Last week, Youth Minister Nikki Kaye announced a funding of $25,000 towards the OMG!Tech Youth Leadership Training Programme.
Miss Kaye describes the programme a step to prepare the younger generation in embracing future technologies.
According to Miss Kaye, students will be selected from specific deciles.
The decile classification is a system used by the New Zealand government to classify students according to socio-economic status. The bands are mainly used to target educational funding for needy students.
“This investment will help foster 20 young leaders from decile 1 and 2 schools to empower other young people in their communities to learn about and become familiar with using future technologies,” said Ms Kaye.
With decile classification as part of the criteria, the programme aims to encourage equity in access to technology across all communities. This sends a reassuring message that the government is making effort to support the less financially privileged.
The 20 young technology leaders will be selected based on various criteria. These criteria set are aimed at ensuring more young people from their communities take up 21st Century skills such as coding.
Through the OMG!Tech Youth Leadership Training Programme, technology sector experts will mentor participants in learning crucial tools to help them pursue higher education in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) related subjects.
Miss Kaye also shared about the Government’s commitment to invest in technology education for the youths. She also emphasised the dependence on technology in the lives of the future generation.
“The Government is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in state-of-the-art digital infrastructure in our schools, and recently outlined broader work underway to enhance students’ digital fluency’’
“We live in a time when technology is everywhere, and creations that we could once only imagine are becoming part of our everyday life’’ said Ms Kaye.
Recently, New Zealand’s Ministry of Education has taken steps to integrate technology into the education system for the future generation.Just earlier this month, Ms Kaye released an outline of work underway to harness the power of digital technologies to transform teaching and learning in New Zealand.
The OMG!Youth Leadership Programme starts in February 2016 and will end by mid-2017.