Eighteen year-old Tokomairiro High School student Micaela Laing has completed an NZQA qualification in the South Pacific Educational Courses (Spec) programme.
"As far as we know, Micaela is the first in the Clutha region to gain this qualification," learning support teacher Jane McEntyre said.
Spec trains young people in the kind of transferable, adult life skills that are so often taken for granted nobody thinks to teach them, such as budgeting, effective procedures for household chores, accessing community resources, looking for accommodation and employment and staying mentally and physically healthy.
"It helps with the outside world, like knowing how to use money and what it’s like to leave home," Micaela, whose goal is to go to polytech and develop a career in tourism, said.
"My favourite thing about Spec is that it gets you involved [practically] in learning about everything you need to know about how to live and flat when you’re older [and] how to make my own opportunities."
She said Spec consisted of four, one-hour self-directed classes a week.
"Students still do maths and English and so forth," Mrs McEntyre said.
"Spec is an alternative pathway to NZCEA for students whose learning styles are better suited to a less traditional classroom setting.
Tokomairiro High School presently has about 15 other students on the Spec programme, which is available to year 9-13 students who meet special criteria.
