Tertiary Education New Zealand » report

Academic performance of first-year bachelors students at university

Tue, 18 May 2010 22:07:52 +0000

The report looked at first-year bachelors-degree students at universities, who had all achieved the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 3 and attained the University Entrance standard.

While academic achievement at school was the strongest predictor of first-year university success for these students, not all higher-achieving school students performed equally well at university, and some who had lower school achievement out-performed students with higher school achievement. The report looks at the factors that might explain these differences.

The study considered a population of first-year bachelors-degree students at university, who had all achieved the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 3 and attained the University Entrance standard.

While academic achievement at school was the strongest predictor of first-year university performance for these students, not all higher-achieving school students performed equally well at university, and some who had lower school achievement out-performed students with higher school achievement.

Among higher-achieving school students, those who:

studied part-time or for only part of the year, or
were from the sole-Pasifika¹ ethnic group, or
were low-decile school students from ethnic groups other than sole-European

showed lower levels of university performance than other higher-achieving school students.

Among those with lower school achievement, students who took a year off before starting their tertiary studies—particularly students from low-decile schools—showed higher levels of performance at university than those who progressed directly to tertiary study after leaving school.

But this better performance among those who took a gap year was not seen in European, or sole-Pasifika students.

Lower-achieving students from low-decile schools performed better in their first-year of tertiary studies than similar students from high-decile schools. This suggests that among lower achieving students, NCEA underestimates the ability of those from lower decile schools. And conversely, NCEA overestimates the ability of those from higher decile schools.

View the full report: http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/tertiary_education/76374

Benefits of Tertiary Certificates and Diplomas – exploring economic and social outcomes

Tue, 18 May 2010 22:07:26 +0000

This analytical report from the New Zealand Ministry of Education examines the economic and social benefits of tertiary certificates and diplomas and provides new evidence of the value of a significant part of the tertiary education system. It makes use of a range of data to look at the association of tertiary certificates and diplomas to economic outcomes (employment and income) and social outcomes (well-being, social participation and inter-generational benefits).

Key Findings

Level 1 to 3 tertiary certificates are of most benefit to people with no or low school qualifications and are best seen as a pathway to higher levels of study
Level 4 certificates have better economic outcomes than school qualifications, particularly for men. There is some evidence of improved social outcomes for women
The economic outcomes from diplomas are close to those of bachelors degrees. Diplomas are associated with improved social outcomes, more so for women than for men
The clearest evidence of social outcomes from tertiary certificates and diplomas is for greater parental support for children’s learning

View the full report: Benefits of Tertiary Certificates and Diplomas – exploring economic and social outcomes

Download: Using e-Learning to build workforce capability: A review of activities

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:33:37 +0000

This report was commissioned by the Ministry and undertaken by the Waikato Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Industry Training Federation. The report’s main objectives were to:

Identify how e-Learning is employed in work-based and work-placed learning both internationally and nationally.
Describe the impact of e-Learning on building workforce capability globally and nationally.
Assess the demand from employers, providers and learners for e-Learning in improving individual and organisational capability.
Demonstrate how, and in what ways, e-Learning can aid particular industry sectors in building workforce capability.
Examine reasons why e-Learning is not being used in particular industry sectors to support work-based and work-placed learning.
Recommend further activities that could be taken to promote and embed the effective use of e-Learning in work-based and work-placed e-Learning.

Download the full report: Using e-Learning to build workforce capability: A review of activities (.pdf 1.2MB)

Author: John Clayton, Richard Elliott, Sarah-Jane Saravani, Nicholas Huntington, Nicholas Greene
Date Published: October 2008
Released on Education Counts: 16 November 2009

Education by Brash and the 2025 Taskforce

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:12:55 +0000

Recommendation 11 from the 2025 Taskforce chaired by Don Brash deals specifically with education.

11. Education:

a. The substantial increases in subsidies since 2005 for early childhood education and day-care should be reversed.

b. A funder-provider model should be adopted for the school sector, allowing new providers to enter, with all-up per student funding equivalent to that for existing state schools.

c. In the meantime, governance and accountability structures in the school sector need to be reformed to provide better incentives for stronger performance and greater accountability for teachers, principals and schools.

d. Government-imposed fee caps on university fees should be abolished.

e. Market-based interest rates should be reintroduced for student loans.

f. Governance of the public tertiary sector should be reformed, including exploring the rationalisation of the non-university sector and the establishment of universities as independent foundations.

g. A full review should be undertaken to identify, and recommend reform of, those areas in which various government education agencies (Tertiary Education Commission, Education Review Office, Ministry of Education) have become overly prescriptive, and to explore other, less intrusive, monitoring and accountability options to achieve policy ends that pass a cost-benefit test.

For further information see the full reports and supporting information from the 2025 Taskforce.

Download: Uptake of e-learning: Small business

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:00:08 +0000

An investigation of the enablers and barriers to industry uptake of e-learning: Small business
The Benchmarking and Research business activity of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework has released An investigation of the enablers and barriers to industry uptake of e-learning: Small business which examines the current status of e-learning in small business, barriers to the increased use of e-learning solutions and the potential for increased uptake of e-learning by small businesses.
> Download the 2007 Small Business Final Report (PDF 889 KB, 27 pages)
> Download the 2007 Small Business Executive Summary (PDF 196 KB, 5 pages)
> Download the 2007 Small Business Case Studies (PDF 253 KB, 127 pages)
> Benchmarking and Research webpage
> Download the Big opportunities for small business media release, dated 30 April 2008 (PDF 67KB)

An investigation of the enablers and barriers to industry uptake of e-learning:

Reports released: Employment outcomes of tertiary education

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:47:33 +0000

Two reports have been released today from the employment outcomes of tertiary education project.

These reports form part of the initial outputs from the project, managed by the Ministry of Education, the Department of Labour and Statistics New Zealand.

Information about the EOTE project, the data it uses, and other publications from this project can be found on the Statistics New Zealand website.

What do students earn after their tertiary education? This report looks at the group of nearly 30,000 young domestic students who last enrolled in a tertiary education provider in 2003, and examines the influence of their tertiary education on their earnings in the first year following study and three years post-study. Author: David Scott, Ministry of Education and Statistics New Zealand

Does workplace-based industry training improve earnings? This report examines the labour market outcomes of employees who left industry training during 2003–05, by comparing earnings and employment post training with earnings and employment prior to and during training. Author: Sarah Crichton, Department of Labour and Statistics New Zealand

Accessing these reports: These reports are available on the Statistics New Zealand website in pdf format. You can access the reports by clicking on the link in the headings. These report are only published electronically.

Draft Tertiary Education Strategy

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:05:55 +0000

The Draft New Zealand Tertiary Education Strategy (for 2011 to 2014) has been released for consultation.

Full press release