According to the New Zealand Government, the number of secondary school students achieving at least one NCEA qualification has been steadily declining since 2017 (New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2021). In 2021, only 69% of Year 11 students gained one or more NCEA Level One qualification. That means a whopping 31% of all 16 and 17 year olds – approximately 87,000 rangatahi - left school without having gained the necessary qualifications to move into a career pathway.
It's probably fair to assume that those 87,000 students didn’t have a great experience at school. For whatever reason, the environment didn’t meet their specific learning needs. Therefore, it’s also reasonable to assume that those students who didn’t thrive in the traditional learning environment won’t be rushing to engage in tertiary study.
And that’s where online learning comes in. By covertly bringing education and training into the lives of returning learners by way of supported study on their smartphones, participants can upskill on their own terms.
At Pipi Learning, we understand that there are ways of engaging learners with low educational attainment. All our modules are written for an accessible learning age in a dyslexia-friendly font, and if reading is an issue or participants aren’t confident in English, our text can be accompanied by audio narration so participants can listen instead of reading. All our modules are designed to be completed in 30 minutes or less, with larger courses chunked into a series of modules to manage concentration or available time. All the modules are interactive to engage learners, with photos, images, videos and animation used throughout.
Returning learners with an unhappy history at school need not approach further study or vocational education with distrust. eLearning can provide a whole community of participants with the opportunity to upskill and gain the training they need to succeed.