Brainstorm for at-risk youth
The system set up to support teenagers kicked out of mainstream schools is the latest tranche of the education sector in line for a shake-up, as the Government reveals plans to change a model it says is ‘‘not working’’.
Providers of alternative education have been called to a meeting in Wellington today by the Associate Minister of Education, Tracey Martin, to thrash out how to improve outcomes.
Alternative education centres cater for 13 to 16-year-olds who are frequently absent from school, suspended or excluded; with numbers of the latter two rising since 2016.
‘‘They’re supposed to be there for a maximum of two years, and then they’re supposed to be all fixed and put back into mainstream school,’’ Martin said. ‘‘That’s not happening.’’
Too few teenagers enrolled at alternative education centres were leaving with qualifications, she said. About 37 per cent of students achieved NCEA level 2 or above by age 18, compared with 82 per cent of the total student population, Ministry of Education figures showed.
Students excluded from school under the age of 13, meanwhile, did not have a ‘‘safe place’’ to go, Martin said. ‘‘They are just being put out of school, and some families are being forced into a home schooling situation, or there are very long periods of time where those children are not in a school environment.’’
In Nelson, Marlborough and the West Coast, stand-downs are at their highest level since 2013.
There were 619 stand-downs in 2017 compared with 477 the year before, an ‘‘age standardised rate’’ of 21.7 per 1000 students, according to the latest Ministry of Education statistics.
Youth Nelson takes struggling students from the three high schools in Nelson city.
Its managing school, Nayland College, was ‘‘quite rare’’ in giving excluded students the opportunity to ‘‘work their way back in’’ , centre manager Maree Shalders said.
The change the service most needed was more funding, she said. Youth Nelson had not had a funding increase in the 20 years since its doors opened.
Representatives would speak at today’s meeting from an initiative in Auckland, which coordinated support and services for at-risk young people both in alternative education and of all ages at school.
The Managed Moves programme was introduced in 2016 through a Secondary School Principals’ Trust in Waitakere.
Representatives from a programme in Napier, given $1 million of government funding last year, will also attend. Every school in Napier had agreed to work together to stop children aged 8-11 with behavioural issues being put out of school, Martin said, and to create a place where experts could work with young people.