Technology, Vocational Education and the New Zealand Economy: A Review of Recent Developments

Abstract

Government responses to technological change through modifications to vocational education are usually designed to positively influence New Zealand’s economic growth. Accordingly, polytechnics and universities, senior secondary schools and industry are increasingly being encouraged to work closely together. Recently, advances in information technology have made the interrelationship of technological change, vocational education and economic growth increasingly interdependent.

Over the past two years four aspects of the relationship between technological change and vocational education have become prominent in New Zealand:

• a growing relationship between educational qualifications and employment;
• increased Government awareness of the place of science and technological education in the country’s economic development;
• new communication technologies are being advocated for the delivery of vocational education; and
• the continued publicising of the potential contribution of vocational education to national economic growth...