Fund an independent Stage 0 examination of He Ara Angitū
Request:
That the House of Representatives urge the Government to fund an independently governed Stage 0 feasibility, co-design and full business-case process for He Ara Angitū—Pathways to Prosperity, with pre-published legal, cultural, privacy, causal, equity, delivery, financial and harm gates before any decision on a pilot.
Reason:
New Zealand needs a long-term plan to help more secondary students build capability, qualifications, employment pathways and protected Learning Capital before disengagement hardens into lost opportunity.
He Ara Angitū proposes a lower-intensity universal core for the wider student cohort, combined with stronger targeted support where barriers are higher. It includes mentoring, verified effort, participation, pathway partnerships, immediate earned support and a protected education-and-training account.
The proposal is not proven. Its current financial model rules out an expensive mature design under weak or narrowly distributed effects. However, transparent sensitivities also show that even a modest, persistent improvement in average real lifetime earnings across an annual cohort could materially change the national case—particularly under a lower-cost universal-core-plus-targeted design.
Stage 0 should therefore test the idea rather than assume the answer. It should examine causal effect, cost, privacy, cultural legitimacy, labour-market absorption, persistence, distribution of gains and the risk of harm or gaming. Support for Stage 0 must not be treated as approval for a pilot or national rollout.
Each stage should earn the right to proceed.