It is my privilege to join you in the launch of the Modern Apprenticeships scheme in tourism. This scheme has the potential to bring significant benefits, to youth training and education, and to the tourism industry.

In early 2000, the Labour-led Government launched the Modern Apprenticeship scheme. It is a key component of our Government’s comprehensive employment and skills strategy.

Although New Zealand has had a proud history of apprenticeships for young people, the system had fallen into a state of some disrepair under previous governments.

This Government recognised the valuable contribution that apprenticeships can make to both the personal and career development of our youth.
That's why we initiated a new scheme that made apprenticeships attractive not only to the apprentice, but to the employer as well.

We were not prepared to sit back and allow a significant segment of the current generation of young people to drift off into long-term unemployment or a low-skilled future.

We carefully considered similar programmes in Australia and the United Kingdom. In learning from their experience, a distinctive New Zealand scheme has been developed to meet the needs of trainees and their employers.

Modern Apprenticeships are a work-based education initiative for young people, combining the best of apprenticeship tradition with additional features designed to assist more young people to access employment based training towards national qualifications.

The scheme makes it easier to recruit and manage talented young people into their workplace by appointing Apprenticeship Co-ordinators to assist employers.

The Co-ordinators also provide ongoing mentoring, training support and problem solving advice to apprentices. Through providing this co-ordinator function, the costs and risks to employers of training young apprentices has been reduced and the number of people gaining access to apprenticeships increased.

The notion of sustainable employment is another concept that is central to the objectives of this programme. It reinforces the idea that we want to achieve long-term employment outcomes, and therefore priority should be placed on the acquisition of foundation skills that will achieve that end.

When the scheme was launched in 2000, the Government set the aim of having 3000 modern apprentices in training by the end of this year.

The target of 3000 is now expected to be reached this month. This is a fantastic achievement and demonstrates the popularity of the scheme with employers and apprentices alike.

With the addition of Tourism, Apprenticeships are now available in 27 industries in all.

However, the true success of the scheme is not contained in the statistics but in the individual stories of achievement.

Last month my friend and colleague, Steve Maharey, the Minister responsible for Tertiary Education, met up with Jason Madsen, the first cookery apprentice to sign up for a modern apprenticeship in hospitality in the Wellington area.

Jason was a dishwasher and kitchen hand at Bellamys restaurant. After seven months of loading dirty plates and helping the 12 chefs at Bellamys, he has joined the Modern Apprenticeships scheme and is on his way to earning New Zealand’s highest cookery qualification.

The qualification and experience would enable him to open his own restaurant one day.

And now, with the launch of the Modern Apprenticeships scheme in tourism, I look forward to hearing similar stories of young people’s success in one of New Zealand’s biggest and most important industries.

Steve Maharey very much wanted to be here today and has asked me to send his congratulations and best wishes on this exciting new development for the tourism industry, and for the Modern Apprenticeships initiative.

Steve also asked me to pass on this message:

"Of the many examples of learning in the workplace, the Modern Apprenticeship initiative is one of the most exciting.

Modern Apprenticeships does more than simply offer learning and work opportunities to young people.

The training is not restricted to industry-specific skills. It also includes key foundation skills, such as communication, numeracy and information technology, while the involvement of coordinators ensures support and mentoring is available.

Many of the apprentices have moved into these positions from a pre-employment training course, such as a Youth Training or Skill Enhancement Programme.

The clear pathways presented to young people and the possibility of moving from one learning environment to another enables young people to think beyond what is immediately possible, to set goals and to work purposefully towards achieving them.

I agree wholeheartedly with Steve’s comments. And I believe the Modern Apprenticeships scheme and the tourism industry is an exciting combination that has the potential to bring considerable benefits to both the apprentice and the industry in which they work.

The apprentice will gain a pathway into a great industry full of opportunities. With annual tourism expenditure at over $13 billion, and employment for some 163,000 New Zealanders (that is one job in ten) in a wide range of fields and professions, we are talking about a dynamic and key contributor to the country’s economic well being.

The tourism industry will gain the enthusiasm and fresh perspectives of young workers, as well as an improvement in the general skills and knowledge base of the industry. Modern Apprenticeships provide the basis for innovation through a highly-skilled work force. Ultimately, a skilled work force will benefit all of New Zealand.

The New Zealand tourism experience is differentiated by our environment and our people. While preserving the environment is quite rightly, a frequently mentioned objective for the New Zealand tourism industry, it is also vital to invest in our ‘human resources’.

People are the key. And more skilled, knowledgeable workers will enhance our tourism product and result in growth for the industry. The Modern Apprenticeships scheme really does create a win-win situation.

It also fits into the overall direction for the tourism industry set out by the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010. The Strategy, which was prepared by the government in conjunction with a range of industry stakeholders, identified people as the key to the success of New Zealand tourism.

However, it also identified a lack of alignment of matching tourism training to meet current and future workforce needs. The Modern Apprenticeships scheme certainly goes a long way to rectifying this.

The scheme contributes directly to achieving the goal set out in the Strategy: “to improve the capability of people working in the tourism sector”.

Together, the New Zealand Tourism Strategy and the Modern Apprenticeships scheme provide a clear path to growth for the New Zealand tourism industry.

I must thank the team at Skill New Zealand for the important contribution they have made to the success of the modern Apprenticeship Scheme. Their leadership has ensured that many young workers are furthering their potential.

Skills New Zealand has contracted the Aviation, Tourism and Travel Training Organisation to provide the Modern Apprenticeship Co-ordination Services for Tourism, and to take the lead in launching this initiative.

And the Regent Training Centre in Northland, Christchurch Polytech and Smart Careers in Nelson are also closely involved in the expansion of Modern Apprenticeships into tourism.

The Government will be contracting for at least 82 Modern Apprentices nationwide in the tourism industry by June next year.

And I understand the first apprentice is due to be signed up with Skyline Enterprises from Queenstown, here this morning at this launch.

The introduction of these Modern Apprenticeships is a significant step towards resolving the issue of future skilled labour shortages in the tourism sector.

In fact, the outstanding success to date of the scheme led to the recent Budget 2002 announcement of an extra $41 million for the scheme – taking the total Government investment in modern apprenticeships to $92.5 million over the next four years.

Each new modern apprenticeship is a potential personal success story – a statement of an individual young person’s commitment to their training, and of their employers commitment to them, the enterprise they are working in, and the New Zealand economy.

I believe the Modern Apprenticeships scheme will bring many of these personal success stories to the tourism industry.