The educational liberation of today’s young people
In the words recently used by a regional school principal, the role of parents and educators is to liberate not incarcerate young people.
Prepare them to achieve dreams and aspirations, be equipped and supported to venture into new territory with ideas and hope and yes, even ambition, making their way in life.
How refreshing then that we just could be on the cusp of a cultural shift in educating future generations after decades of a “one size fits all” approach.
The laudable, albeit enforced, aspiration of a university education for all has often left a cohort stranded, dispirited and without direction, in particular those in rural and regional communities – cities and towns with a heritage of nurturing skills in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors.
Secondary school retention rates in Victorian country regions have hardly moved in a decade, sitting at 70 per cent in 2012 compared with 90 per cent in metropolitan areas.
Figures also show country students completing Year 12 are more likely to seek employment or undertake apprenticeships or other training than head to university.
The national emphasis on steering all youngsters to university before employment was at the core of the short-sighted dismantling of Victoria’s technical school system in the 1980s by the Cain-Kirner Government that in part led to regional areas falling behind on the “scales of academia” and to a nation-wide skills shortage that has grown in magnitude over three decades.
Where once there were education streams channelling 15 and 16-year-olds into apprenticeships for training from skilled artisans, today there is a shortage of experienced panel beaters, sheetmetal workers, locksmiths, glaziers, bakers and a host of other traditional hands-on occupations according to the 2013-2014 Skills Shortage Victoria report .
There is a touch of irony, therefore, in the new Victorian Government’s election commitment to re-introduce technical schools - an admission that its 30-year-old policy was wrong.
A policy that let down generations of young people who wanted to work with their hands instead of having heads in books, one that denied many talented and gifted tradespeople continued opportunities to pass on skills and diminished the economic productivity of Victoria. A policy that has forced young people to either stay at school to study subjects not necessarily aligned to their vocational calling or drop out and try their luck in a tight job market.
But any return to dedicated technical streams in secondary school system will require more than a cash splash. First and foremost must be the right outcome for young people: a meaningful and productive job.
The voices of local industry and community for so long ignored must be allowed to shape the curriculum and training modules.
Industry, too, will need to re-adjust its thinking and culture with a renewed preparedness to once more train young people instead of immediately accepting only experienced workers. Conversely, some employers over the years have voiced concern that older apprentices come into an industry too late with preconceived work practices and reduced scope to be moulded by the master tradesperson.
There is also the need for mature acceptance that in moving away from the “one size fits all” culture, there will be some who yearn for the stimulation and challenge of being with like-minded peers at specialist schools, schools that are in capital cities.
The former Victorian Coalition government’s commitment to a proposed 40-bed hostel for country students attending one of four selective-entry government academic schools or the specialist Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School served as a realisation that these study options should not be denied youngsters by reason of their geographical home.
The acceptance of country students into a selective-entry or specialist school should be cause for celebration. The few government school leaders who protest improved access to these schools as “stripping gifted students from regional communities” are wrongly pursuing the path of incarceration, masking their inability to know when to let go. It is better to send off the talented with blessings than shut the door on a future return to the country.
I have a nephew who like some other students completing Year 10 next week wants nothing more than a trade apprenticeship today. And then there is my son, also in Year 10, who will take his place at a specialist school in 2015.
Both are country boys who to occupy very different spots on the vocational spectrum, yet for them and others to succeed we need an education system with the streams and supportive capacity to liberate the young of today and tomorrow. Emergence of such a system in all states will be proof we no longer accept the directional placement of youthful aspirations into one basket.
