School for Trades

By David Cooke (QPEC)

On RNZ with Jesse Mulligan (1 May), Dr Michael Johnston suggests it may be that too many NZ students head for university, and he therefore proposes an alternative secondary school route, headed for trades.

In the wake of his recent report for the NZ Initiative, he outlines a three-point plan: viz.,

• a school experience that is industry-led, in which industry writes the curriculum

• a Middle School focused on trades

• funding in which “employers would need to play a role” (and “would need to be resourced”)

(For the 2-page report summary, see here)

What’s not to like about it?

Industry hand

Well, the industry part for one thing. It’s a copy of decades of Tertiary Education Strategies, which have been banging on for decades about the need for education institutions to serve the needs of industry and business. The preferred mechanism from minister after minister has been to insist on some version of “at last industry will get the chance to run the show.” Including meeting its own needs and writing the curriculum.

The problem is that industry is not set up for education. Teachers are. Plus, teachers can give a wider view than the immediate needs of industry. They can demand careful and critical thinking. They might even invoke the public good. And they’re pretty capable at writing curriculums.

Middle school prep

Johnston proposes a Middle School to prepare students for trades -- a mix of Intermediate level and the first two years of high school. There is of course a seductive rationale for a Middle School. Students get inducted early into the preparation and life of trades occupations, at a period of eager learning in their lives.

But any narrowing of the field of this kind is cause for concern. Johnston says, “not to lock them in,” but there would be mounting pressure to do just that. The Trades Middle School would rapidly become an entity of its own, with its own ethos, resources and focus, and a continuing concentration on the trades goal.

Added to that, the focus of Middle School would suffer from losing the wider and deeper scope of a general education that insists on preparing students for choice in their lives, including an ability to tackle alternative subjects and fields of knowledge.

In discussion, an experienced commentator on education remarks:

There is an irony and paradox in this context, given the close connection Johnston and the NZ Initiative have with the Minister of Education. They have turned the curriculum and assessment system upside down on the argument that all children need access to the same high value, abstract knowledge until the end of Year 12. Yet now Johnston is arguing for something that completely contradicts their knowledge-rich ideology.

Employer voice

Each of the above two items (industry focus and Middle School) carries its own warning baggage. They are then underlined by Johnston’s third point -- accommodating employers. Doing so simply reinforces the business model and outlook.

Presumably Johnston wants employers to have some sway and influence in the concept of Middle School. Since he introduces this particular voice, one wonders what other voices and viewpoints he would include. Here’s a little list of other relevant voices and issues for discussion and analysis:

• employees

• employment rights

• equal opportunity

• human rights

• unions and contracts

• job security -- pensions -- unemployment insurance

• zero contracts

• environment and ecological issues

• climate damage (e.g., the effects of global heating on housing and construction)

• world technological development -- AI -- robotisation -- autonomous vehicles

• the changing world of work

• the growth of corporations -- neoliberalism -- corporatisation

• the FIRE economy

• ethical issues

Looking back

All in all, there’s a very familiar ring to Johnston’s interview. Policy and discussions of tertiary level vocational education have been filled with talk of industry - business - employers’ needs for years. Now it’s being applied to secondary school.

Explicit and implicit in those discussions has been the notion of graduates being “work-ready”. This is a debatable goal (see Strauss and Hunter, 2026).

Oddly, there’s a British echo here. Decades ago there was a much-delayed challenge to the 11+ exams in the UK -- because they marked an unjust turning point in very young students’ lives. If you flunked out at 11+, you went down a dead-end path of education. The Middle School concept poses a decisive turning point of a different order in young people’s lives. Johnston obviously favours it as an opportunity. One has to ask how it would deliver.

There’s one more issue. Middle School would be part of public school -- i.e. publicly funded. Added to which, Johnston calls for extra funding for employers.

So back briefly to tertiary vocational education and necessary public funding to keep it going. In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to swing public funds to business and industry to provide “work-based learning”, but at the expense of professional educators in the polytechnic programmes.

In other words, learning on the job in effect is being used to undermine the very valid concept of public funding for tertiary level vocational education, provided the right educational structure is in place.

But the question still remains:

Should public school provide for the needs of business and industry?

References

Johnston, M. (2025). Trade routes: Charting new pathways from secondary school to industry training. Wellington: The New Zealand Initiative.

Strauss, P. and Hunter, J. (2026). Challenging the work-ready paradigm:

Engineers, writing and academic writing tutors. Teaching in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2026.2645199