HIT THE GROUND RUNNING
Trading in school is a valid option for teenagers to kickstart their careers. Cara Jenkin reports
SCHOOL students can gain their high school certificate as well as a headstart in their career without having to sit through weeks of boring classes or study for exams – yet fewer teenagers are taking up the option.
Those that do tend to be “surprised and relieved” to have found the alternative study pathway that sets them up for jobs in burgeoning industries ranging from construction to information technology.
Latest National Centre for Vocational Education Research figures show the number of school students studying VET in Schools (vocational education and training) nationally – whether a single vocational subject or certificate qualification – fell from 252,610 in 2012 to 243,280 in 2016.
The number doing a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship has fallen from 23,025 in 2012 to 17,200 in 2016. In Queensland, the number fell from 89,940 in 2012 to 81,290 in 2016.
Learning facilitator and vocational college principal Patrick O’Reilly says parents and students are both “surprised and relieved” to discover vocational learning is an option open to students to achieve their QCE.
O’Reilly says not enough meaningful opportunities are offered to students in traditional schools and too much emphasis is placed on receiving an OP at the end of high school and moving into university.
He says Australia should look to countries such as Germany, where vocational pathways are valued just as highly as tertiary ones.
“Where we continue to see the (OP) as the holy grail and university as the first prize, we are going to have difficulty filling these skill shortages and struggle to provide meaningful pathways to students,” he says.
“One of the challenges we’ve got around VET ... is to be equally valued alongside a university pathway.
“I don’t think we’ve done enough work in the education space to provide meaningful learning opportunities for young people to remain in school – we had too great an emphasis on the ... university pathway.”
Trade training centres or vocational colleges accept enrolments for fulltime senior study, or in single subjects by students enrolled at other schools who cannot study that subject there.
Students may not receive an OP at the end of their studies but they do receive one or more certificate I, II or III qualifications so they can walk fully qualified into a job, continue into the second year of an apprenticeship straight after school, or pursue further vocational studies, as well as their high school certificate.
“We offer 18 different VET qualifications in certificate II and III and students will typically do three or four of those as part of their high school certificate,” O’Reilly says. “About 50 per cent of students are school-based apprentices and trainees.
“They are at school four days a week and at work one day a week. That’s a unique part of our offering.”
Students can train in hairdressing, beauty therapy, screen and media, sports coaching, retail, business services, information and design technology, early childhood education, health services/social assistance, furniture making, automotive, construction, property services, music, live production, food and beverage, commercial cookery, and tourism, travel and events.
At a trade training centre, they learn in a workplace environment, often with real-world experience, such as hospitality students serving the public at a restaurant.