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Event
Report: Special Focus Network seminar
Rural & Remote/Years 9&10
Melbourne: August 28-29, 2000
Issues
identified
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Summary of issues
raised and proposed actions
1. The
deepening divide between the ASSET RICH and the ASSET POOR impacts on the
ability to access further education
Add assets so students can achieve
See schools as a mix of life and education
Key resource: Rob Hart, Latrobe High School in Tasmania
- Re starting their own business
- Enterprise education
2. Broaden Partnerships – enhance the role of traditional
institutions involved in youth and careers eg Rural youth, Rotary, Church
- Sheer number of players is difficult so PLAN AHEAD
- Co-ordination is difficult
- Time factor
- Cycle of supply/blend eg. Mission Australia, Brotherhood - schools
not so isolated
- Access young people through school
- Partnerships must underpin the whole school policy eg. Gayle - teen
challenge win! win!
3. When employers are limited in a small town, how do you prioritise
between workplacement fro years 9&10 projects and structured
workplacement for 11&12?
Create an enterprise?
Workplace Health and Safety issues
Virtual Workplacement? - test industry
NSW weaning off work experience
Employers want structured work placement
4. Wages – how do you promote the wages issue when students are used
to hearing about minors’ wages?
- See the long term agenda
- Visit from ex-students so students can see through to the future
- Apprentice wages need to be more realistic
- Examine skill shortages
5. There is a concern that workplacement options are starting students
too young – focussing on life for work before we broaden their base
Naahh!!!
1. Do you want them disengaged from education or not?
2. Still the option of mainstream school.
3. Make life long learners
- many students are bored with school
- many find school not relevant
VET not exclusive answer - other options okay?
6. How to get in-school support for work placements etc.
Young people selling the benefits to staff at meetings etc/ in
Newsletters
Change mindset regarding What schools are for and how students
can/should learn
Ongoing Professional Development and updates to school staff
Persistence
Involving as many staff members as possible
7. How is consistency achieved? (eg. When staff moves on)
Develop sustainable programs in co-operation with others
Plain English documentation and careful file maintenance
Logs/manuals kept by teachers which act as a record of what classes
have done and what they are doing at that point
Stop thinking on a single-school scale/ cannot operate in isolation -
can share both human and material resources
8. Timetabling Issues:
Need to be flexible/ "If the horse is dead, get off it!"
Flex day for seniors in running schools
Must be sure that schools in the same area don't have same day of the
week
Half day subject blocks so fewer problems with having to miss other
subjects in order to complete requirements especially for Vocational
Education./work placement
Flexible timetables for teaching staff/team teaching
Subjects offered outside timetable if enrolment/numbers are low
9. Sustaining funded programs:
Initial funding springboard only/ every school deserves bite of the
cherry
Once run and proven, must look to community for support or find ways
to link it into existing systems with schools
Demonstrated outcomes promote and prolong life of such trial programs
ASTF aiming to link into other agencies etc. that can give support/
cluster concept
Long term planning needs to be addressed
10. Perceptions of Voc Ed
Practical alternative not a soft option
Staff must believe this and promote it in this manner
Stop the tradition of shuffling "bad eggs" across into Voc
Ed subjects
Vocational Education needs to be valued
That value must increase
NO MORE BROOM CUPBOARDS! (referring to the appalling working
conditions of some coordinators)
11. The question of training for jobs when there may be no realistic
expectation of a job being available
Match Skill Shortage
- Big industry link noted
- Issue being addressed in some areas - local not international
- Making students employable for the future ie. skills,
technology, 70% jobs for the future not created.
- Job Brokers have addressed this in part
- Some continuity needed
- Not enough funding available for long term tracking - however some
schools are tracking now!!! 5 Year tracking is the goal!!!
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Plan-it Youth presentation · Bridge
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First published
September 16, 2000. Last modified October 3, 2000. |
