The ‘third way’ and vocational education and training in New Zealand

This article is an analysis of recent reform of vocational education and training in New Zealand. I argue that the 1999 election of a ‘third way’ government led by the New Zealand Labour Party raised the possibility of the previous administrations’ neo-liberal or market-led vocational education and training strategy being overturned. Evidence suggests little progress has been made towards realising this goal, and the basic thrust of the previous administrations’ vocational education and training policies have been retained. Moreover, the Labour Government has introduced new policies which are likely to increase competition within the vocational education and training sector. The implications for policy that emerge from this are discussed. The notion that increasing the level of state investment in vocational education and training (VET) is an important way to improve a nation’s economic performance, reduce social exclusion, and promote active citizenship is a defining feature of third way politics. Broadly conceived, the third way is a term used to describe approaches to political management that have emerged in New Zealand (with the election of a Labour Government in 1999), the United Kingdom (with the election of the New Labour in 1996), and elsewhere. Although it is important to recognise that different aspects of the third way have been given emphasis by centre-left parties in these nations, they do nevertheless project a fairly consistent set of interrelated themes and arguments which have been recently popularised by Gidden’s (1998) book The third way: the renewal of social democracy. At a basic level, supporters of the third way share with traditional social democrats a belief that the State’s ‘social investments’ such as those made in VET can provide solutions to social problems and promote economic growth. However, in contrast to earlier forms of social democracy, such as those normally associated with Labour governments in New Zealand and the United Kingdom during the 1960s and early 1970s, proponents of the third way offer qualified support for at least three core, neo-liberal values. First, they reject state