Helen Clark: Former Prime Minister on the Knowledge Wave project, scrapping NCEA

The Government's proposing to entirely phase out NCEA within five years, saying New Zealand needs a schooling system that sets students up for success. 

Within the overhauled system would be improved vocational pathways for students planning on entering the workforce as opposed to further education. 

In 2001, then Prime Minister Helen Clark launched the Knowledge Wave Project – a vision of a society with well-educated, innovative citizens who lived and worked in New Zealand. 

She told Kerre Woodham Knowledge Wave was about more than university education, it was about getting New Zealanders focused on the need to lift the level of value in the economy. 

Clark says that you won’t get a higher value economy if you don’t have a highly educated and skilled workforce. 

When it comes to scrapping NCEA, Clark is asking for more details, as she’s concerned with durable policies instead of ones that change with each government. 

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