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Two years ago the Dusseldorp Skills Forum and the then Australian Student Traineeship Foundation (now the Enterprise and Careers Education Foundation) entered a partnership to develop innovative community responses to the need for more dynamic, locally based pathways for young people.[1] This ‘national youth commitment’ project sits alongside a multitude of initiatives including Full Service Schools (now defunded); Local Learning and Employment Networks in Victoria (LLEN)[2]; the Enterprise and Vocational Education strategy in South Australia[3]; the youth pathways re-evaluation taking place in Queensland; local VET alliances and partnerships, and others all attempting to provide a more inclusive set of mainstream learning options for young people. The community partnership approach is also at the centre of the recent Footprints to the Future report and is likely to be an area of significant activity at the State and Commonwealth level in the next few years.[4] This paper presents an analysis of the approaches being adopted in national ‘youth commitment’ communities, the difficulties and positives encountered and some emerging implications for policy. It focuses on one particular initiative but also provides some illustrations of other examples and case studies.[5] The rationale for the project was simple. Australia is one of the few countries in the OECD where school retention declined during the 1990s. Currently there are about 200,000 teenagers who are neither in full-time work or full-time education.[6] Six months after leaving school a quarter of school leavers are either unemployed, in part-time work but not studying, or not in the labour force.[7] This is occurring at a time when education and training is becoming a lifelong, on-going process and when, in terms of employment, value is being placed on the development of personal and intellectual skills that develop the capacity and curiosity to learn: the cognitive and technical skills that encourage clear thinking, problem solving and relationship-building.[8] The foundation skills required to enhance the capacity of individuals to learn and to participate successfully in work over a lifetime are best acquired through formal education and/or through structured workplace learning to Year 12. Young people leaving school before completing Year 12 face long-term disadvantages, either in terms of unemployment, lower incomes, or face other risks to their well-being. The overall cost to individuals, governments and the rest of society due to the disadvantages of higher unemployment, lower incomes and other costs arising from early school leaving in Australia is estimated at $2.6 billion every year.[9] The gap between Australia and our OECD competitors in terms of investment in knowledge – embracing research and development and innovation, in addition to spending on education and training – is growing.[10] It has taken the intervention of businessmen such as Rupert Murdoch and John Schubert of the Business Council (of Australia, BCA) for the wasted opportunities associated with a growing educational divide to become a priority issue in policy debates.[11] This shows the importance of engaging constituencies such as business and broadening the range of those with a stake in education and skill formation. Figures such as Murdoch and Schubert recognise the price we are paying domestically and internationally for insufficient effort in lifting education outcomes and skills development. In the ‘new economy’ labour market and social environment of this decade the transition to adulthood and economic independence is becoming increasingly complex. New forms of integrated social assistance are required to enable young people, especially early school leavers, to navigate their way through labour markets and education and training systems. This effort needs to focus on encouraging early school leavers to stay on at school, developing alternative learning options within and alongside schools, and to support them in the world outside school if they choose to leave.
The need for strong local initiatives and accountabilities Thus the attainment of generic skills through a variety of experiences, and in structured, meaningful ways is becoming increasingly important. An analysis of youth transition services produced for the BCA last year highlighted some major problems in service conceptualisation, planning and delivery within our education, employment and training systems.[12] The capacity of central agencies under current arrangements to determine successful youth transitions is questionable. In particular the BCA pointed to:
This insight was reinforced by findings of the Eldridge Taskforce on Youth Pathways Action Plans that identified the following weaknesses in our education, employment, training and community care systems:
Compared to many of the more successful northern European and Scandanavian countries with a rich network of local involvement, support and service provision in youth transitions, Australian educational pathways have until the past decade or so been centrally determined and strikingly slow to adapt to the changing nature of work and shape of the labour market. |
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OECD principles of good transition The review of transition systems and experiences in 14 OECD countries rated the Nordic safety nets that require complex and co-ordinated initiatives highly. At any one time they are required to:
As the Review reports, "the key to making this integrated set of policies, and of rights and obligations, work in practice is program co-ordination and delivery that is locally managed. In each country the state imposes an obligation upon local government to put in place a follow-up service that tracks early school leavers, ensures that those at risk do not fall through the cracks, helps them to develop individually constructed action plans, and monitors their progress in implementing these plans."[14] Local follow-up services are able to be effective for several reasons. Firstly, they are given a clear and explicit responsibility to track and monitor early school leavers. This effectively provides local evaluation, scrutiny and partnerships with education and employment programs managed by different sectors and levels of government. It means that intervention occurs quickly if early school leavers cannot find work. They generally have sufficient resources for the task. As an example, the follow-up service in Norway’s Akershus county in 1997 had a potential target group of around 800 young people and a full-time equivalent staff of 14 to meet their needs. They have a mandate to work closely with a wide range of community agencies: education, employment and labour market programmes, health, welfare and police services can be drawn upon to meet particular individual needs and to put a particular individual action plan into effect. This includes basic or remedial education, vocational education and training, recreational courses, periods of subsidised employment, personal development programmes and on-the-job training.
The key features of the Nordic safety nets for early school leavers and unemployed youth are:
Success is indicated by:
By contrast in Australia we are presently struggling to redesign our education, training and employment systems to ensure there is a similar level of shared responsibility for outcomes. Nearly all post-compulsory education systems in the federation are now undergoing major change, devolving funding and providing support to enable schools, TAFE, Job Network providers, local government and others to achieve improved outcomes and stronger accountabilities for endeavour. While there is broad consensus about directions and the need for improved transitional support arrangements for young people, there is not yet an agreed framework across and between spheres of government about priorities, funding, delivery mechanisms, and implementation strategies. There is a crucial ingredient that underpins these successful arrangements in the Nordic countries – a legislated entitlement for young people to access and enjoy a strong educational foundation and induction into post school life. The key concept is a guaranteed opportunity for all, through a position in education, training or work. There is an entitlement to obtain a full upper secondary qualification, either for work or tertiary study.[15]
Need for a legislated entitlement The Forum has been a strong supporter of both the Kirby reform process in Victoria,[16] and the Eldridge report at the Commonwealth level. We have no illusions about the magnitude of the cultural and systemic issues that are being tackled. This is not just about improved outcomes, it is about a new way of governance, new accountabilities and responsibilities, and new means of building the social and economic capacities of communities. I hope the following remarks are seen as supportive of the change agents rather than another piece of negative criticism. It is instructive that neither the Eldridge report nor the Kirby review has yet resulted in legislation in the Commonwealth or Victorian jurisdictions to provide a transparent and recognised entitlement for all young people to a certain level of post-compulsory school education, training, skill development or employment opportunity.[17] Targets and goals are one thing, guarantees are another. Our political culture tends to be more comfortable with the framework of targets than legislated entitlements. But targets and goals, while they put some onus on government, can more often be used by authorities and central agencies to deflect responsibility to providers such as schools, TAFE, and others. And if goals are not reached, then providers can blame government for lack of resourcing or flawed implementation or something else – in the end the position of young people may not be concretely advanced because a system built around good intentions was not supported by the binding obligation of clear legislation.[18] Targets also assume a constituency capable of holding you to account. The Finn targets[19] are interesting in this context because while the goal established a decade ago for 60 per cent or more of 22 year olds in 2001 to have attained or be participating in qualification programs at skilled worker level have been achieved, this is little celebrated.[20] Equally it means that few people might have noticed if this target had not been achieved either. It means that not many people have observed that only 86 per cent rather than the 95 per cent of 19 year olds targeted have actually achieved the minimum qualifications Finn considered necessary to be competitive over the long-term in the labour market.[21] There has been little political fall-out flowing from the failure to meet this target; individuals have no redress or rights to uphold as they might under legislation, and governments can easily dismiss external advocacy organisations. However as we have discussed, the economic repercussions and social implications are apparent. The striking thing about the Nordic approach is the clarity of thinking and precision of responsibility and action that then follows. Collaboration is possible because there is a common framework across and within government central agencies and departments, and on the ground there are common expectations about the contribution of stakeholders to meet their legislated obligations, with the result that people tend to pull in the same direction. The key element that has been most widely picked up from the Nordic agenda is pathway planning, and the need to be more responsive to the needs of individual young people. Brokerage, pathways negotiation, mentoring, and teacher advocacy – those elements that involve personal relationships and engagement - are growing and there are real outcomes to show for this. Perhaps this is an indicator that in general our careers education systems and priorities have not been adequate, and there are limitations to web-based approaches in these areas. There are emerging issues here that I want to come back to later. One of them relates to the difficulties in Australia of mandating the participation of key stakeholders in the absence of a legislated entitlement. In the Local Learning and Employment Networks in Victoria for instance there is little to bind the participant organisations such as schools, TAFE, and so on to the priorities and projected outcomes of the LLEN. The LLEN is not necessarily part of their core business; with schools for example the line of accountability to the central agencies, while modified, remains essentially unchanged. The LLENs at this stage are membership organisations rather than partnerships organically built out from local networks and collaborations. Indeed the possibility exists that LLENs may become separate organisations with their own charter and modus operandi sitting above rather than being an on-the-ground expression of networking or partnership principles. There is presently no requirement for funding provided to schools and TAFE for the pathways management of ‘at risk’ students (Managed Individual Pathways or MIPs) to be seen as part of the LLEN resources to meet the post-compulsory education targets announced by the Victorian government last year.[22] Nor have the funds provided by the state government to TAFE to meet the educational needs of disadvantaged students (‘state profile funding’) been woven into the LLEN framework as yet. It seems there is plenty of networking to be done because public schools - both primary and secondary - and TAFE are also obliged to be part of a PENG (Public Education: The Next Generation) network. This second network, which may or may not comprise the same educational cluster as the LLEN, is charged with improving learning environments and student support, activities closely aligned to the work of the LLEN.[23] The difficulties in building sustainable local community partnerships truly capable of influencing employment pathways and learning opportunities is compounded by our federal division of responsibilities that further obfuscate and erode the goal of shared responsibilities for the destinations of young people. We urgently need framework agreements between the Commonwealth and each of the states to underpin a national entitlement of all Australians to at least a foundation level of education, training and employment assistance. The Eldridge report in its findings at 2.1. found that "young people would benefit from a national transition system … which guarantees all young people access to 12 years of schooling or its vocational equivalent."[24] (my emphasis) However the report in the end recommended something less clear cut. It suggested that governments simply work together to develop a Commitment underpinning and sustaining the transition of young people to independence through "the opportunity to complete 12 years of schooling or its vocational equivalent". (my emphasis) New ways of working in partnership and collaboration are endorsed, but the report does not take the logical step of recommending joint legislation by the states and the Commonwealth that would enshrine the guarantee it found to be necessary. Another important step must be an agreement between the Commonwealth and each of the states so that publicly funded agencies - such as the Job Network, Area Consultative Committees, Centrelink, Job Pathways Programme (JPP) and others - are brought into community partnership arrangements systemically. At present local stakeholders have to rely on the serendipity of local goodwill and capacity to form relationships with these agencies. In Victoria for example the LLEN are expected to focus on employment outcomes and opportunities in the absence of a framework agreement between the state and the Commonwealth despite this being an area primarily of Commonwealth responsibility. MCEETYA is often an unwieldy mechanism, and it would be better for an agreement to be struck on a state-by-state basis. The tasks facing the Commonwealth and the states in response to the Eldridge report must include consideration of a legislated entitlement and development of these framework agreements. Legislation should have two goals: to articulate in clear terms the obligations that would fall on governments to guarantee access to a minimum level of education, training and employment assistance by all young people. At the same time legislation must facilitate local stewardship for the destinations and pathways of young people. New sets of relationships are being forged that ask a wide range of players – parents, teachers, employers, local government, and centralised agencies based in communities (such as Centrelink) – to share the risks and responsibilities involved in the development, guidance, learning and maturation of young people. Legislation should not result in a blunt government response - there must be true recognition of the role of community partnerships in policy, to see them as a vehicle rather than an objective in themselves. For example, requiring local partnerships to be responsible for tracking, monitoring and comparative outcomes.
National Youth Commitment communities The DSF-ECEF ‘youth commitment’ partnership is working with the Macarthur region in western Sydney; the NSW central coast; Tumut-southern Riverina; northern Sunshine Coast of Queensland; the Gold Coast; and associated communities in the Peel district of Western Australia, Mandurrah, and Kwinana-Rockingham. Relationships have also been established with Hume-Whittlesea, Frankston-Mornington Peninsula and others in Victoria. Each of these communities is establishing or re-invigorating a community partnership, undertaking an environmental scan and working towards benchmarks and indicators of improved outcomes for young people, especially those ‘at risk’ in labour markets in their region. They are working on the basis of clear regional boundaries, usually local government defined, within which the partnership will operate. The partnership with DSF and ECEF has evolved mutually, and local government involvement and encouragement (with others) in each case has been pivotal. The partnerships are keen to test
Templates, manuals and tools have been developed to assist these local communities. External facilitation and seed funding for the scanning, baseline data work and the initial co-ordination tasks has been provided. Local stakeholders are driving the process, ECEF-DSF are a resource, mainly in terms of experience, social capital and insights rather than hard dollars and infrastructure. The process is being independently monitored and tracked during the roll-out, and we will know better the impact in participating communities by this time next year. However we already have learnt that:
In practice there are significant hurdles that face local stakeholders. In the Whittlesea community for example, one of the lead communities involved with the DSF-ECEF national ‘youth commitment’ project, it took close on a year to develop a framework with agreed goals and processes, and another year before concrete steps on the ground resulted in measurable outcomes. Whittlesea is a fast growing outer suburban and semi-rural municipality of more than 120,000 people in Melbourne’s northern corridor. Across so many dimensions – age structure, income, health status, and employment levels – it typifies the outer suburban localities of Australia’s capital cities. Its families are aspirational, both for themselves and their children; sport is one of the powerful glues that binds the community together; and a modest affluence can be detected that sometimes masks pockets of real disadvantage. It faces all the community building, skill and employment development, and infrastructure provision issues confronting every expanding suburban cluster.[27] Its teenagers generally attend one of the eight local schools (seven public and one Catholic). Mostly built in the 1960s and 1970s, the public school infrastructure is beginning to show signs of age and sustained wear and tear. The social and economic indicators - in terms of school retention to Year 12, youth unemployment, and access to higher education - are comparable to those in nearby municipalities in northern Melbourne. However the population growth expected over the next decade will put great pressure on an already strained public education system and on the creation of new employment opportunities. Through a Spirit of Co-operation Agreement the Whittlesea local government, the eight local secondary schools, TAFE, ACE, JPP, RMIT, ACC, Centrelink, employment assistance and training organisations, and community welfare agencies formally acknowledged their shared responsibility for the destinations and outcomes of young people attending the schools in the partnership. The agreement is not binding on the signatories however by a public process of stakeholder sign up, ratification and incorporation into the business plans of the signatories it has become a key instrument through which projects on the ground can be constructed. A separate institution has not been created but an organising tool has been manufactured that signifies their social obligations to each other, and more importantly to the young people of Whittlesea. Early school leavers were identified as the primary target group as a prelude to more comprehensive approaches to other teenagers and young adults resident in the municipality. The Whittlesea Youth Commitment objectives set in 1999 were to:
Have these goals been achieved? A complete review of the Whittlesea Youth Commitment is under way,[28] however the initial signs are promising. |
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Table 1. Destinations of Whittlesea early school leavers for all terms 1999 and 2000, as at 28 February. Note: Excludes one school in 1999.
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The table describes the activities of exiting students and especially early school leavers at the end of February 1999 and 2000 from the eight participating schools in Whittlesea. It is based on surveys of leavers from Years 9, 10 and 11 conducted by personal interview, phone calls and letters to each individual student. The school population has remained fairly constant during the period under review. Caution is required in interpreting the data but some highlights include:
The table demonstrates that two years later there are still gaps between the vision and what has practically achieved. But at least now there is clarity about what is to be achieved, there is a much-improved funding base and there are strong working relationships to overcome deficiencies. The steps that have taken place in Whittlesea have included:
One of the chief goals has been to develop more knowledge about early school leavers, their decision-making and their pathways. Now this cannot be an exact science, despite our best efforts. Anybody who knows young people understands how fluid their decision-making is, and how quickly ambitions and ideals can change. It is a telling comment about our culture that until recently we have not systematically invested in finding out how young people are faring at a local and personal level.[29] A mediating structure or brokerage team of four effective full-time staff working with the eight local Whittlesea schools, TAFE, training organisations, Centrelink and the Job Network, developed in the second half of 2000. This was funded jointly by the schools, RMIT-Area Consultative Committee and the Dusseldorp Skills Forum. It followed a pilot brokerage involving one full-time worker funded by the schools and the Victorian Department of Education, Employment and Training since mid 1999. The goal of this increased service was ‘to provide support to all potential early school leavers in the Whittlesea Youth Commitment area to ensure that every student leaving school before completing Year 12 has secured a place in employment, training or education or is actively engaged in job search activities.’ The basic idea was to assist potential early school leavers in making an informed decision about whether to stay on at school, or to seek learning in another educational setting, or to seek a training place or job in the labour market. The Youth Commitment fulcrum based at RMIT NIECAP provided supervision and management while the local JPP provider assisted with professional development and support. The brokerage team worked in this way: during Term Three 2000 the schools surveyed all students in Years 9, 10, and 11 to ascertain the number of potential early school leavers through a self-selection process. 300 students responded by indicating that they were likely to leave school either before the end of the school year or not return in 2001. To better gauge their intentions and to assist with options the broker team interviewed each of these students. More than 180 students that indicated they were likely not to return to school in 2001 opted to remain at school. Files were opened for 230 students including 86 students referred from each school’s transition team (eg. careers teacher, Assistant Principal, student welfare co-ordinator). Several key organisational and policy issues have emerged through this experience and these include:
The brokerage has continued into 2001 through the schools pooling about a third of their MIPs funding and this, with a contribution from the LLEN, has enabled the employment of three full-time brokers.
Many other communities as well are taking steps not just to reduce the potential social exclusion of some young people – essentially to reknit and to reinforce the social safety net - but to build positive pathways as well. For example there are a cluster of initiatives taking place in Frankston. The brokerage model at Whittlesea was adapted from a pilot project undertaken in Frankston and elsewhere by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in partnership with Victorian trusts. This model has also influenced the approach of ‘pathways negotiators’ and ‘pathways projects’ that preceded the establishment of the LLENs in Victoria. The Brotherhood’s Bridging the Gap project essentially involved dedicated case-managers or brokers working with school staff to assist young people to make informed choices about vocational pathways while at school. The basic process has involved identification of ‘at risk’ students, referral or self-referral to a dedicated broker; development of a pathways plan; follow-up support, advice, and guidance; and tracking the application of the individual pathways plan. There is extensive effort to maintain contact including workplace visits if the young person is in employment or training, and personal contact in the case of those who are unemployed or not in the labour force. Like Whittlesea the impact has largely been in terms of school retention and improved take-up of training opportunities, through apprenticeships and TAFE participation. Of course in essence transition brokerage does not differ greatly from the service offered by JPP providers. But as we know JPP is a precious resource with skilled people that are thinly spread. The Kirby proposal to weave JPP into the LLEN framework in Victoria has not yet been implemented but then again nor are the MIPs as yet integrated into the LLEN framework. It has been left to projects on the ground to make connections and build collaboration with JPP. An important initiative of ‘Bridging the Gap’ in Frankston and south-eastern Melbourne is a partnership with eleven public secondary colleges to pool a portion of their MIPs funding to engage seven transition brokers employed through the local JPP agency. For some schools this may be a convenient outsourcing arrangement to comply with a head office directive to provide pathways planning. However it does have the genesis of a more powerful partnership of skills and resources that cross organisational barriers and state and Commonwealth funding territories. It does not at this point incorporate a shared responsibility for youth destinations, but this may arise through the LLEN process. Schools across the southern region have also collaborated on a pathways to workskills project with the aim of recognising and credentialling the part-time employment of teenage secondary students in the region.[30] Only about a quarter of students are taking VET in Schools pathways but many more are doing part-time work. A skills recognition tool to be used by employers, education providers (schools, TAFE and other RTOs) and students would track achievements and competencies, and provide student-employees with credit transfers to an appropriate vocational qualification. The pilot aims to encourage employers to provide workplace learning that will enable student-workers to reach minimum industry level benchmarks. The proposal is an important practical step on the ground that will encourage schools and TAFE to acknowledge the learning and skills of student-workers and the way this experience can be better integrated into their curricula. An application for funding a trial has been made to the Victorian Department of Education, Employment and Training and may have broader application given the new Certificate of Applied Learning about to take effect in Victoria.
Mentoring and improved life chances on the Central Coast [31] Plan-It Youth (PIY) operates on the Central Coast of NSW and provides support through mentoring to young people at risk of early school leaving or disengagement from education, training or employment systems. It brings together the young and the retired, schools and a broader local constituency, and community agencies with individuals outside the mainstream. It establishes relationships that focus on youth pathways, informed decision-making, career planning and new training and learning experiences. PIY is a regional partnership that involves:
Mentoring is now formalised in business, the arts, education and many other areas of social life. It is a significant means of reaching out to others, of sharing and developing skills and insights, and of fulfilling the basic social obligations we feel from one to another. In everyday terms, a mentor is an experienced and trusted friend who provides one-to-one support, guidance and encouragement. It is a relationship between strangers demanding an unusual level of social intimacy.[32] Mentoring is shedding its image as marginal, feel-good middle class philanthropy and becoming recognised as strategic intervention to support disengaged young people. The need for these relationships is prompted in part by major changes in the composition of Australian families affecting the role models now available to young people. Eighteen per cent of dependent children live in a family with no parent in employment. Twenty years ago the proportion was eleven per cent. More than a quarter of dependent children now live in a family where no male is employed. Two decades ago the proportion was 16 per cent. There are four phases to Plan-It Youth:
A 27-hour course over three-months through TAFE for volunteer mentors (mature-aged unemployed, retirees and others in business and education).
Participants have indicated their indication to leave school at the end of Year 10. Participation is entirely voluntary. Information sessions are held for students, parents and the mentors and workshops are held to assess the dynamics and possible matching of mentors with young people.
Students and mentors participate in a weekly pathways planning project, work together on the student’s career investigation and conclude with a ‘celebration of learning’ event where students present their project findings.
Personal mentor support is available for a period up to 12 months. Mentors record mentee career development and scout for opportunities and contacts. Relationships are supported by a full-time project co-ordinator. In the last 12 months 178 students across eight participating educational institutions (including TAFE and schools) have been involved in PIY. |
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Table 2. Plan-It Youth student destinations June 2000-2001
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Interventions like PIY, particularly if developed in the wider context of shared responsibility for education, training and employment destinations can make a real difference in the formative and transition years of disadvantaged young people.
The Southern Vocational College is a partnership vehicle through which eight public secondary schools in southern Adelaide offer co-ordinated and articulated VET courses, structured workplace learning, practice firms, school-based traineeships and incubators for youth enterprise projects. The College also acts as a learning hub for the professional development of local VET teachers and a careers advice resource centre. In conjunction with the local JPP provider, pathways plans and skills portfolios (including academic and vocational skills gained through part-time work and volunteer activities) are developed for students to help guide the transition from school to work. The College is an operational arm of a broader Southern Futures partnership involving businesses, local government and the wider school network at pre-school and primary levels. Its focus is on youth citizenship, life skills, youth participation in policy and service planning and delivery. Both projects operate through the Department of Education, Training and Employment’s Enterprise and Vocational Education in Schools strategy. One of the tendencies in the current policy environment is to overly emphasise school and learning reforms because that is where the bulk of teenagers are and where they can be most easily accessed. Besides which at the employment end, job creation is rightly perceived as a tough business subject to the business plans and profitability of private and public sector agencies. Community partnerships are perceived to be marginal in terms of ‘real job’ creation. Moreover as significant parts of the employment assistance and training support system are now corporatised or in private hands, it is seen as too difficult to engage these businesses to share in the responsibility for the employment outcomes and destinations of young people in a local community. In terms of the employment side of innovation, one interesting initiative is in Salisbury, in northern Adelaide. The area has a strong manufacturing base and at the same time one of the highest unemployment rates in urban Australia. Strenuous efforts have been made in recent times to attract ‘new economy’ jobs through the Adelaide Technology Park – a high tech park integrated with the University of South Australia - and an innovative housing project at Mawson Lakes. The project involves information technology scholarships provided by the Salisbury local government to enable unemployed residents to study for a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) qualification. The local government awards 30 competitive scholarships in two blocks of 15 to local unemployed residents. The rationale for the program is the gap between the rapid growth of jobs requiring information and communication technologies (ICT) skills and the skills base of unemployed residents. The program is open to all age groups. Local government contributes $1,500 for each scholarship, the South Australian Department of Education, Training and Employment contributes $1,500 and the successful applicants contribute $500 each, which can be in the form of a deferred low interest loan provided by the Council. One group has completed the MCP and the second group is underway. Students have been trained in Windows-based networking, providing application and technical skills. Four have got full time jobs, four have contracting work and two are working part time. Six are involved in further education and training and five are involved in volunteer work.
Role for local government [33] Given all the difficulties in terms of promoting innovation and achieving co-ordination at the centre, local and regional initiatives are becoming increasingly important. Local government is likely to play an increasingly crucial role in facilitating and sustaining partnerships of stakeholders at a local level. It is well placed to provide a unit of accountability that can scrutinise the efforts of agencies funded by other spheres of government. It has a direct political constituency and mandate related to improved outcomes and living standards for residents. It has an important advocacy role to other governments, industry and the community. If all these things are realized and brought together, it could be best placed to provide annual reporting to governments and to local communities on the local educational provision available to young people, and the post-school destinations of young people. Local government has traditionally not been a direct provider of primary, secondary or higher education so there may be some resistance from stakeholders and other governments to municipalities playing a more strategic and powerful role locally. However this distance may enable it to play a key facilitating role on the ground. Education, generally defined, does come within the broad powers of local government. The Local Government Act in Victoria for example allows (inter alia) for ‘coordination with other public bodies to ensure services and facilities are used effectively and efficiently’ and for local government ‘to represent and promote the interests of the community and to be responsive to the needs of the community’. Local government historically has been a major provider of early childhood services, not just maternal care but pre-schools and child care centres as well. Municipal libraries are key community centres of learning and local government youth services have focused on recreation, skill and leadership development and after-school community care. Local governments generally now have the attraction of higher education institutions such as TAFEs and universities, skill centres and private sector applied research and development centres as an integral component of local economic development strategies. The next step is to work with local governments to assist them to see their role in education services not just as a means of wealth generation but as a vital tool in their portfolio to improve community well-being and inclusiveness. Some local governments will be quicker than others to see the possibilities and programs such as the Learning Towns initiative in Victoria are encouraging local government to move to the centre of learning community strategies. Local governments such as Ballarat, Warrnambool, Geelong and Albury-Wodonga have adopted learning, skill development and education as signatures in their approach to governance and service delivery. ‘Learning precincts’ are being promoted by local governments in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley and in Maryborough.
There are several policy and operational consequences that flow from this new level of community partnership activity to achieve improved learning and post-school outcomes for young people. Firstly, professional development[34] is needed for brokers, transition managers, pathways negotiators and so on. This could focus on areas such as:
Secondly, practical assistance and support must be provided to teachers and principals developing alternative programs; there has to be structured opportunities created for shared experiences, curriculum development and learning from existing pilots and alternatives; and ongoing professional development and training for teachers must reflect the skills, techniques and relationships required for working with students in these settings. In addition there must be assistance from government agencies and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to assist the research effort of local communities with data and tools that illuminate local conditions, trends and learning and work participation patterns: LLENSTAT in Victoria is a start.[35] In building a constituency beyond parents, students and teachers, community partnerships suggest that a new model of the school as a learning hub might be possible. Perhaps a move away from the perception of a school as service provider with parents as purchasers of services offered by teachers has already begun. The notion of a hub suggests a more diverse teaching workforce with a variety of skills and backgrounds, with exchanges between local TAFE, universities, ACE providers and with workplace trainers and on-the-job training. It implies a new school architecture and location, for example in the no-go areas for many young people such as shopping malls. The true integration of local community services provided by local government and other agencies – libraries, recreational facilities and pre-school services for example - with learning hubs or ‘schools’ could be a medium term outcome. This will require education departments to take much more seriously and holistically the role of local government in the learning community debate. In the immediate term there will be limits to this new concept of school community and shared responsibility for outcomes unless there is a fundamental re-assessment of how schools, TAFE and others concerned with the destinations of early school leavers are funded. In many systems schools are funded on a global per capita basis as measured by student attendance at regular ‘audit’ dates. They are treated indiscriminately regardless of whether a young person makes a successful and assisted transition from school or not. In future more sensitive funding instruments will need to apply, with schools that assist young people to achieve positive destinations being appropriately rewarded. The complications that already attach to VET in Schools funding are instructive. Conflicting funding sources from the Commonwealth and states, fees for some programs and not others, multiple barriers to eligibility and inappropriate targeting present significant challenges to those on the ground attempting to offer innovative and engaging programs. Funding is already a significant barrier to improved school-TAFE co-operation - protracted disputes over TAFE entry fees and the funding ‘ownership’ and status of students enrolled in joint school-TAFE VET courses are inhibiting the development of potentially rich curriculum and learning collaborations. The approaches outlined in this paper do challenge the standard Treasury models of outputs for inputs, and the sometimes outmoded conventions of accountability that have been developed. The skills, time, and intellectual capital involved in building community capacity and partnerships are not easily quantified and represented in orthodox cost-benefit terms. We are being asked to capture in financial terms the social dividends and gains resulting from genuine partnership processes. If this particular issue is not addressed then the long-term sustainability of community partnerships must be questioned as the funding basis from government will always be in jeopardy. The challenge is not so much to develop a national and state community partnership policy as the recognition of the contribution of community partnerships in policy. Finally how do we deal with an inevitable erosion of goodwill and social capital as the initial enthusiasm of shared endeavour and responsibility gives way to the hard slog of negotiating agreements, developing benchmarks and indicators, and doing evaluation? How do we ensure that partnership development and continuity becomes core to the business of stakeholders rather than a tiresome and frustrating ‘add-on’ to already overworked and underpaid teachers, community workers and employers? This will not happen unless community partnerships and regional innovations in this area are underpinned by a legislated entitlement.
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