New Zealand’s secondary school students have very narrow views of career opportunities outside the traditional professionals of accountancy, legal and medical fields - now, is this a fact?

New Zealand as a country has no manpower planning - now, is this another fact?

The population size in New Zealand now is roughly the same as that of Singapore’s in the 1980’s.

But, Singapore leaders in the 1980’s had a vision - a vision to spread the country’s top talents around all fields of specialization such that top scholars had been “coerced” or even “pushed” into careers outside the traditional ones. This had borne fruit in Singapore’s development today. Twenty years on, during the 2000’s Singapore top talents become leaders in Construction, in Property, in the many branches of Engineering, in Medical Technology, in Information Technology, in Transport Management and many other ‘blue-collar’ tasks.

Rick Eade is right when he says and I quote, “There is a range of pathways available to jobs with excellent career (and salary) prospects that do not require a degree.”

What Rick had not said - and to me this is important - is that top bright and talented students should be encouraged to take up such pathways such that society as a whole would benefit from the wisdom of such bright and talented pool of people. What Rick said was just a reflection, a reflection directed to those who had deemed to be academically ‘disabled’.

What we in New Zealand needs now is some sort of National Manpower Planning such that the top talented students from schools can see the benefit of opting for say, Architecture, Construction, various branches of Engineering (including hands-on Plumbing and Electrical systems), Information Technology (including web and game designs), Environmental Planning, Farming and Horticulture Technology, etc. instead of being superbly-stagnated brains in the traditional fields like accountancy, the legal and the medical professionals.

Where shall we start?

Or more appropriately, when shall we start?

Manpower Planning, I mean.