ‘‘lifechanging opportunities’’ because they are not ready to engage with the people and cultures of Asia, a survey has found.

A study carried out by the Asia New Zealand Foundation found about 60 per cent of year 12 and 13 students feel they are not prepared to engage with Asia, despite trade and tourism growing between New Zealand and Asian countries.

The same survey found a third of senior students had no interest in learning an Asian language in the future, because of either a lack of interest, a perceived difficulty, or because it seemed irrelevant. Fewer students are taking an Asian language than five years ago.

Foundation executive director Simon Draper said the findings showed fewer students leaving school were ‘‘Asiaready’’ than in 2012.

‘‘The trend line is going the wrong way. We would have expected over the last four to five years that New Zealand students leaving school would have got more Asia-capable, but this report shows us that’s not the case.

‘‘If this continues, our kids will likely miss out on life-changing opportunities brought about by the rise of Asia’s influence and relevance to New Zealand,’’ Draper said.

Data showed New Zealand would be doing more with Asia in the future, not

"We would have expected ... students leaving school would have got more Asiacapable, but ... that's not the case." Simon Draper, Asia New Zealand Foundation executive director

just economically, but socially.

The survey also showed students from rural areas, or low-decile schools were less likely to be Asia-savvy, raising concerns those students would miss out.

Having cultural knowledge and language skills would help open doors in a range of industries for school leavers, BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope said.

Such skills were not just for highfliers in the boardroom, but were needed on the ground in China and in New Zealand. Learning about Asian countries, their customs and languages would open doors for many school leavers.

‘‘Our trade relationship with China nearly tripled over the last decade or so, exports have quadrupled, so just on the export side alone we’re doing a hell of a lot more business with China.’’

The foundation’s survey would help start an important discussion.

Figures from the Ministry culturally and of Education show in terms of language, there has been an increase in the number of secondary school students learning Mandarin, from 2849 in 2012 to 4752 in 2016.

However, the number of students learning Japanese had dropped from 12,473 in 2012 to 10,745 last year. Only 53 students studied Korean in 2016.

French remained the most popular language.

Wellington Girls’ College principal Julia Davidson said it was much more difficult to find teachers who taught Asian languages than traditional ones, such as French or German.

All schools were aware of an increasing Asian influence, but there had not been a strong push from the Wellington Girls’ community for the school to teach students more about Asian countries, Davidson said.

The school taught Mandarin, with about 150 students learning the language.

It offered trips to Vietnam every two years for senior history students, and had a sister school in Bangkok, which staff from Wellington Girls’ visited, and the school took students from there for short exchanges.

In 2014, the Government committed $10 million over four years to increase Asian language learning in schools, the Ministry of Education’s head of early learning and student achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid, said.

That had led to 68 per cent of school principals supported by that funding reporting an increase in the number of students studying an Asian language.