Manukau City Council has stepped up to support "Auckland Pacific Careers" and help Pacific students and their families make study and career choices aligned with New Zealand’s future skills needs and to get “work ready” for the job market.
From the schools initially targeted for participation, the programme has now engaged with 15 schools from across the Auckland region, from which 100 students will take part with their families.
"Kick off day" for APC is 25th September at Clover Park Middle School in Otara.
Auckland Pacific Careers (APC) is a unique opportunity for businesses, tertiaries and service providers to connect with Pacific talent as scholarship recipients, future students, employees or clients, in a community based setting.
Other Auckland Pacific Careers partners are the Pacific Island Chamber of Commerce, Career Services, The C-Me Mentoring Trust, Manukau City Council, Waitakere City Council, Auckland City Council and Accelerating Aotearoa.
Rather than "just another expo" APC seeks to create change over the long term. Envisaged as an annual programme APC has 3 phases:
- Turn up: Orientation day where talent and their families come along to find out what's on offer, meet with tertiary training providers, businesses, successful Pacific role models and hear about opportunities.
- Sign up: Registration to become part of a web based talent tracking system and get linked to tertiary training providers and employers. This system will profile student skills and experience to both employers and tertiary training providers to enable ongoing identification for job or scholarship offers, targeted training and career advice and professional networking opportunities
- Follow up: An ongoing programme of workshops and seminars with a "whole of community" approach to helping parents understand the education system and its services and supporting youth into skilled work.