Employers welcome calls for review of senior secondary education and rebalancing towards vocational subjects

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Employer groups have welcomed calls for a review of senior secondary education and a rebalancing towards vocational subjects, both of which were suggested in the second Gonski review of school education.

The Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, released on Monday, noted that more students are finishing year 12 but senior secondary education had remained “largely static” with an academic focus on students preparing for university.

The review chair, David Gonski, told Guardian Australia the panel “came to the view that staying at school to year 12 is desirable” but with more students completing high school some are “doing things in years 11 and 12 that are not necessarily useful to them”.

Schools need large increase in funds to deliver Gonski reforms, union says Read more

The share of students who continue to year 12 reached 85% in 2017, with half of those then going to university. For one-third, finishing year 12 is their last formal education and 15% enrol in other training.

The report stated that senior secondary school focuses “mainly on academic disciplines, and learning is generally more theoretical than applied, with assessment and reporting geared towards university entrance”.

“This focus on academic disciplines in senior secondary schooling can crowd out broader educational outcomes.”

The report said in many schools vocational subjects are considered to be “less prestigious” and “narrow and limiting”.

“It is vital that a focus on university entrance does not overshadow a focus on vocationally-based education, including preparing young people for employment or for a combination of work and training.”



In addition to calling for a further review of year 11 and 12 education, Gonski said the panel had a mixture of suggestions including “better involvement with the community, such as bringing someone in that can teach panel-beating or plumbing”.

“People in business want to be involved in schools and are prepared to take charge of employing kids from local schools but the feeling was we could use those last two years better to prepare students.”

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s director of employment education and training, Jenny Lambert, said the Gonski review had highlighted the “profound drop in performance” of Australian schools.

Lambert agreed with the review that there is an “under-emphasis on opportunities of vocational education” and an “over-emphasis on just an academic stream towards university”.

“That under-prepares students for the world of work, vocational training or apprenticeships,” she said.

Lambert also backed the review’s call for better career advice “so students can understand where the job opportunities are”.

Lambert said more practical education meant not just preparing students for formal vocational education and training but helping to “apply their learning” so students understood the relevance of subjects like maths.

Australia must overhaul 'industrial' school model, says Gonski-chaired review Read more

The Business Council chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, said it “supports schools working with industry to identify the skills and values students need to be work ready”.

In October Westacott called for a major overhaul of student loans and government subsidies, which she said distort the choice between vocational education and university.

She argued that a cultural bias and larger subsidies for university courses led people away from vocational education even if they were “better suited” to it.

Labor has already called for a major review of tertiary education and its education spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, has said it “wants prospective students to see Tafe and uni as equally attractive study options”.

Labor will not oppose recommendations in the second Gonski review but focused its attack on the $17bn funding difference between its schools offering and the Coalition and the perceived lack of progress on reform.

At a press conference on Monday Plibersek labelled the report’s 23 recommendations “unobjectionable” but said “there’s pretty much nothing new” in them.

She said it was “depressing” that reforms including an early childhood focus on literacy and numeracy were underway but were torn up by the then education minister, Christopher Pyne, in 2013 on the basis they were “red tape”.