Part 4 The Asquith Group Case Study: Eleven Themes

6. Education disengagement

There are children and young people either not regularly attending or disengaging altogether from school, and this group includes cohorts who are younger than the school leaving age of 17. 

Some recommendations:

- As the integrity of reporting data needs to be maintained, all schools should ensure that “Transition from School Forms” (ie, to regional DET offices), are submitted.

- Schools which are holding the Student Resource Package (SRP), and any other funding for a student, should be accountable for follow-up regarding student non-attendance. Transition from School Forms need to be tracked.

- Greater communication with, and partnerships between mainstream schools and any community/satellite education (including VCAL) programs should be encouraged. More frequent communication and clearer protocols developed among and between mainstream schools (primary and secondary) and alternative or non-mainstream education providers (eg operating in the same area) would help facilitate the best outcome for these children and young people.

- There needs to be more support for schools and non-mainstream education providers with regards to transitions from schools to another provider, for example, through a re-engagement contract.

- With the ending of the federal Youth Connections program, there is a recognised gap in service provision to schools which previously had received support for children and young people who were at risk of disengaging, eg through case management provided by youth workers employed under Youth Connections. As it is not desirable nor realistic for schools / and teaching staff to provide all health and well being / welfare support in-house, schools should be encouraged, if not required, to contract with external (welfare / community / youth support agencies and services) to deliver welfare support to students, especially to those who under 17 years of age, who are at risk of disengaging.

- As stated previously, we need a program or programs, federally (and/or state) funded, which will be sustainable in the long-term, and contain the features described in Section 3

7. Education – VCAL and VET

“The VCAL was introduced in 2002 in response to the Kirby Report (2000) that recommended a set of reforms to ensure that all students were able to access a senior secondary program of study. As an alternative to the VCE, the VCAL has proved to be highly successful, with enrolments steadily growing....”. 43 In 2013, there were 22,853 certificate enrolments with 443 VCAL providers.44 In 2014, 14 new providers commenced delivery of VCAL.45. Although most VCAL providers are secondary schools, VCAL is also provided by some TAFE institutes and Learn Local organisations.

Surveys of young people consistently show that participation in VCAL is an important reason that students decide to stay at school. As an applied learning option for students, VCAL facilitates progression to apprenticeships, TAFE studies, or paid employment. “The On Track destination data for 2013 Intermediate and Senior VCAL students indicated that 27.3 per cent of VCAL students continued with further education or training, and 57.4 per cent commenced an apprenticeship, traineeship or employment.46 This means that 84.7 per cent of VCAL students had a direct pathway to further education, training or work – an outstanding achievement”.

Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Schools is a vocationally oriented program that is part of either VCAL or VCE. It provides credit towards these certificates as well as the opportunity toundertake a nationally recognised VET qualification within the Australian Qualifications Framework.

In Victoria, the term ‘VCE VET’ has been adopted to describe the formalised arrangements under which VET certificates have been incorporated in the VCE. Most students undertaking vocationaleducation and training as part of their VCE or VCAL are enrolled in VCE VET programs.

In his keynote address for the Victorian Applied Learning Association conference, Professor Bill Lucas from the Centre for Real-World Learning suggested that “Any division between the academic and vocational is an unhelpful one”.

Applied learning – that is, learning by doing; “real-world” relevance and application - is important.

If, as Professor Dr Bill Lucas has said, that “in many ways, Victoria is the home of applied learning,” more needs to be done to champion its value within the education sector, as well as to parents and the community in general. There is in fact too little awareness of the VCAL “brand”. Some teachers have still never even heard of it. For some VCAL Co-ordinators and VCAL teachers, this option is simply misunderstood, and these staff still air frustrations that VCAL is viewed as “second tier” (to VCE), dismissed as “VCE lite”. This is despite the fact a VCAL Certificate is a fully legitimate alternative to undertaking VCE, and has a more than decade-long track record in Victoria.

Perhaps in an ideal world we could better blend academic and vocational learning? At the very least we – educators, policy shapers, bureaucrats, parents, etc – should ensure they are equally regarded.

VCE and VCAL are two sides of the same coin.