Sina Aiolupotea-Aiono, chair of the ed&co Trust; Julie Donvin-Irons, CEO of ed&co; George Frazis, CEO of Westpac; Sir Ron Carter from the Committee for Auckland; Dick Hubbard; board members; business partners; principals and friends of ed&co,

ed&co are doing excellent work to support governance and management in schools.  

There are parallels between what ed&co is doing in forming productive links between schools and businesses, and what the Government seeks to do in forming productive links between schools and tertiary education and industry. 

The objective of the productive links formed by ed&co is to meet the needs of schools in terms of training in governance and management.  The objective of the productive links that the Government seeks to form is a better fit between education and training opportunities and the needs of young people.

When we look at the school leaving statistics, and the stories behind them, it is clear that for some young people, the current school system itself is simply not the best fit.

This Government doesn't believe that simply raising the school-leaving age is the answer to early school leaving. Rather, we believe in broadening the options available to young people at school so they can pursue meaningful qualifications while remaining part of the schooling system.

As a start, the Government has pledged to establish at least five new Trades Academies by 2011.

Trades Academies are about making education more relevant to young people. We want to get more young people actively engaged in their education, and offer students who prefer hands-on learning a high-quality option for gaining the skills that New Zealand needs.

Trades Academies will provide students with more options for and information about learning that will contribute to future employment. Automotive skills, engineering, forestry, and business are some of the education programmes we envisage.

Programmes will also include career advice and education planning, and literacy and numeracy for those who need further skills in those areas.

Trades Academies are designed to motivate more students to stay at school, by providing them with a greater range of courses; give students a head start on training for vocational qualifications; and make schools more responsive to business and industry needs.

A new and very exciting project that is working right on the boundary of secondary and tertiary is the opening of a tertiary high school programme at Manukau Institute of Technology, or MIT.

The tertiary high school will be run as a partnership between MIT and contributing schools. It will enable students who are underperforming in school and are likely to fail to move into a more tertiary environment and combine both school and tertiary level vocational qualifications.

By combining the strengths of both a school and a tertiary institution, the tertiary high school should provide a much more integrated approach and therefore a smoother transition.

There has not been a programme like the tertiary high school in New Zealand before. It is a unique model. The students will do most of their education in the tertiary environment, but retain links with their home school for sports, cultural and other age appropriate activities.

We will be watching it closely to see how it benefits the students involved, and how we can apply a model like this more broadly across the system.

One of National's election promises, the Youth Guarantee, is in many ways the centrepiece of the Government's work to ensure all young people have access to the training they need.

The Youth Guarantee promises every 16- and 17-year-old New Zealander that they can have access to tertiary education without paying fees. That tertiary education might be delivered through an industry training organisation; it might be while they are based in a workplace; it might be while they are attending a polytechnic.

Youth Guarantee focuses on a range of vocationally focused courses linked to levels 1 to 3 on the National Qualifications Framework. With literacy and numeracy a priority for the Government, there will also be courses that focus on or at least include the ability to read, write and do maths.

In 2010 and 2011, two thousand young New Zealanders will be able to access a student place under the Youth Guarantee. The cost will be $52.7 million. In these initial years, we will target areas with high youth unemployment rates where there is access to suitable vocational training programmes.

The ultimate aim is to make the scheme available to all 16- and 17-year-olds.

The business-school partnerships promoted by ed&co can provide strength to the operation of schools, ensuring that schools develop their strategic direction and implement this through good management systems.  Good governance and good management support good education provision.

The partnership also benefits business. Businesses can gain an appreciation of the differences between business and school environments, learning about how schools operate, the leadership skills of principals, and schools' relationships with their community.

ed&co's mission is to reduce educational inequality within New Zealand's schools. This fits in with the Government's priorities for education. It's about every child being able to achieve at their best -- and schools having the governance and leadership capability to let that happen. 

The Government wants to raise education standards at all levels to ensure equality of opportunity for all our young people, and to develop a skilled workforce.

In order to achieve this we have we have developed six areas of priority to ensure a clear focus on raising standards across the education system.

These priorities for schools include literacy and numeracy - making sure that every child achieves literacy and numeracy levels that enable their success; skills and qualifications - making sure that every young person has the skills and qualifications to contribute to their and New Zealand's future; and Maori enjoying education success as Maori.

Sound governance and management in schools is important to achieve these priorities, and the Government is committed to ensuring that support and training is available for all boards.

This support includes core services especially around legal and employment areas, delivered by the New Zealand School Trustees Association (NZSTA). It also includes webinars and e-workshop based training available for all boards, delivered by the Ministry of Education, and a national panel of contractors available to provide tailored training, mentoring, and advisory services to individual boards or clusters of boards.

The equal partnerships that ed&co establish are a good example of a relationship with private sector organisations which complements this range of training and support mechanisms available to boards of trustees.

I commend those organisations and businesses who have stepped up to be part of this important community initiative, and the schools who have taken the opportunity to work in this way