Poutūterangi | March 2025

Welcome to the first Toi Mai stakeholder newsletter for industry and education providers of 2025. Going forward, this will be an important channel to keep you up to date with our mahi and the Government’s work-based learning reforms and what they mean for you. We also hope by sharing highlights of some of the great work going on across your sectors, this will help inform and inspire our Toi Mai community.

Work-based learning reforms

Keep up to date with the Government’s work-based learning reforms on our website, including government announcements, opportunities to provide feedback and key dates in the reform process that will see Workforce Development Councils replaced by Industry Skills Boards in 2026. 

Toi Mai is continuing to advocate for our industries to be covered in the new vocational education and training system. During the transition process we remain committed to delivering our work programme to grow the skills that will see our industries thrive.

What is a skill standard?

Watch this video for a quick overview of skill standards, the building blocks of vocational qualifications in Aotearoa. Progressively replacing unit standards, they can encourage more flexibility, portability and consistency across education providers.

Rethinking screen sector training

Despite millions of dollars of public investment in long-form screen education, only 6% of 2022 graduates from screen-related qualifications had entered the industry by 2023. At the same time, the industry is calling for a more skilled workforce and a greater proportion of government investment to go into industry-led work-based training.

In a screen sector first, Toi Mai recently brought together vocational education and university providers to discuss how New Zealand can have a more nationally coordinated screen education and training system, with programmes that more closely matches the needs of industry.

Benchmarking ringatoi Māori pay rates

A recent wānanga with ringatoi Māori (including weavers, carvers, visual artists, designers) discussed setting guidelines and remuneration standards for local government engaging Ngā Toi Maori.

Developing pricing benchmarks for local government commissioning works by ringatoi Māori is a key action in the Māori creative arts sector industry development plan. Next steps include reporting back key insights to the wānanga participants then going out to local government and iwi for consultation. 

Insight – tāngata whaikaha could bolster tech success

New Toi Mai research reveals how employing more tāngata whaikaha (disabled people) could bolster the success of New Zealand’s technology sector. Technology is our third largest export and one of the fastest growing sectors, but a lack of workforce diversity is undermining efforts to grow the industry.  

You can see more insights and trends for all our sectors and more on Te Mata Raraunga Workforce Skills Data and Insights dashboard.

Click the button below to unlock the shared data platform.