Guest posting to voced-coord list June 16 - 28, 1997

Item 3 of 10: Targets for work placements

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 03:10:14 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Richard Sweet
Subject: VocEd: Richard Sweet (guest) - Targets for work placements

Over the weekend I was looking at some 1992 OECD figures on educational participation, and was struck by how low ours were compared to other advanced economies (and bear in mind that our participation rates have actually got worse since 1992). The participation rate for 17 year olds in Australia was only 59%, compared to figures of over 80 per cent for France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Japan, and figures of over 90% for the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Our participation rate was among the lowest in the OECD.

What struck me in looking at the figures was the fact that nearly all of those countries with very high participation rates take vocational education very seriously indeed and have a majority of the cohort enroled in it. I do not think that we are going to be able to catch up to the rest of the world until we take young peoples' need for work force skills just as seriously. And that will mean expanding the proportion of students who are in school-industry programs far beyond the 12% figure revealed by ACER's 1996 national survey. Which raises the question of how high we can push the figure. I am an optimist, and believe that we can provide for at least the majority (ie 50% or more) of senior school students. I also believe that we should not be nervous about committing ourselves to a target like this.

When TRAC first started in 1989 people said to us that it might work in Newcastle, but it couldn't work in.... And then the list started: a small country town, a capital city, a middle class area, a State other than NSW. And each time the doubting Thomases have been proved wrong. Workplace learning can and does work in an enormously wide range of settings, provided the essentials are in place. But now another set of doubting Thomases are coming out of the woodwork - the ones who say that employers will never come to the party in sufficient numbers to make workplace learning possible on a mass scale, that it is destined to provide only for a small proportion of young people, and that therefore it is elitist, inequitable, not worth the bother or the cost. Forget about the benefits, forget about the small numbers enroled in other school subjects with the full blessing of school systems - just leave us alone, go away and let us slump back into the torpor that has left such a large number of kids bored witless with school, and dropping out in increasing numbers because they are not having their needs met. Sound familiar?

In face of this, why am I an optimist? First of all, there are many schools around the country that have achieved participation rates in workplace learning programs that are way above the 50% figure. Read Reforming Schools Through Workplace Learning by Jim Cumming and Bob Carbines (available through the National Schools Network for $20 tel 02 9886 7467) and find out about Acacia Ridge State High and St James Practical Education in Brisbane, where all students, including the tertiary-bound, are in the workplace for a day a week. And these are only two of the many schools revealed by the 1995 ACER national survey with very high rates of participation. If these schools can do it, I believe most schools can. If they want to.

The second reason that I am optimistic is my experience in Sweden, where I spent some time two years ago. There, 60% of students are required by legislation to spend a minimum of 15% of their time in the workplace (roughly a days week) over a three year period in upper secondary school, and everywhere that I went I found that virtually all students were able to be placed. So it does seem possible for a whole country to be organised so that workplace learning is a general rather than a minority right.

The secrets? Close personal relations between teachers, employers and students so that everyone marches to the same beat. Employers trusted to know their business best and allowed to take both training and assessment seriously. In many cases clearly negotiated and understood career paths, including wage arrangements, linking school to post-school employment. A sensible approach to what can be taught in the workplace and what in the classroom. A very pragmatic rather than ideological approach to making things happen. And proper resourcing of the quality control by the school system. None of this business of teachers being expected to do the coordination and the workplace visits in their own time.

What do you think? Am I too optimistic, or can we get there as a nation?

Richard Sweet
Research Coordinator
Dusseldorp Skills Forum
210 Clarence St
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Tel: (02) 267 9222
Fax: (02) 267 7882
e-mail: richard@dsf.org.au