Guest posting to voced-coord list

Item 5 of 8:Skillshare

Date:Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:34:47 +1000
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Mike Frost
Subject: VocEd: Mike Frost (Guest) - Skillshare

Links with the Labour Market A significant feature of the VET in schools developments is the links that are being formed with a diversity of training organisations. Group Training Companies are one sector that will have a significant part to play in delivering New Apprenticeships.

However the opportunity to identify and work with local Skillshare organisations should not be overlooked.

There are currently around 300 Skillshare organisations nationally. Originally growing out of CYSS community based programs they reached probably their pinnacle of activity under Labor's Working Nation policy framework. In more recent times the direct funding of Skillshare programs has been progressively reduced and they will be phased out by May next year.

However many of the community organisations running labour market and skillshare programs have developed quite extensive infrastructure for delivering a wide range of training and support programs. They tend to focus on the socially disadvantaged, long-term unemployed, dislocated youth, special needs categories including migrant employment services. They remain as organisations with a strong community support focus and many of their activities support the endeavours of the CES.

They are facing major changes with the re-organisation of labour market support services, the creation of competitive public employment enterprises (replacing the CES) and the likely move to enterprises that provide employment assistance and job placement.

VETNETwork is keen to establish a close working relationship with Skillshare, soon to be renamed as Jobs Australia. It seems that schools interested in establishing a sequential system for supporting students at risk beyond school could do well to make contact too.

I have personally seen ex-Rosny College students appear in a variety of labour market and training programs at Key Training, a local Skillshare organisation. Often they were students who reluctantly enrolled in year 11 at the secondary college, found they didn't like school much, dropped out and started down Richard Sweet's "fragmented pathway" of unemployment, labour market training programs, part-time work and so on.

It seems to me that if students at risk could be effectively targeted by year 9 and a support net established in consultation with community organisations like Skillshare, then a better pathway could be opened up. The Jobs Pathway Program obviously lends itself to this kind of approach, where a really effective career counselling program at least puts young people before year 11 onto a pathway that would take them into a school-based vocational program as a matter of course.

Interestingly a number of Tasmanian Colleges have used the Certificate of Work Education from Queensland to place students at risk into Year 11 vocational programs of a more general nature. The intention is that they are exposed to a number of different workplace environments and in the process become much better informed about career suitability. They also become more competitive in being selected into industry focussed programs in year 12. Naturally extended workplacements of 160 hours (or 20 days) are used.

The National Skillshare Association can be contacted at:
03 9349 3699 or Freecall 1800 331 915
Fax: 03 9349 3655 or

Mike Frost
Executive Officer
VETNETwork - Vocational Education and Training Network
Mailing Address: VETNETwork PO Box 424 Rosny Park TAS 7018
Ph 0362 449254
Fax 0362 449299
Mobile 0412 053738
Email mfrost@info.rosny.tased.edu.au