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| These pages are part of the 96 - 99 Cabinet record. For the current pages, click here |
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| Archive - these pages are part of the continuing record of Executive Government - for the current Administration, see www.beehive.govt.nz |
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| These pages are part of the 96 - 99 Cabinet record. For the current pages, click here |
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This section focuses on the five inter-related areas of young people's lives as defined by the Youth Policy Framework document Realising the Potential:
The Ministry undertakes a watching brief on the policies and practices inherent in these themes, accepting that prime responsibility can belong to another Ministerial portfolio. The Ministry determines or negotiates where it will participate in order to best use its expertise to make a difference or add value. This section, within each theme, describes:
FAMILY
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The focus of the Ministry of Youth Affairs is to ensure that government policies supporting and assisting families and young people facilitate a positive balance between family responsibilities and enabling young people to make the transition from childhood to adulthood, safely, with growing confidence in their ability to lead positive and fulfilling adult lives.
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The Ministry supports the view that the key policy strategy to improve outcomes for at risk and high risk families and young people is early intervention, to prevent entry into the cycle of disadvantage that too often perpetuates dysfunction, and transfers problems across generations.
This early intervention needs to be coupled with comprehensive and cross-agency assessment processes, which identify indicators of risk and subsequent effective referral processes to prevent early symptoms of disadvantage becoming more serious problems or crises.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs' interest in young people in families has 3 strands, reflecting the development of young people's relationship with their families as they move from childhood to independent adulthood. The Ministry is, therefore, interested in young people:
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Although the proportion of the New Zealand population which does not live in a family is growing, 85% of the population still live in households based around a family unit (1991 Census) and only 35% of these families are without children. Approximately 75% of young people aged 15 to 19 still live with their parents (79% male, 73% female 1991 census). For young people aged between 20 and 24, 39% of young men and 25% of young women still live with parents.
Families remain the core living environment for the large majority of young New Zealanders and play the central role in raising children from youth to adulthood. Increasingly, however, children and young people, as members of a family, are recognised as having rights and entitlements existing independently of parents or family. Indeed, common law recognises that parental control under the legal powers of guardianship diminishes with the increasing age and maturity of children. Within this complex framework, the interactions between families and their young people involve financial, spiritual, emotional and psychological support, but also can involve tension, struggles for control, and in a small minority of cases, severe dysfunction and family breakdown.
Longitudinal research studies indicate that as many as 50% of families, and by extension young people within them, require little or no assistance from outside their families other than the generic services offered universally though the tax, health and education systems. A further 45% may need a small amount of intermittent or one off assistance.
A small minority of families and their children, however, approximately 5% have a much higher likelihood of requiring high level assistance at some time. Within this 5%, perhaps 1 in 5 (i.e. 1% overall) have serious and complex problems needing long-term ongoing assistance. Increasingly, government policy and programme assistance is focused on these high risk families and the children and young people in them. A key interagency project led by the Department of Social Welfare, Strengthening Families, is addressing how to improve delivery of services by the Health, Education, and Welfare agencies to at risk and high risk families with children.
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A significant number of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are themselves parents. In 1991 just under 18% of all families with children aged under 5 years were headed by a young parent aged between 16 and 24 years. It should be noted that not all teenage pregnancies are unplanned or unwanted or that they necessarily result in negative outcomes for mother or child.
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Crime Prevention
The Ministry is leading an interagency Crime Prevention working group developing policy and programme strategies to reduce criminal offending by young people. Research evidence from New Zealand and overseas indicates that the most effective interventions to prevent entry by young people to the criminal justice system are those targeted at families and young people with multiple disadvantage. These interventions are multi-faceted, co-ordinating work by several agencies. Key elements of the current work are investigation of the feasibility of a child and family field worker programme targeting high risk primary school age children, and further support for community-based Police programmes working with young people aged 10 to 14 and their families.
Other projects in which the Ministry is involved include:
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The focus of the Ministry of Youth Affairs is to ensure that the education sector creates an environment in which all young people can attain their full potential, particularly in the transition from education to employment and full citizenship.
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Since the 1980s New Zealand and its economy has experienced a period of rapid change. The ways in which young New Zealanders are equipped through education and training to participate in New Zealand society has also changed to reflect the changes in the wider social and economic framework. The education system itself has been subject to widespread reform, along with curriculum and qualifications change.
School rolls have risen due to increased retention rates, the effects of net migration (particularly in the Auckland region), and demographic change. Today's schools have a more diverse student body with a wider range of interests, aspirations, and abilities.
This increase in student numbers has resulted in more teaching staff being required and more resources being put into schools.
It is within this environment that the Ministry of Youth Affairs is particularly concerned about outcomes for those young people who experience social and educational problems which can lead to the premature termination of their formal education. The Ministry is also concerned about the large disparities which exist in educational outcomes for Maori and Pacific Islands young people.
The Ministry places emphasis on the senior secondary school (SSS) age group. The SSS is often the exit point from the formal education sector for most young people. It is at the interface between employment, welfare, or further education. It is also an area which is undergoing marked change as a result of the increased retention of a wider range of young people. Young people in the SSS are at the point of making decisions about future directions - decisions that may be influenced by the costs of tertiary education and training.
The Ministry also has an interest in how education policy and practice contributes to several key projects Youth Affairs is leading - where co-ordination between sectors is essential. These, detailed in other themes in this section, include the Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy developments (see Well-being - key projects), Youth at Risk Crime Prevention work (see Family - key projects), and work on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (see Citizenship - key projects).
In focusing on those Education policies and practices which contribute to broad cross-portfolio youth issues, and specific issues relating to access to further education training, or employment, the Ministry recognises that the large resource of the Ministry of Education and related Education Agencies is (as distinct from other portfolio areas such as Health and Employment) almost entirely for people under 25; inclusive of the 12 to 25 year age group for which the Ministry of Youth Affairs has a brief.
Issues
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The transition between education and employment is a critical time for many young people. Access, prior to leaving school, to high quality information on employment, training, and careers is a vital part of enabling young people to make sensible choices. This includes access to information regarding education costs, allowances, awards and loans and the medium and long term impacts of these.
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Increased retention of students within the senior secondary school means that schools now have to cater for a greater diversity of learning needs.
There are several issues relating to making the school environment more responsive to the different needs of students, who, in the past, would not have returned to school after fifth form. These include developing ways in which students can have more influence over their learning environment.
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The Ministry of Education is currently developing and implementing the new Health and Social Studies curricula. It is vital that these curricula areas are responsive to the needs of young people in promoting good physical and mental health and providing the skills and knowledge to allow full participation in society.
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About 3% (22,000) school age children and young people are assessed as needing special education assistance. Under the main policy framework in this area, Special Education 2000, a new funding system has been devised. Portable funding entitlements will be made for students with very high or high needs for additional learning support. Direct formula-based funding will be made to schools to meet the learning support needs of the moderate needs group of students.
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The suspension rate has been steadily increasing since 1991. One-third of the 8,850 suspensions in 1995 were for an indefinite period.7 There is increasing concern from all sectors of the community about the level and nature of suspensions, and the associated impacts on young people. Suspensions for drugs, or other illegal behaviour at school have recently received media attention.
Changes to the Education Act 1989 have been initiated to achieve greater fairness for students and parents and greater consistency in practice by boards and principals. A new data-base for recording suspensions has been developed by the Ministry of Education. This will help to monitor consistency of practice and the size and nature of the problem. The Ministry of Education has also revised its suspension guidelines for schools and has run workshops to ensure that schools understand the procedures and can provide feedback. These changes have the potential to reduce the number of both formal and informal suspensions.
The issue of truancy is also one of concern to the Ministry of Youth Affairs. Absence from school has a negative impact on a child or young person's education and life opportunities. Truancy can also be an indicator of a child or young person who is at risk in a broader sense.
Although schools are required to record attendance of students every morning and afternoon that a school is open, there are no nationally consistent monitoring systems or procedures for attendance. Monitoring is also an issue for students transferring between schools. At present there is no national level monitoring of enrolment following transfer. The Ministry of Education is currently looking into ways of improving the national collection of information about student transfers.
There is a protocol between the Department of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Education that provides for severe truancy to be regarded as grounds for referral to a Family Group Conference. The protocol has come under significant criticism and has proved to be cumbersome for schools and the CYPS to operate. The Education and Science Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the issue in 1991 and recommended that this protocol be reviewed.
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Suspensions
With a view to identifying and promoting alternatives to suspension, the Ministry of Youth Affairs is co-ordinating the interests of key stake-holders such as the Ministry of Education, the CYPS, the Commissioner for Children, and the New Zealand Correspondence School. The Ministry is investigating whether it would be useful for schools to have good practice guidelines on alternatives to suspensions that do not unnecessarily compromise students' right to education. If necessary, the Ministry of Youth Affairs will work with the Ministry of Education to develop these.
