A pilot program giving major corporations a greater role in high schools will be trialled in Geelong.

The Federal Government has revealed the Victorian city will be the site for a pilot program which will allow businesses a larger role in high schools with the aim of producing students with better work skills.

The model is already in place in the United States, where IBM is now one of 65 different manufacturing, telecommunications, health and financial companies involved in Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-Tech) schools across New York, Illinois and Connecticut.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited one of the school in Brooklyn on a recent trip to the US.

The school's principal, Rashid Davis, told ABC's The World Today program that the P-Tech model did not represent a takeover of education by big business.

"As a country, as a state, we are trying to make sure that we increase the public and private partnerships," he said.

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"There are always sceptics, but the idea is that we have state standards that students still have to meet, and so we're not turning over teaching and learning to industry; we are being enhanced by preparing our students to be the best citizens that they can be so that they have viable options."

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne said fast food giants and mining firms could be among the corporations interested in the concept in Australia.

"We could have McDonalds or IBM or BHP Billiton or Iluka or Santos or manufacturing businesses involved in their local schools," he said.

Labor has raised concerns about the program and said the Government needed to ensure that high schools did not become sweatshops.

Students 'first in line' in job search

By next September, there are expected to be 40 different P-Tech schools in the US, with around 40,000 students involved.

"It's an integrated six-year program, so a student completes with both a high school diploma, and a college degree, an associate's degree, in either applied science, computer science or engineering," Stanley Litow, vice president of IBM told the ABC's PM program.

"They have an opportunity to take their college courses starting in the ninth grade, which is the first year of high school."

Mr Litow said students were not guaranteed a job, but they would be given priority by the companies involved.

"Every student who completes with the right credentials is first in line for any available job at IBM. So they have an opportunity to be interviewed first," he said.

Mr Davis said IBM had a direct involvement in the children's education.

"They are direct in providing mentors for students; they are direct in providing curriculum for a course, called workplace learning, which helps to prepare students for the mentoring as well as to prepare them for the internships," he said.

"And so they also work with the college to say these are the skills that we know should be matched to the post-secondary credentials, so that way when students leave the post-secondary world, they have not only a degree but also a degree that's informed by the skills that industry know are needed."

But he warned that the days were long for students.

"Our typical day begins at around 8:30am, and the last period of the day ends [at] around 4:00pm or 6:00pm, with afternoon activities that can go from 4:30pm to 7:30pm.

"[Students say it is] a very long school day. I won't pretend that the time is not an issue, because this is their first experience into high school.

"The long school day is really a challenge, but our attendance is still above 90 per cent, and since we do not academically screen or screen for attendance, the fact that students have been historically showing up for the last three years above 90 per cent lets us know that they are coming because they are connected."