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

Item 6 of 10: Voc Ed and University Entry

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 01:53:12 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Richard Sweet
Subject: VocEd: Richard Sweet (guest) - voc ed and university entry

Unlike all other States Victoria has required all subjects that are included in its senior school certificate to be counted for university entry. Recent analysis of data collected by ACER for the 1996 national school-industry programs survey shows that this has been at a cost:

* Participation rates in Victoria are lower than in other States;

* Despite work placements being quite short in Dual Recognition courses when compared both to other States and to other non Dual Rec courses, a high proportion of Victorian students have to do their placements entirely in their own time;

* A lot of school-industry courses take place outside of the VCE, and don't get included on students' Year 12 certificate;

* Year 12 students appear far more reluctant to take school-industry programs than in other States, and drop-outs between Year 11 and Year 12 seem to be higher than in other States.

In States such as Tasmania and Western Australia coherent programs of vocational preparation that involve extended workplace learning have been developed within the framework of senior school certificates. But in virtually all cases these involve students having to make a choice between a pathway that leads to work and one that leads to university.

New South Wales allows both types of courses - those that are recognised for university entry and those that are not - to be combined in a single program of study that at least in theory allows both options to be kept open. But in practice the nature of the New South Wales Higher School Certificate, and the way in which it interacts with university entry requirements, makes it very difficult for students to keep both options open.

One of Barry Mcgaw's recommendations, in his review of the NSW HSC, is in effect to link university entry to students' complete program of study rather than to each individual course or subject within that program of study. This is the approach that has been taken to Sweden's upper secondary vocational programs, all of which in principle can lead to university entry as well as to employment. McGaw has recommended that students be required to undertake 12 units of study for their Higher School Certificate, but that the universities be presented with only eight of these, rather than ten as at present, for purposes of selecting students. (That is if they reject his first option of requiring them, as in Victoria, to accept all vocational courses). In this way students would be able to combine a broad general education with more extended vocational studies and with more extended structured workplace learning, and by doing so neither close off the university pathway nor limit the depth and quality of their preparation for employment.

What do you think? Which of these options is best for students?

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