VET
A Brotherhood of St Laurence study has found disengaged youth could be left behind by recent changes to vocational training. By John Mitchell
Cuts hit‘ at risk’ students
There is an old saying that you can judge a society by how well it looks after the most disadvantaged in its midst. Applying that saying to education today, society might not rate too well, given the new trend of reducing government support for disengaged young people who hover in that space between school and vocational education and training.
The reduction in the Victorian government’ s support for the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning( VCAL) – a year 11 to 12 senior secondary school certificate – has received widespread condemnation in that state.
A new report has provided an in-depth analysis about how the reduction in VCAL funding can affect 15- to 19-year-olds in one of these programs that has 50 students.
Toss into the mix a simultaneous reduction in funding for student support services at Victorian TAFE institutes, where many in this VCAL group are meant to head, and this fragile group of young people is even more at risk, says the report’ s author, Dr George Myconos, a senior researcher in the research and policy centre of the Brotherhood of St Laurence( BSL).
36 | February 2013
The report, Re-engagement, training and beyond, is an evaluation of the second year of a community based CAL( CVCAL), a BSL education program conducted at Frankston, on the outskirts of Melbourne. The evaluation of the program shows that the CVCAL model can have a profoundly positive impact on“ at risk” young people, but the funding cuts to VCAL, VET and TAFE raise fresh concerns.
" One effect of the VET cuts is that there will be fewer RTOs providing much maligned courses such as hospitality, personal training and retail,” said Myconos.
“ These are easily disparaged, but they can be the crucial stepping stones back into education and work for the kids we deal with. And, of course, the cuts make it harder for TAFEs to provide the kind of back-up support we mentioned [ in the report ]," said Myconos.
The BSL evaluation focused on the CVCAL program offered in a community setting to young people in Frankston who had disengaged from conventional education and had, in many cases, suffered significant hardship beyond the school setting.
Myconos found that“ among the students’ most pressing needs on entering the program were sustained and effective pastoral support, stability, respect and safety”.
He also reported that“ the students’ needs were complex and did not always become apparent until well after commencement.
In responding to problems including excessive drug and alcohol consumption, the staff were stretched to their limits.” Unsurprisingly, Myconos emphasised the need for extra and specialist support for this group.
“ Effective and specialist wellbeing assistance, within a supportive, nonjudgemental setting, is essential to meeting such needs,” he said.
A core part of the CVCAL program is to help participants find pathways into vocational education and training, but this was far from straightforward for the Frankston cohort.
“ Vocational education and training( VET) posed significant challenges, particularly for the younger students. They had difficulty adjusting to VET’ s emphasis on self-reliance within a trainer-centred learning context, removed from the BSL setting.”
Myconos found that“ a lot of the kids