Public schools to go to Year 12

ALL Tasmanian public high schools will offer education to Year 12 from first term 2022, Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff says.

Fifty-six of the state’s high or district schools have now added years 11 and 12 to their curriculums, with the last — Taroona High — to begin from next year.

Extending high schools to Year 12 by 2022 was a 2014 Liberal Party election promise originally costed at $30m over four years. The policy has resulted in an increase in the number of young people staying in school, said Mr Rockliff, pictured.

“What we’ve seen over the course of the last six or seven years is an increase in apparent retention rate when it comes to years 11 and 12,” he said.

“That is good because there are more opportunities for our students to stay at school longer, more opportunities, of course, of developing their skills and being productive members of our community.”

Mr Rockliff said the “extension schools” offered students choice, encouraged them to remain engaged in education for longer and improved educational outcomes.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last week showed Tasmanian students were staying in school at rates above the national average.

‘The longer our students … can stay at school — the evidence is very clearly there — that they will live longer, healthier, and more productive lives,” Mr Rockliff said.

“And so it’s great that we’re seeing success, and not only in terms of individual students, and the number of high schools that would extend to years 11 and 12.

“But that apparent retention rate, of course, has increased some 10 per cent, but is also above the national average. We recognise that we were coming from a very low base, we had to act.

“We just could not be bottom of the class when it comes to educational attainment in Tasmania, we had to lift our game.”

Nine schools were extended to years 11 and 12 this year.

Labor opposed the Liberal extension schools plan, describing it as “unsustainable and unaffordable” and a threat to the college system — but now supports it.

Labor’s signature Tasmania Tomorrow senior secondary education reforms, which transformed colleges into academies and polytechnics in 2008, were reversed after two years in the face of strong opposition.