Separating the sheep and the goats - vocational programs in Victorian schools

Transcription

1 Separating the sheep and the goats - vocational programs in Victorian schools Inaugural Professorial Lecture Annual Jack Keating Memorial Lecture Professor John Polesel

2 Melbourne 1901

3 Melbourne Grammar School

4 Melbourne Continuation School est. 1905

5 Sunshine Technical School est. 1912

6 Swinburne Girls Junior Technical School

7 Ideological Enemies Donald Clark First Chief Inspector of Technical Schools Separating the professional and the industrial, the sheep and the goats in the high schools Martin Hansen Inspector of Teachers and Schools, later Director of Education the suppression of class consciousness and of individual greed

8 Democratic credentials? Martin Hansen saw the divided system as anti-democratic Donald Clark saw high schools as neglectful of the social and economic circumstances of working class children Footscray High School staff, 1916

9 The Hansen and Clark themes A divided curriculum can be socially selective (Hansen) Vocational education and training has struggled to establish a role within mainstream secondary schooling (Clark)

10 Secondary schools no home for VET? We have observed a series of historical phenomena; let us see what ideas they may justify us in forming about what secondary education is. The preliminary and purely negative observation is that secondary education has never had an essentially vocational goal Émile Durkheim, 1904

11 The Technical Schools Victoria 1905 FIRST STATE HIGH SCHOOL 1912 FIRST TECHNICAL SCHOOL 1929 UNIFICATION PROPOSAL DEFEATED 1986 TECHNICAL SCHOOLS ABOLISHED 1994 VET IN SCHOOLS INTRODUCED 2002 VICTORIAN CERTIFICATE OF APPLIED LEARNING (VCAL)

12 The Research Evidence Low in status hierarchy (Goodson 1993) No parity of esteem (Green 1995) Has a weak knowledge base (Young 2007) Merely a response to skills shortages (Jephcoate & Abbott 2005), co-opted to serve economic needs or absorb unemployed men and returned soldiers from the World Wars Social selection (Ringer 2000, Baudelot & Establet 1971, Polesel 2008)

13 School completion and university

14 VET in Schools in 2014 Vocational subjects offered as part of senior certificate Victorian Certificate of Education Subjects count towards senior certificate May count towards university entrance rank Mainly delivered in schools, but also in adult VET providers, like Technical & Further Education Institutes

15 VET participation by sector ,454 students % VETiS Non-VETiS Year 10,11&12 enrolments ,770 students 25.50% 32,312 students 12.80% State Catholic Independent Sector

16 VET participation by SES VETiS enrolments by SES, Victoria % Highest Next highest Middle Next lowest Lowest

17 VET by sector and SES SECTOR VETiS ENROLMENTS BY SEIFA VALUE 60 ADULT % enrolments STATE CATHOLIC 20 INDEPENDENT 10 0 SEIFA value

18 Rainforest High School VET in Schools Participation By Father s Education % Completed primary Completed secondary Apprenticeship/technical University degree

19 Rainforest High School Views of Teachers The problem is if a teacher can teach maths and VET, maths gets priority. The issue is competition for staff. It s a struggle to put staff through Certificate IV training this allows them to assess VET in any area. But then we are told that if the teacher becomes permanent, they won t be allowed to teach VET. They will teach a proper subject.

20 Teachers and school culture Yes, the school culture supports VET, but staffing is the problem. The school is five teachers short. So, VET might miss out academic teachers get priority

21 VETIS and Gender Patterns of gendered subject selection persist, e.g. in STEM (Warrington & Younger 2007) Patterns of selection prematurely affect the career options of young women (Dawkins & Holding 1987) In VET, culture and practices remain masculinised (Butler & Ferrier 2000) Employment prospects at top levels much weaker (Weaver-Hightower 2003)

22 Destinations by Gender, VCAL Females Males % 5 0 University Cert IV + Cert I-III Apprentice Trainee Employed FT Employed PT Unemployed Inactive

23 Occupations & Working Hours Of VCAL Graduates by Gender Both males and females are concentrated in low paid casual work Girls are most likely to be sales assistants or food handlers Boys are dispersed across a wider range of occupations Both males and females are more likely to be working parttime than full-time Males are much more likely than females to be working full-time Females are much more likely than males to be working part-time

24 Problems With VETiS? Poor image Low level qualifications Neither specific nor broad generic competencies Diluted programs No specialist providers Continuing social selection Gender differences Weak transition to labour market to part-time, casual low-paid jobs

25 VET in Schools The Positives Provides curriculum options for range of learners Engages reluctant learners Exposes young people to world of work & employers

26 Principles for an improved approach Status should be raised and quality improved Need to change priorities in allocation of staff & physical resources in schools Need to provide coherent, structured programs, not one or two subjects unrelated to the rest of their studies Need to see VETiS as the first step in a pathway to broad families of occupations not narrowly specific jobs

27 Principles for an improved approach Need to ensure that government, social partners, employers and industry contribute to the training of young people

28 CRC Sydenham a different approach

29 CRC Sydenham