Bailey Gair from Gair Contracting discussing her earthworks business with Yr 10 girls from Tamatea High School
This week forty Year 10 students at Tamatea High School were visited by a dozen employer representatives from various Hawke’s Bay organisations. Tamatea High piloted a ‘Careers Speed-dating’ event to raise student awareness of career possibilities and make connections for students and employers.
The students in groups of three had 4 minutes with each representative to find out what their job is, what is good about it, what’s not so good, how much they get paid and any other questions the students had.
Sharon Blount from the Ministry of Education said ‘The good thing about it is that it’s short and sharp. If the students are interested in a job – great. If not, they only have to wait a few minutes before they move on to a new person.’
Tamatea High Principal, Robin Fabish, wants Tamatea High to do all it can to increase the effectiveness of pathway education for their students. ‘NCEA results are important for those who want to go to university, but employers tell me they are more interested in young people who are punctual, have a good work ethic and good relationship skills. We’ve got to make sure we’re teaching these skills to our students too.’
‘Only 30% of students in the whole country go to university and many don’t continue after their first year, so schools shouldn’t be solely focussing on academic pathways and skiting about academic achievement. The real measure for school success should be the number of students who have clear career pathways that they follow when leaving school – not NCEA league tables.’
He added that the goal is to try and expose the Tamatea students to as many different types of job, career and opportunities that are in the Hawke’s Bay as possible. This will help them set goals and make the connections they need to get into the workplace.
Employers sometimes find it difficult to find young employees. Leaders in schools need to make sure schools are teaching students the things they need to be successful in the workplace. It’s also critical to help employers connect to the many good young people in our schools.
There are five other Napier Principals (Daniel Murfitt from William Colenso, Dawn Ackroyd from Napier Girls, Stephen Hensman from Taradale High School, Maria Neville-Foster from Sacred Heart College and Matt Bertram from Napier Boys’ High) who are working with Mr Fabish to create an Employer Partnership with businesses and employers in Hawke’s Bay. The group wants to facilitate connection and understanding between the students of Napier, our secondary schools and employers.
Mr Fabish believes that regardless of what secondary school our young people go to we want them to have legitimate pathways so that they can get jobs and contribute to our community. It makes sense that we work together on this rather than all of us doing our own thing – it’s much more efficient.
At this stage the partnership is being supported by Spark, Pak n Save Tamatea, Port of Napier, BDO Accounting and the Napier City Council. Other businesses will be added over the coming months.
