Data shows the only statistics growing regarding youth employment, training and education are those recording their unemployment and disengagement from learning.

Unrewarding start

In the year to March 2024, Radio NZ says 12.4 percent of 15 to 24-year olds were not in employment, education or training (NEET). Of these, 14.2 percent were female.

These data indicate a marked increase from those reported at the end of March 2023. At that time, 10.9 percent of young people were in the NEET group; of those, 11.5 percent were young women.

For those aged 20 to 24, the rate was significantly higher this year than last. Over 18 percent of women in this age bracket were in the NEET group, up 27 percent year-on-year.

A Wellington mother whose now 21-year-old has lived on the benefit for the past three years wants more for him.

"Ultimately I really want them to get into something engaging and enriching. I want them to have a pathway to independence, to going flatting" she says.

Other parents share her aims.

Regional variation

The worst place to be if you're a young NEET is Northland.

It had the highest NEET rate at the end of March this year at 16.3 percent of people aged 15 to 24. The Bay of Plenty is next in line at 16.2 percent says Craig Renney, Council of Trade Unions policy director and economist.

Renney is concerned.

He says that young people in this situation are facing a potential "huge challenge" throughout their lives. Wage and employment scarring can happen when their labour market prospects deteriorate as a direct result of an initial spell of unemployment

"The longer they spend NEET, the worse the labour market outcomes tend to be for those people."

Renney says it's possible that young women's unemployment is a reflection of what's happening in the industries they had typically been employed in.

"We know construction is struggling, manufacturing is struggling but perhaps not as much as high street retail. Perhaps not as much as the more female-dominated industries."

Apprenticeships are often shed during downturns, Renney observes.

"Then when the upswing comes as inevitably as the downswing, and we suddenly need apprentices, we don't have any."

What to do

Helping NEET young people to stay in New Zealand and use or develop their skills here is important Renney says.

"Do they [the ones with skills] stay in-country? If they've got skills and not in education, employment or training they might say 'stuff this I'm going to Oz' and they don't come back. That's a permanent loss on that side.

"The longer you're out of employment the harder it is to get back in, that's why interventions at that point in life are so vital."

Source

• RNZ

Such religious leaders could also have to enrol in a "national register of faith leaders", as part of the UK Government's new counter-extremism strategy.

A leaked draft of the strategy from the Home Office was seen by the Daily Telegraph.

The strategy, due to be published this northern autumn, says that Whitehall will "require all faiths to maintain a national register of faith leaders".

It also states that the Government will "set out the minimum level of training and checks" faith leaders must have to join the new register.

Registration will be compulsory for all faith leaders who wish to work with the public sector, including universities, the document states.

In practice, most UK faith leaders have some dealings with the public sector and the requirement will cover the great majority.

The move marks a significant deepening of the state's involvement in religion and is likely to be resisted by many religious representatives.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said it had not been consulted on the proposals.

Other senior Catholic sources told the Daily Telegraph that any plan for state supervision of priests would be "firmly resisted".

Imam Maulana Shah Raza warned the Government "not to meddle in religious affairs or to expand the state's involvement in deciding on religious and theological issues".

He said: "The Government needs to concentrate on ensuring that safeguards are in place to protect the public and treating all faith communities equally."

The document states the UK Government will also set out a new "framework for intervention" when local councils "fail" to tackle extremism.

The document states that Whitehall "will compel schools, including academies, to have at least one governor or trustee with no familial or business ties to the school, and who lives outside the catchment area".

Sources

• Daily Telegraph
• Image: Wikipedia

Maria Noonan, who will develop and deliver the programme, was introduced at a Safe Church Training Day held in Wellington on July 30.

She will work as part of the Catholic Church's National Office of Professional Standards (NOPS).

Director Bill Kilgallon said the programme will be for priests, religious, staff and volunteers.

"It is partly about prevention, but is also about awareness-raising really," Mr Kilgallon said.

"Because there would be many people who attend Church who have been abused, not in the Church, but in families and other settings," he said.

"And the Church could and should be a place of healing and welcome for them."

Mrs Noonan is a teacher by background, and also worked for many years in a L'Arche community in the United Kingdom.

Born in New Zealand and with a degree from Otago University, her last job was working with students with poor school attendance.

The training day in Wellington was attended by about 45 people, including members of diocesan sexual abuse protocol committees and representatives from religious orders.

Canon lawyers, people who help NOPS with investigation work, diocesan staff and one bishop also attended.

They heard from Mr Kilgallon and Mrs Noonan, as well as from Msgr Robert Oliver, the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Msgr Oliver is responsible for dealing with abuse cases that go to Rome and has been called the Vatican's "point man" for abuse.

He gave those at the Wellington event an overview of the issue "church-wide" and the role of the CDF, as well as discussing the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Mr Kilgallon said Msgr Oliver would have liked the way bishops and religious orders in New Zealand work closely together on this issue.

But the New Zealand church still faces challenges in terms of supporting victims and education and prevention, Mr Kilgallon said.

Those at the training day were told the number of victims coming forward is expected to increase in this country, mostly reporting historic abuse.

Source

• National Office for Professional Standards
• Image: MSN Ireland