Youth Guarantee a success at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic

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Youth Guarantee a success at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic

In figures released earlier this month by the Tertiary Education Commission, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic was named as one of the top five performing ITPs (Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics) in the Government’s flagship Youth Guarantee initiative.

Established by the National led Government in 2010, the purpose of Youth Guarantee is to improve the educational achievements of at risk 16 and 17 year olds by providing them with an opportunity to participate in a range of vocational courses. It’s part of a wider youth opportunities package designed to create new work, education and training opportunities for young people.

Kuku Wawatai, Director Māori and Community Development at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, said the success of the Youth Guarantee programmes at the Polytechnic is due an innovative, and some would say radical, approach to learning.

“Instead of confining students to textbook theories we should allow them to tackle real problem-solving issues in the real world and allow them opportunities to change the world as part of their learning process,” said Mr Wawatai. “Instead of treating class time as a management problem’ we should abandon scheduling and collectively redesign the learning day to make it appropriate and relevant to student interests.

“Instead of treating these young taonga who have not had an enjoyable compulsory sector experience as potential deviants, we ought to treat them as people who are capable of mutual trust.”

With the majority of the Youth Guarantee students identified as Māori, the Polytechnic has focused its innovative approach to learning based on the unique experiences and challenges facing these learners. That approach remains at the forefront of the Polytechnic’s continued efforts towards education achievements within the Youth Guarantee programme and the wider institution.

Bay of Plenty Polytechnic was one of the first of the ITPs to provide the free study programme in 2010. Their unique approach was so successful they were granted an additional 24 students for 2011, seeing 63 young people having the opportunity to successfully engage in lifelong learning. The Polytechnic looks forward to delivering more successful outcomes in 2012.

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