• Greater Christchurch doesn’t have the high skill/ high education/ high earnings levels of other metropolitan areas.
• The numbers Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), unemployment have been better than NZ as a whole, but recent trends show deterioration
• The school system has delivered mixed results:
  • Too many school leavers without adequate qualifications and skills
  • And high levels of disparity – Māori and Pasifika do worse
• At higher qualification levels, local providers supply other labour markets
  • Lower tertiary enrolments in 2011 pose a high risk to future income streams
  • While providers face higher costs

Looking to the long term, it is the education system that will provide the skills and knowledge needed for the development of greater Christchurch as its economy adapts to changes precipitated by the earthquakes.

It is through education that so much of the new knowledge and the intellectual capital needed to fuel the development of new products and services must come.

Objectives moving forward

• All school leavers to have level 2 NCEA or higher
  • so they have options for tertiary study
  • so they are more likely to be productive, even if they don’t want to get into tertiary study
  • and so their skills are more portable
• More people getting higher qualifications in tertiary education
• And better tertiary/employment linkages so Canterbury can capture more of the skills we produce
• So we grow the base of skills in this community to ensure:
  • we sustain the tradable economy during the construction boom
  • we avoid the risk of reconstruction crowding out the production
  • those we get into construction have portable skills and qualifications