High school students working up to 50 hours to support family

There are urgent calls for adequate support for school students who are also working.

The Child Poverty Action Group estimates 15,000 high school students are working 20-50 hours per week on top of their studies.

“No one should have to choose between their education and putting food on the table for their family," says CPAG spokesperson Alan Johnson.

“The contributions of these young people, who would otherwise be at school, is masking a problem.

"When you have children opting out of school early, you’re perpetuating a cycle of poverty because you’re confining them to a life of unskilled, low-paid work which has consequences for us all because it robs society of skilled workers and potential productivity."

This comes as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon delivered his State of the Nation speech, speaking strongly about delivering better schools and “getting kids back to school”.

“Our levels of achievement are no longer world class … where 79 per cent of kids in the UK attend school regularly, the equivalent rate here at home in New Zealand is just 46 per cent.

“That is a year of education lost by the time those students are 15, and that is not fair to them and it is not fair to their futures.”

For Pacific students, regular school attendance for term three last year was even lower, at 33.8 per cent.

Regular attendance rates are yet to bounce back after the pandemic. Photo/Education counts

CPAG is calling for the government to ensure poverty is not forcing any young person out of education, or into an unsustainable employment-education workload.

Speaking to Levi Matautia-Morgan on Pacific Mornings, Johnson says education is the way out of poverty.

"Raising incomes is the single most effective way to lift people out of poverty, but until such time as these families have enough money to provide for their children, teenagers in these households should not be robbed of the opportunity to become higher paid skilled workers.

"When you have children opting out of school early, you’re perpetuating a cycle of poverty because you’re confining them to a life of unskilled, low-paid work which has consequences for us all because it robs society of skilled workers and potential productivity."

Johnson says some schools are already making adjustments to make learning more flexible.

“They may start lessons at ten o’clock to allow students to sleep in a bit and get to school after they’ve done half a night shift the night before.

“A lot of the lessons are now available online to allow students to balance up the fact that they possibly can’t be at school for those lessons or the fact that they can also get access to them later in the day.”

Families earning under a certain amount may be eligible for family tax credits, but Johnson says having another earner in the house could jeopardize this.

“The irony is that if a 16 year old works part-time and brings money into the household, that’s counted as money that the household has and it may tip them over that threshold, so you become more reliant on the income that these young students are bringing in.”

An unseen issue

The CPAG report, Overloaded and Overlooked: Investigating How Poverty Drives School Students into Paid Work was made using 2022 data from the Education Review Office, but the last government research on this was back in 2010.

CPAG researcher Harry Shi says there appears to have been an upswing in working students since the pandemic, but admits it’s difficult to know the extent of the issue.

"Aotearoa is a different place than it was 14 years ago, and we need more information urgently. The world has completely changed since Covid and the cost of living crisis," Mr Shi said.

There are calls for the tertiary student allowance to be extended to high school students, along with changes to how the Working For Families is calculated.

Legally, a person aged under 16 can’t be employed to work between 10pm and 6am or during school hours, but this is not usually enforced.

Watch the full interview with CPAG's Alan Johnson on Pacific Mornings: