Parents give their teens an edge to compete for university places
Tuesday 8 September 2009, 4:09PM
By Parnell Group Ltd
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As demand grows for university education, parents are giving their children an edge at secondary school by sending them along to a new course in study skills during the school holidays.
Growing numbers of concerned parents are enrolling their children for StudyEdge, an intensive one-day course designed to give students a competitive edge to achieve better results in NCEA, Cambridge or International Baccalaureate exams. StudyEdge presenter, Dr Bruce Johnstone of Parnell Group, says parents realise that their children only have one chance to do well at secondary school and that children who find it difficult to study independently, lack motivation or have poor study skills are at a serious disadvantage.
Dr Johnstone says many of the parents who enrol their children for StudyEdge are worried about whether their children will do well enough in exams, to qualify for newly restricted university places in the face of greatly increased demand for tertiary education. StudyEdge courses are also popular with keen students looking for an advantage in competing for restricted university places in law, medicine or architecture, or who plan to study overseas.
Securing that vital first job during a time of high unemployment has become almost impossible for young people without qualifications, work skills or experience, and many school leavers are desperate to simply stay in the education system, to avoid having to try their luck on the current tough job market.
This has increased demand for education and put pressure on New Zealand universities to restrict entry to more courses. Specialised university courses such as medicine, law and architecture have always restricted numbers and been subject to competitive entry. But now students with an NCEA level 3 pass can no longer be confident of securing places in the mainstream commerce or arts programmes that have traditionally been open to them.
Dr Johnstone began teaching StudyEdge courses at the Jubilee Building in Parnell, Auckland, during the April school holidays and says the course covers many of the study methods he developed during his own ten years as a part-time student, while completing five tertiary qualifications. Dr Johnstone was awarded his PhD from AUT last year and scored straight A+ grades on the research methods papers that made up his doctoral qualifying course. He puts his own success as a student down to the fact that he learned to apply excellent study skills and developed techniques to boost his motivation and overcome mental barriers.
Demand from around New Zealand for the StudyEdge course has prompted Parnell Group to now also run the course in Wellington and Christchurch, as well as Auckland, during the next secondary school holiday period.
The StudyEdge course programme includes testing students to find their individual learning preferences, before teaching them how to exploit those preferences to best effect. It helps teenagers to plan regular study time at home, to create a good home study environment, avoid distractions and overcome mental barriers and procrastination. StudyEdge also teaches valuable skills and methods for improving class participation, note making, reading, revision, writing assignments and sitting exams. The courses are all taught personally by Dr Johnstone and, because students participate in a number of activities during the day, class size is limited to 30 students.
The StudyEdge course is fast-moving, action-packed and designed to engage the attention of teenagers and inspire them to think differently about studying. Dr Johnstone says StudyEdge is all about being positive, developing great study skills and habits and boosting enthusiasm and motivation towards personal goals. The StudyEdge course includes imagination exercises where the students visualise the future they are working towards. Dr Johnstone says students often turn up in the morning looking bored and miserable and leave at the end of the day with a new sense of purpose, having found to their surprise that they really enjoyed and benefited from the StudyEdge experience.
Limited places are still available in the StudyEdge courses that will be held during the October school holidays and students can be enrolled online at www.studyedge.co.nz.
Contact:
Dr Bruce Johnstone
e-mail: info@studyedge.co.nz
website: www.studyedge.co.nz
Ph. 09 909 6011
Mob. 021 669 646