This annual report - Taranaki District Health Board

SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL RETENTION ANDTERTIARY PARTICIPATIONIntroductionA key factor for academic achievement at secondary school level is participation. Toachieve, students need to be at school, experience a sense of belonging, and stayinterested and engaged in learning. Research suggests that there are strong correlationsbetween early school leaving, unemployment and lower incomes, and that these in turninfluence later socioeconomic position [56]. One indicator of continuing participation isschool retention i.e. the proportion of students attending school beyond the age they arelegally required to do so [56]. In New Zealand, the minimum school leaving age rose from15 to 16 years in 1993 [57]. Parents of students aged 15 years are able, however, to applyto the Ministry of Education for an exemption on the basis of educational problems,conduct, or the unlikelihood that a student will obtain benefit from attending school. In suchcases, parents are required to give details about training programmes or employment thatthe student will move on to, if the exemption is granted [56]. The Ministry of Educationhowever, strengthened its early leaving application in 2007, and there was a sharp dropfrom about 4000 early leavers in 2006, to 388 in 2011 [58].Not all students who leave school prior to 18 years of age, or without formal qualifications,transition directly into the workforce, with many taking part in other forms of tertiaryeducation. The participation rate of Māori students in tertiary education has more thandoubled since 1998, with Māori now participating in tertiary education at a much higherrate than non-Māori [53]. After adjusting for differences in age distribution, 16.7% of Māoriaged 15 years and over participated in tertiary education in 2010, as compared to 12.1% ofAsian, 11.2% of European/Pākehā and 12.3% of Pasifika peoples. When broken down bylevel of study, Māori students had substantially higher rates of participation at non-degreelevel, while non-Māori participation rates were highest at degree level and above.Proportionately more Asian peoples were studying for tertiary qualifications at degree andpost-graduate level than other ethnic groups, while European/Pākehā had the secondhighest rates of participation at the degree and post-graduate level [53].The following section uses Ministry of Education data to review the proportion of seniorsecondary school students staying on at school until at least seventeen years of age. Inaddition, tertiary participation rates are reviewed, in order to provide some context forinterpreting ethnic differences in senior secondary school retention rates.Data Source and MethodsDefinition1. The proportion of secondary school students staying on at school until at least seventeen years of age2. Age standardised participation rates in tertiary educationData Source1. The proportion of secondary school students staying on at school until at least seventeen years of ageMinistry of Education: ENROLNumerator: The number of school leavers aged 17 years or above in a given year.Denominator: The total number of school leavers in a given year.Notes on InterpretationNote 1: From 2009 a new way of categorising school leavers has been used which more accurately recordsschool leaver numbers. Thus the data presented in this section are not comparable with previous years.Note 2: DHB area is based on the school that students attended rather than their residential address.Note 3: NZAID students (foreign students sponsored by the NZ Agency for International Development), andforeign fee paying students have been excluded.Note 4: Ethnicity is total response and thus individual students may appear in more than one ethnic group.For further detail seehttp://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/indicators/definition/student-engagement-participation/3945School Retention and Tertiary Participation - 132