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| Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) :: Educational Innovation |
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Educational Innovation?
 The introduction of VCAL has provided a challenge to schools and teachers to rethink how schools are placed in their communities and how to deliver a curriculum that meets the needs of all students in the community. To deliver VCAL teachers have had to engage in activities that transcend the boundaries of the classroom and draw on the resources of the local community, agencies, Adult Community Education (ACE), TAFE, parents and local business.
The recent evaluation of the VCAL trial found that to effectively deliver a VCAL program that challenged the role of schools would require:
- The need for a new conceptualisation of quality curriculum that resists the domination of the generalised/abstracted knowledge-based curriculum and establish an applied learning of vocationally-oriented knowledge as a sustainable and valued pathway for students;
- The need for the development of teaching approaches for secondary school students that are informed by the principles of adult education and, as a result, are a clear departure from the teacher-centred, expository, classroom-based pedagogies that are still very much the norm in secondary schools today;
- The need for schools to enter into new partnerships and collaborative arrangements with other schools in their regions and with local community service agencies, employers, and TAFE and ACE providers in order to address more comprehensively the educational, training and employment needs of young people enrolled in applied learning and vocational education courses;
- The need for an expanded conception of the role of the teacher, as part of diverse range of efforts necessary to address the above three points;
- The need to develop schools as more broadly based, inclusive and flexible learning and social environments for young people; and
- The need to overturn negative stakeholder perceptions about vocationally-oriented applied learning in comparison to vocationally-oriented academic learning, and to general and abstracted education (Henry, 2003:4).
Aims
The aim of VCAL is to provide students with the skills, knowledge and attitudes to make informed choices about pathways to work and further education.
Senior Secondary Certificates
VCAL sits alongside the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) as another choice that senior secondary students have to complete a senior secondary certificate. The two certificates are not mutually exclusive and students can select VCE or VCE /Vocational Education & Training (VET) units within their VCAL course. Students who start VCAL are able to transfer to VCE and any completed VCE units undertaken as part of their VCAL program are then counted towards their VCE.
Enrolments
In 2002, VCAL was accredited and introduced into a limited number of Secondary Schools, TAFE and ACE (Adult Community Education) across Victoria. There are now over 10,412 students in secondary schools, TAFE and ACE enrolled in VCAL throughout Victoria.
As of May 2005 - Government schools have 7,877 VCAL students, Catholic schools have VCAL 1079 students, Independent Schools have VCAL 75 students, TAFE has VCAL 1,151 students and ACE have VCAL 230 students.
In Government Schools, there are students enrolled in School Based VCAL and students enrolled in Community VCAL. If students are enrolled in a community VCAL they will be based off the school site as is the situation with Changing Lanes. But any school may have a combination of both School Based VCAL and Community VCAL.
It is not possible to determine what numbers are in Community VCAL out of the 7,877 students enrolled in Government schools because the VASS registration system does not distinguish between off the school site and on the school site, if the student is enrolled at the school.
Outcomes
Certificate Completions
In 2004 there were 3642 VCAL certificate completions (58.7%) out of 6126 enrolments. A student is eligible to complete a qualification if they have completed sufficient units or modules or are enrolled in sufficient units or modules that if completed satisfactorily met the requirements for satisfactory completion of the qualification.
Destinations
VCAL is a pathways program designed to lead on to further education, employment, apprenticeship or traineeship. Students may take up employment or a mix of employment and training such as an apprenticeship before certificate completion.
Destination data collected by the VQA from 90% of VCAL providers (88% of students) indicates 85.4% of students moving to further education and training and employment destinations; 51.5% into further education and training and 33.9% into employment. Of those going into employment, 15.1% went to apprenticeships, 2.2% went to traineeships, 3.5 % went to employment less than 15 hours per week and 12.9% went to employment of more than 15 hours per week.
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