Aparima College in Riverton has become the first secondary school in Southland to join the New Zealand Youth Apprenticeships programme following expansions to the pilot by the Ministry of Education.
The pilot programme was launched in October last year with 10 schools - including Dunedin's Queens High School.
This week, Aparima College was one of 10 additional schools named to participate.
College principal Kaye Day said the programme offered training and work experience so secondary pupils could earn credits toward an apprenticeship while still at school.
It aimed to engage young people's interest in education and skills training by connecting what they were doing at school to what they want to do as a career.
‘‘We're very excited about it. It will enable us to build better relationships with our local and regional community. It will also support students, who have career goals, with real-world learning.
‘‘It has immediacy and relevance for them.''
Mrs Day said the ministry invited Aparima College to participate in the Youth Apprenticeships programme because of its success in the similar Gateway programme during the past six years.
Ministry of Education deputy secretary of schooling Anne Jackson said the expansion was about maximising the benefit from the pilot.
‘‘The Youth Apprenticeships pilot is about using existing resources, such as the Careers Information Grant (CIG), the Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource (Star) and Gateway, and allowing schools greater flexibility to innovate and try different ideas.''
Ms Jackson said the programme would help prepare secondary pupils for opportunities in more than 40 industry sectors.
‘‘Adding more schools, and therefore more ideas, will increase the sum of knowledge we can gain from this pilot, and the enhancements the 20 schools are able to add will flow through to the Youth Apprenticeships scheme when it is fully rolled out to all secondary schools in 2011.''
