Why Australia needs a national Youth Commitment

A Discussion Paper

The patterns of change undermining the pathways that have traditionally guided young people in their transition to adulthood and working life are well documented and understood.¹The scale of change is reflected in a new vocational landscape that has emerged during the last twenty years: the collapse of the full time teenage labour market; exponential growth in casual and temporary part-time work; the end of 'lifelong employment' and the emergence of 'lifelong learning' in its wake; a phenomenal rise in the participation of young people in higher education being key features. Allied to this is a vastly changed family and cultural environment evident in a wide range of behaviours such as a growing incidence of parental break-up; easy access to drugs and alcohol; and a marked decline of religious belief and affiliation²all of which have placed further pressure onto young people to negotiate their own individual path of transition rather than following traditional routes. As Dwyer et al. observe, all these factors, and others, have combined to ensure that in the late 1990s, "becoming adult is a negotiated reality and the transitions after high school do not form a predetermined and predictable sequence from one discrete type of reality to another."³

The result is that substantial numbers of young people are struggling to adapt to the new realities of learning and work as the support frameworks and institutions intended to assist them fail to meet the challenges. In May 1999, 14.5% of all Australian teenagers were 'at risk' of not making a successful move from education to stable employment, ie. they were either unemployed, in part-time work or otherwise 'not in the labour force.'⁴The proportion of teenagers who are 'at risk' largely remains unchanged since the late 1980s despite a number of efforts by successive federal and state governments to introduce targeted intervention programs, in both the education and employment sectors.

The dimensions of the social divisions now facing us are now no longer adequately expressed by the raw level of teenage unemployment. For every

1_{See especially Australia's Youth: Reality and Risk, Dusseldorp Skills Forum (DSF), Sydney,} 1998; Australia's Young Adults: The Deepening Divide, DSF, Sydney, 1999; P Dwyer, A Harwood & D Tyler, Life Patterns, Choices, Careers 1991-1998, Research Report No. 17, Youth Research Centre, Melbourne, 1998; OECD, Review of the Transition from Initial Education to Working Life. Interim Comparative Report, Paris, 1998
2_{Certainly in terms of Christian affiliation in Australia}
3_{P Dwyer, A Harwood, D Tyler, Seeking the Balance. Risk, Choices and Life Priorities in the} Life Patterns Project 1998-1999. Working Paper 19, Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourne 1999, p 12
4_{R Curtain, How Young People Are Faring, DSF, Sydney, 1999, p 5}

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teenager who is looking for work, at least one more can be found who is not counted in the official statistics on unemployment, but who is not involved in full- time work or full-time study.⁵There are now substantial numbers of young people just 'scraping by' in precarious casual, and low skilled jobs, moving between periods of tenuous employment and unemployment; and in other cases between patches of training and study and 'time out' coping with personal and family upheaval. It is estimated that of all teenagers, close to ten per cent have not participated in higher education, apprenticeships or training, have been unemployed for more than one-third of their time since leaving school and are unemployed or in part-time work at age 19 years⁶. The experience of teenagers in the labour market is compounded by the fact that the number of teenagers in apprenticeships has declined in the 1990s, and that teenage jobs are concentrated in sectors generally reluctant to invest in the long-term development of young people on the job.⁷

The youth labour market, due to its decline and casualisation, no longer embodies the right mix of workplace mentoring, training, learning and socialisation opportunities to assist young people to make the long-term transition to independence. It is not such a safe place for young people to grow up. It would be a mistake to assume that schools alone can perform the role previously undertaken by the youth labour market. This role now needs to be performed by a new set of flexible institutional arrangements, incorporating but not limited to, schools and embodied in a national commitment to our young people.

EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING AND DISADVANTAGE

As a number of studies make clear, those most 'at risk' in the new age of transition are early school leavers. In the so-called 'new economy', which places a premium on transferable skills, the capacity to learn, intellectual flexibility and robustness, those without basic post-compulsory qualifications are at an extreme disadvantage. The OECD describes the problems of those who leave education early without a qualification as serious: "as competitive pressures rise, labour markets are becoming more demanding for young people, and the consequences of being under-skilled and unqualified are rising."⁸

The Interim Comparative Report of the OECD on transition issues in several member countries, including Australia, comments on the lack of responsiveness of key institutions such as schools, employers, trade unions and community organisations to the difficulties confronting early school leavers. "Too often the education and training that they are participating in fails to motivate or interest

5_{R Sweet, 'Youth: The Rhetoric and Reality of the 1990s', in DSF, 1998, op cit., p 6} 6_{A McClelland, H MacDonald & F Macdonald, 'Young People & Labour Market Disadvantage', in} DSF, 1998, op cit., p 111
7_{K Ball & C Robinson, 'Young People's Participation in and Outcomes from Vocational Education} and Training', in DSF, 1998, op cit., p 82
8_{OECD, 1998, op cit., p 5}

them, and its connections to working life are too tenuous ... too many do not receive either real learning opportunities in work settings while they are students, or effective information and guidance to help them to chart their futures."⁹In particular our schooling systems, with some notable exceptions, have been slow to respond to these new workplace realities; and they have found it difficult to break free of the weight of expectations from parents, governments and universities that tend to define the primary role of schools as feeders and screeners for post-school education providers.

One measure of the scale of disadvantage now encountered by early school leavers is the number of them in the pool of teenagers not in education or training, and who are either unemployed or not in the labour force. In 1998 of 114,000 teenagers in this situation in Australia, 80,000 were early school leavers.¹⁰Richard Sweet estimates that 70% of all Australian teenagers in the 'at risk' categories are early school leavers.¹¹The impact of leaving school early is substantial and has a continuing impact beyond the teenage years. Some of the destinations and labour market outcomes experienced by early school leavers indicate this group are clearly disadvantaged in current labour markets:

51 per cent of young adults (young people aged between 20 and 24 years) who were early school leavers are either not in education or full-time employment, compared to just 21 per cent of school completers not in education or employment
by the age of 24 years, completion of Year 12 has had a substantial effect on the incidence of unemployment, reducing the odds of unemployment by 58 per cent compared to those who did not complete Year 12. by the age of 24 years, completion of Year 12 also increased hourly earnings by 4 per cent on average
by the age of 24 there exists a substantial and growing gap in the incomes of those with post school qualifications, compared to those with Year 12 or less¹²
Ainley and MacKenzie also recently reported that disadvantage associated with early school leaving has a continuing negative effect on individuals in labour markets and is still a factor for people into the early 30s.¹³

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Leaving school early is a risk, and risk taking is a natural and normal behaviour especially during the years of adolescence. The notion of becoming an adult instantly, with all the responsibilities and enjoyments this entails, can be deeply seductive. In this sense leaving school early will always seem attractive to some young people. In previous generations the strength of the youth labour market,

9_{OECD, 1998, op cit., p 4}
1 0_{Australian Bureau of Statistics, Transition from Education to Work May 1998, Cat No.} 6227.0
1 1_{R Sweet, op cit., p 19}
1 2_{G Beer and P Johnson, 'Incomes of Young Adults', in DSF, 1999, op cit., p 92-93} 1 3_{J Ainley and P McKenzie, 'The Influence of School Factors', in DSF, 1999, op cit., pp 107-116,} and McClelland & Macdonald, op cit., pp 117-131

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particularly for young men, meant that leaving school early was in fact not such a great risk - there were reasonable safety nets and opportunities in the world outside school. In today's labour market however the risks are real and substantial. The significance of leaving school early is that young people in this situation are entering the labour market with insufficient education and skills to be successful in the long term. In many ways they are not job ready, and have only precarious skills making it more likely they will be caught in a cycle of precarious employment and unemployment, and ill-equipped to face the demands of the 'new economy'. Efforts need to be made to encourage them to stay on at school, and to support them in the world outside school if they choose to leave.

THE COST OF EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING

The accompanying study undertaken by Anthony King of the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra (NATSEM) highlights some of the long-term costs to individuals and governments from the lack of adequate arrangements to support early school leavers in their transition to labour markets and their re-entry into education and training.¹⁵King's modelling at each point of the analysis is conservative. The study is a significant initial contribution to an emerging debate in Australia about the continuing drift in school retention rates, and the damage the slow erosion in the 'holding power' of schools is doing to our stock of human capital.

Each year, NATSEM estimates, about 35,000 students do not complete their secondary schooling and will not participate in further formal education or training. For each of these individuals, taking into account a range of factors including earnings, schooling costs and the cushioning effects of tax and social security arrangements, the estimated direct monetary cost to them over the course of a lifetime are substantial. Because dollar costs at different stages of a lifetime should be valued differently, the estimates adjust future costs to 'present value' terms. This gives an average cost to each early school leaver of close to $15,000. What this means, is that when someone leaves school early they are effectively forgoing a cheque for $15,000 which they could have invested to enjoy the rewards over a lifetime.

1 4_{H MacDonald, Bridging the Gap. Assisting Early School Leavers to make the Transition} to Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne, 1999, p 17
1 5_{A King, The Cost to Australia of Early School Leaving , NATSEM & DSF, Sydney, 1999}

To this cost to individuals must be added the estimated direct costs to the community, including the effects of lost tax revenues and increased social security expenditures, which are only partly offset by lower education costs. These costs amount to more than $22,000 per individual early school leaver. This gives a total estimated lifetime direct cost to individuals and government of $37,000 per early school leaver.

The social or non-market costs of early school leaving are also considerable, both for individuals and for the rest of society. Some examples of these costs to individuals, as identified by the Conference Board of Canada,¹⁶include:

decreased opportunity for job mobility and training
lower levels of personal health
decreased financial security
lower non wage benefits at work, such as reduced working conditions and status

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Costs to government and the rest of society include:

decreased social cohesion
higher costs associated with the provision of health care higher costs associated with crime prevention and protection higher administrative costs attached to providing social welfare programs

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Both the Conference Board and NATSEM have linked their estimates of these factors to the direct monetary costs mentioned above, in the case of Australia effectively a further $37,000 per individual early school leaver. Together these costs, once aggregated, represent a total of $2.6 billion per year, a heavy toll that could be reduced significantly through a more effective use of existing resources, better signposting and integration of options, and a modest annual injection of new resources to better meet the needs of early school leavers.

A further dimension to the cost of early school leaving and marginalisation is that early experiences of unemployment or other negative experiences in the labour market, have longer-term implications for individuals and society more generally. Ainley and McKenzie found that "getting a good start in the labour market matters, especially for early school leavers, and for young women. Young people who do not experience full time employment in their first year after leaving school spend substantially less time in work over the first five years than those who are employed full time in their first year."¹⁷These findings are also consistent with recent UK studies showing a similar pattern of labour market participation among young people entering markets without a strong and

1 6_{B Lafleur, Dropping Out: The Cost to Canada, Report 83-92-E, Conference Board of} Canada, Ottawa, 1992, p 6
1 7_{Ainley and MacKenzie, op cit., p 109-111}

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sustainable skills base.¹⁸The research points strongly to the importance of ensuring that the first exposure that early school leavers have to the labour market is positive. It tells us that in designing responses an investment in early intervention and case management for 'at risk' young people will pay dividends by reducing the call on government services later in life. Placing the individual at the centre of intervention strategies is crucial, as is assisting early school leavers with both further educational pathways and current labour market options.

WHO IS LEAVING SCHOOL EARLY AND WHY

The extent of early school leaving in Australia, and the appropriate policy responses to address it, should be the focus of intensive public enquiry. It is especially important given the failure during the 1990s to achieve the reasonable targets agreed to by all state and federal governments following the 1991 Finn report.²⁰These targets committed governments to ensuring that by 2001, 95 per cent of 19 year olds should have completed Year 12, or an initial post-school qualification, or be participating in formally recognised education and training. In 1998 only 79 per cent of 19 year olds had attained at least one of these criteria.²¹ Attaining and sustaining high levels of school retention were seen as crucial to achieving the Finn goals.

However, apparent school retention has fallen back from a high of 77 per cent in 1991 to 71.8 per cent in 1997, with retention levels below the national average in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. Just 66 per cent of male students complete Year 12 (compared to nearly 78 per cent of females), and retention levels are down to just 66 per cent in the government school sector compared to 84 per cent in the non-government sector.²²This is not a performance that compares well with our overseas economic competitors. A recent review of international educational benchmarks concluded that, "Australia lags behind many other OECD countries in terms of the overall level of education attainment of its adult population."²³

1 8_{T Bentley & R Gurumurthy, Engaging the Problems of Marginalised Youth, Demos, London} 1999, p 44
1 9_{MacDonald, op cit., p 37}
2 0_{T. Finn, Young People's Participation in Post-Compulsory Education and Training.} Report of the Australian Education Council Review Committee, AGPS, Canberra, 1991 2 1_{Australian Bureau of Statistics, Transition from Education to Work Australia May 1998, Cat.} No. 6227.0.
2 2_{Australian Bureau of Statistics, Schools Australia 1998, Cat. No. 4221.0} 2 3_{Curtain, op cit., p 8}

The gap in retention levels between young males and females has widened in the 1980s and 1990s, and is now quite marked. The decline in retention levels has been more pronounced for rural boys, boys from unskilled and skilled manual backgrounds, and girls from unskilled manual backgrounds.²⁵Stephen Lamb has mined the Australian Youth Survey to identify key factors associated with leaving school early, and these include: low literacy and numeracy achievement, low socioeconomic status, lower parental education, and living in a rural locality. Some groups are more 'at risk' than others, with the more vulnerable groups including indigenous young people, refugees and recent arrivals, young mothers, juvenile offenders, young people with learning difficulties and delays, young people with a disability, homeless young people, and wards of the state.²⁶

The reasons why young people leave school early vary widely but commonly there is not one single factor - usually a number of issues come into play. A range of concerns are often expressed by young people as they contemplate leaving: disaffection with the school environment, both in terms of relationships with teachers and with peers (with bullying a rising concern); a lack of customised learning opportunities and the desirability of alternative learning settings such as TAFE or an apprenticeship; family difficulties, both emotional and financial, and so on.²⁷For some early school leavers departing before completing can be the best option, provided this is an informed choice, with appropriate supports and entry opportunities in rewarding forms of employment or further education.

Peter Dwyer's typology of early school leaving remains a concise analysis of the issues at play among 'at risk' early school leavers. He identifies:

positive leavers - who make a positive decision to leave to take up a job opportunity

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2 4_{P Dwyer, et al., Negotiating Staying and Returning, Youth Research Centre, Melbourne,} May 1998, p 36
2 5_{S Lamb, School Achievement and Initial Education and Labour Market Outcomes,} Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne, 1997
2 6_{Lamb, ibid.}
2 7_{M Batten & J Russell, Students at Risk: A Review of Australian Literature 1980-94, ACER,} Melbourne, 1995

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opportune leavers -who prefer to leave school but have not decided an alternative career path
would-be leavers - also known as 'reluctant stayers' who lack opportunities beyond school but would like to leave
circumstantial leavers - who are 'forced out of school' for non-educational reasons, especially those from low-income families
discouraged leavers - who have little success in school and little interest in it alienated leavers - who find the school environment to be highly negative²⁸

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In light of the very high costs to individuals and governments of early school leaving, and the need to maintain a strong competitive skills base, the key policy goals of education and youth policy must be more flexible and responsive to the needs and circumstances of individual young people, in particular those 'at risk'. The recent OECD review of education-to-work transitions in Australia, while recognising that considerable effort had been taken to provide stronger incentives to remain at school - in particular moving to more attractive curricula and innovative teaching and co-ordination of services - suggested several further steps to assist vulnerable young people.²⁹

These included:

the establishment of 'full service schools' providing access to a broad range of health, employment, counselling and social services, during day times, evenings and weekends, either by locating these services within schools or providing strong integrated links to existing providers
the creation of networks of smaller scale, alternative secondary schools responding intimately and personally to individual learning needs instituting a 'youth entitlement' or 'youth commitment' to enable early school leavers to access approved education and training programs from public or private providers at times and in forms best suited to their needs. The OECD suggested that it be based on the amount of public funding that would have been involved had an early school leaver continued with their initial education up to the minimum level of acceptable qualifications (say year 12)

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2 8_{P Dwyer, Opting Out: Early School Leavers and the Degeneration of Youth Policy,} National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies, Hobart, 1996, p 18-19; MacDonald, op cit. 2 9_{OECD, Thematic Review of the Transition from Initial Education to Working Life.} Australia, Paris, 1997

This package of measures recognises the need to support young people as they make important decisions about their education and employment futures, firstly, by providing tangible connections to services and options; and secondly, by creating more customised and appropriate alternative learning environments to the traditional school setting. Australian governments to some degree have moved to support the first two proposals. However, they have consistently baulked at the notion of a 'youth commitment', despite the OECD's insistence that while expenditure outlays for such a commitment might be high, these "will almost certainly be less than the long term costs of youth failing to acquire the education and training needed for productive work."³⁰The NATSEM study provides convincing evidence that this is the case.

I left at the end of Year 11. I hated it, hated the structure. There was no choice, I didn't know what I wanted to do. You don't even know why you are doing things.

Steph, 22, single with a four year old child, sole parent who left school after completing Year 11, speaking with Probert and Macdonald in Australia's Young Adults: The Deepening Divide ^{3 1}

KEY POLICY RESPONSES TO EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING

Broadly speaking, among the recent policy responses to early school leaving there are some important building blocks for a more comprehensive set of strategies. The responses can be grouped into three types:

Tightening options
A key goal of the Youth Allowance (YA) under 18 year measures introduced at the beginning of 1999 was to, "send a clear message to young people and their families about the importance of continuing in secondary school or undertaking training that will increase young people's skills and employment prospects."³² The measures are intended to ensure that Youth Allowance is generally only available to people under 18 years if they have completed Year 12 or equivalent or are in full-time education or training. Although under 18s may be temporarily exempted from this requirement, or they may sign an agreement that ensures they are involved in activities equivalent to full-time education, the clear thrust of the policy is to provide a strong financial imperative for young people to remain at school.³³Additional support to assist schools cope with returning students, and students who might otherwise opt out, is being provided by the Commonwealth through the Full Service Schools (FSS) program. Under FSS, $23m is being targeted over three years to 'at risk' students in selected regions by encouraging

3 0_{Ibid., p 25}
3 1_{B Probert and F Macdonald, 'Young Women: Poles of Experience in Work and Parenting', in} DSF, 1999, op cit., p 144
3 2_{D Kemp, Australia's Young People: Towards Independence. DEETYA, Canberra, 1998, p} 10
3 3_{Department of Family and Community Services, Report on Youth Allowance and} Associated Payments for Young People, First Edition, Canberra, 1999. By early 1999, temporary exemption had been granted to 10,000 under 18 year olds

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stronger links between schools and other agencies, and new forms of assistance to enable them to access a range of options. FSS programs only commenced in late 1999 but few appear as ambitious as the models currently operating in America, or proposed by the OECD review of transition in Australia. Other programs such as the School Focussed Youth Service in Victoria also attempt to support disaffected 'at risk' young people remaining in school as a consequence of the new YA provisions.

It is probably too early to assess the full effect of these measures. However the use of financial tools to discourage early school leaving is unlikely to impact significantly on the large numbers of young people for whom school is a predominantly negative experience. One intensive study of potential 'at risk' early school leavers in northern Melbourne found that young people themselves say they will leave school, even if Youth Allowance is unavailable, if programs are not appropriate to their needs. Young people generally have little understanding of Centrelink services, and they are unfamiliar with the Job Network and misguided about what is being offered by the Network.³⁴The issues go beyond simple teething problems, and are rooted in the lack of recognisable, accessible alternative pathways and re-entry opportunities, and fragmented institutional responsibilities for the post-school destinations of school leavers.

Improved learning environments
The development in recent years of expanded curriculum choices such as new VET-in-school options; strengthened workplacement and other school-industry links; and the creation of school-based part-time apprenticeships are positive developments that better cater for the learning needs of many young people. Each of these steps represents an effort to build windows onto the world of work and to better incorporate the skills and disciplines of work into the learning cultures of schools. They respond to the need to create more attractive and challenging adult learning environments, especially important given that the majority of students neither desire nor are destined to graduate to university. Additionally, educators are focusing on the importance of the middle years of schooling - Years 5 to 9 - in an attempt to overcome the particular problems of confidence, social adjustment and peer acceptance in the transition from primary to secondary school.³⁵

While each of these initiatives is important, and their take-up is increasing, they are still often viewed as attractions at the edge of our schooling systems, rather than embedded as fundamental to the way schools construct and interpret learning. The number of schools that have whole-heartedly embraced the style

3 4_{Northern Area Consultative Committee (Victoria), Youth Allowance Impact Project. Final} Report, unpubl. paper, 1999, p 6
3 5_{One example is the Middle Years Intervention Program currently being conducted in 50} Victorian schools

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and philosophy of these approaches is relatively small.³⁶Additionally, the extent to which they cater for 'at risk' students is questionable, with VET-in-schools, for example, often not available to Year 10 students desiring this choice, and requiring students to have attained quite high levels of literacy and numeracy. Further, in some systems school-based workplacements that are part of alternative programs are supplying training that is not accredited. Importantly however, the states and the Commonwealth have now agreed through the recent Adelaide Declaration on the National Goals for Schooling that every student should be exposed to vocational learning opportunities.³⁷One of the major difficulties schools face in meeting this goal is the syndrome of 'league tables' which focus narrowly on university entrance; schools have to balance these legitimate aspirational expectations with the desirability of providing a more vocationally based curriculum.

More supportive frameworks
The importance of developing more personal and individualised mechanisms of support both inside school and post-school is being recognised at a number of levels. The development of FSS and related initiatives is one manifestation of this, modifications to the Job Network arrangements, the retention of JPET, and the recommendations of the Prime Minister's Youth Homelessness Taskforce are others. Clearly Commonwealth policy across a number of youth-related sectors is moving in this direction, evidenced by the appointment of a Youth Pathways Action Plan Taskforce reporting to the Government in March 2000.

This trend follows revisions to the Jobs Pathways Programme, a relatively small but highly effective $13m pa scheme which funds locally based brokers for 'at risk' young people in schools.³⁸Recent changes to JPP mean that school retention, and literacy and numeracy acquisition are now regarded as valid

3 6_{J Cumming and B Carbines, Reforming Schools Through Workplace Learning, DSF,} Sydney, 1997
3 7_{The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty First Century,} MCEETYA, Melbourne, 1999
3 8_{See for example, R Sweet, The Jobs Pathway Guarantee: Some Observations on the Pilot} Programs, DSF, Sydney, 1996

outcomes, complementing the Programme's core focus on achieving placements in employment and training.

DEFICIENCIES IN CURRENT POLICY

These approaches highlight a number of deficiencies and barriers in current education policy and delivery, most especially:

the lack of clear, consistent exit planning, counselling, monitoring and support for each early school leaver
lack of clear, visible overarching local community agencies responsible for tracking each early school leaver; currently the future of each early school leaver relies very much on their personal and family attributes to be able to cope with the vagaries of the marketplace - some do well, while for others it is devastating
allied to the above, fragmentation of responsibilities in the provision of those support services that currently exist, in particular frequent miscommunication between Centrelink, schools and Job Network brokers
inadequate careers counselling and support, including how to set and review personal goals, set up a skills portfolio, etc
tight targeting of resources so that some vulnerable groups (eg. homeless young people) are assisted, while others (such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, rural and remote communities) are not adequately covered the tyranny of the Tertiary Entrance Rank, which tends to excessively dominate the focus of the senior secondary years, to the detriment of students more interested in achieving vocational outcomes lines of accountability and indicators within education systems skewing schools to meet the agendas of centralised bureaucracy and decision- making, oftentimes at the expense of addressing the specific needs and capabilities of local communities. In particular schools frequently express frustration at the lack of autonomy to determine issues such as timetabling and teacher profiles
major gaps between schools and industry in terms of developing strong cultures of workplace learning and responsiveness by education providers and employers to meeting local skills needs and shortages

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A central and glaring deficiency remains a gross inequity in the level of resources currently being provided to assist young people to complete their schooling, and the resources currently available to support early school leavers to find and secure employment, a training place, or re-entry into education. Recently the Dusseldorp Skills Forum commissioned a comparison of the funding allocations to services devoted to completing school and the services to assist those leaving before the end of Year 12 in a typical suburban community in northern Melbourne.³⁹The project demonstrated the scope for improved funding for those who leave school early. In fact the study probably severely underestimates the gap in funding support as Victorian expenditures on secondary students are below the national average, and in turn per student expenditures in this part of Melbourne are below the Victorian average.

The key findings were that:

funds provided by government to support young people to complete their final two years of schooling average about $11,000 per individual funds provided by government to support young people who leave school before the end of year 12 achieve an equivalent outcome average about $3000 per individual
funds provided by government to support those young people who require it from the completion of secondary education until 24 years of age through the provision of housing, employment, education re-entry, training and personal support average about $2,900 per individual.

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The exercise revealed fragmentation and lack of transparency in the resources available in existing education, employment, training and community sector service arrangements. Further, it emerged that up to 150 young people were leaving local schools early without accessing any forms of support.

LEARNING FROM OVERSEAS

The sheer level of marginalisation amongst our young people is causing policy makers and practitioners to question existing transition policies and practices. Meanwhile in many regional and suburban communities around Australia, key local stakeholders are knitting together social partnerships and coalitions in attempts to fashion more inclusive and cohesive neighbourhoods, motivated by a commitment to develop viable pathways for young people.⁴⁰Palpable frustration exists with disjointed service delivery and funding arrangements between state and Commonwealth spheres of government, and often between agencies of the

3 9_{P Kellock, Map of Funding Provision for Youth in Whittlesea, unpubl. paper, DSF, August 1999.} The mapping exercise demonstrated some of the difficulties that exist in tracking expenditures to assist young people, given the fragmented nature of current support and funding arrangements. The exercise covered only one municipality, and caution needs to be applied in translating its findings more widely.
4 0_{Examples include Whittlesea, Darebin and Geelong in Victoria; the Central Coast in New South} Wales; and Logan City in southern Queensland

same government; and short term funding regimes that undermine attempts to build long term commitments and infrastructure. Efforts are being made at local levels to renew the fund of local social capital; to develop new partnerships and ways of co-operating; to build the capacity of communities to survive and prosper in a tough competitive economic environment. This local energy needs to be encouraged and rewarded through more coherent and strategic funding arrangements that enable young people, and especially those with a limited skills base, to develop individual action plans.

Good practice transition arrangements according to the OECD are found, "in those countries which have preserved or developed well defined, open and coherent educational pathways and qualifications systems combined with tightly knit safety nets ...young people appear to enter the labour market and adult society most successfully."⁴¹The OECD found the policy options and pathways for 'at risk' young people established in countries such as Denmark and Norway particularly praiseworthy, noting "a myriad of alternatives for young people who do not seem to fit into the regular system."⁴²In Denmark for example a wide range of learning options exist, and great efforts are made to ensure that education is moulded to suit the particular circumstances of individual young people. Each municipality is legally obliged to follow up all young people under the age of 20 who opt out of education without obtaining a qualification. The municipal guidance service works with each 'at risk' young person to enable them to develop and follow a personal action plan involving work, education and training. The main goal is to reinsert them into mainstream education as soon as possible so they can gain a qualification; government provided income support is contingent on the pursuit of the personal action plan.

Some important key principles to assist transition processes for 'at risk' young people have emerged from a recently completed major study of marginalised young people in the UK. Bentley and Gurumurthy revealed a profound level of disengagement among young people in the UK: more than half a million 16-24 year olds are not in work, full-time education or training and not claiming Jobseeker's Allowance or other unemployment-benefits benefits. They are seemingly untouched by the various interventions that have been made to reabsorb them into mainstream activity.⁴³After surveying the failure of key institutions to develop more inclusive frameworks and closely analysing the

4 1_{OECD 1998, op cit., p 100}
4 2_{OECD, Thematic Review of the Transition from Initial Education to Working Life.} Denmark, Paris, 1999, p 36. Some examples include Continuation Schools (or boarding schools) that are universally available; Municipal Youth Schools operating in the mornings and evenings offering leisure courses (in areas such as photography, ceramics, electronics, etc) and remedial courses - these schools are attended by 60% of Danish youth; and Production Schools, which have a 1:5 teacher-student ratio, and offer project based learning - local communities use the schools to produce real goods and services, both team work and individual development are encouraged. Production Schools are open to any young person under the age of 25 without formal qualifications, both employed and unemployed, and the average duration of attendance is four months.
4 3_{Bentley & Gurumurthy, op cit., p 24}

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ingredients of those programs operating successfully, they suggest seven key principles to drive education and employment assistance programs for young people:

from an early age, target support and resources towards those most 'at risk' engage young people through better combinations of magnets and resources track young people over time to provide continuous support and rapid response to changing status
provide a range of customised routes for progression which meet all young people's needs, enabling each young person to build up the range of capital: material, knowledge, social, cultural and psychological
provide young people with brokering support: to mediate between family, opportunities and services and knit together fragmented resources evaluate the long term effectiveness of work with young people fund and reward services according to their effectiveness⁴⁴

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In particular they point to the effectiveness of brokerage, of sustainable systematic connections between individual needs and the existing array of supports and resources, with clear points of contact and responsibility. The best sort of broker work, "is characterised by pro-activity, prevention and early intervention rather than crisis work."⁴⁵

The effectiveness of transition brokers is reinforced by a recent model program in Australia auspiced by the Brotherhood of St Laurence.⁴⁶This project involved attaching project officers or brokers with two contrasting Victorian schools, working part of the week on the school site, and the remainder at the Brotherhood's local employment offices. Four service components were involved, including school-based vocational and personal support and counselling; school-based referral and support at the time of exiting; post-school follow up and support for the young person; and post-school placement in an employment or training program. Intensive and long-term case management was the main approach adopted by the project workers. Over three-quarters of the project's participants left school to undertake employment, education or training, however base line comparisons are difficult given a lack of information about the destinations of previous groups of early school leavers from these schools. Young people, their parents and teachers found that the presence of a new agent in the school was positive, both in terms of outcomes for 'at risk' young people, and tangible improvements in the learning cultures and inclusiveness of the schools.

WHAT IS A NATIONAL YOUTH COMMITMENT?

4 4_{Ibid.,p 91}
4 5_{Ibid., p 84}
4 6_{See MacDonald, op cit .}

The dimensions and costs of early school leaving in Australia, serious deficiencies in the current responses to our static school retention rates, and the knowledge that there are better and more effective models of intervention, must prompt us to consider more strategic and comprehensive ways to support early school leavers. The approach reviewed favourably by the OECD is a national Youth Commitment, building and deepening the range of initiatives currently under way in Australia. It would be a logical, cost effective and timely proposal, which could be gradually implemented over time by communities, employers, unions and governments. It is essentially a student-centred approach, and to this extent has some similarities to proposals like the UK Individual Learning Accounts, and proposals outlined in the West review of higher education and the recent Green Paper on higher education research funding.⁴⁷

The Commitment is aimed at young people under the age of 20 who have left school without completing Year 12 and who are not in full-time work and not studying. The value of the Commitment would be derived by approximating the value of the public investment currently supporting students completing Year 11 and 12, based on the notion that this is a cost that would be incurred in any case by governments if the young person coming under the scope of the Commitment had decided to remain at school. As Anthony King makes clear, while governments currently save in terms of reduced educational outlays in the senior secondary years because of early school leaving, there is a far more substantial, longer-term and continuing direct cost to government resulting from the diminished life chances of early school leavers.

What would it cost?
In Australia's Youth: Reality and Riskwe estimated the aggregated value of the Commitment at about $1.05 billion per year. The estimate was based on about 70% of those teenagers not in full-time employment and not in education being early school leavers, and, through the Commitment, having access to resources equivalent to the current public cost of $16,090 to provide a young person with a Year 11 and 12 education.

In this paper the estimated cost of the Commitment is based on the number of 'lifetime' early school leavers exiting school each year, about 35,000 young people in 1998.⁴⁸It is also important to bear in mind that young people leave school at various points, from Year 9 to the late stages of Year 12, and thus, through the Commitment, would be able to access varying amounts of equivalent resources to those students remaining at school till the completion of Year 12. A

4 7_{R Curtain, 'Towards a More Strategic Set of Policy Options to Improve the Education to Work} Transition of Young Adults, unpubl. paper, DSF, Melbourne, 1999; DEETYA, Learning for Life. Review of Higher Education Financing & Policy. Final Report, Canberra, 1998; DETYA, 'New Knowledge, New Opportunities. A Discussion Paper on Higher Education Research and Research Training', Commonwealth of Australia, 1999
4 8_{King's analysis of 'lifetime early school leaving' was calculated by excluding 65% of male and} 35% of female early school leavers because they subsequently return to education later in life, King, op cit., p 4, MSS

16

global estimate of the value per individual is about $10,000, or $350 million per year.

This is a modest injection of new resources, and the cost could be reduced if programs like JPP were subsumed into the rubric of the Commitment and if some of the resources currently provided in mainstream education to assist early school leavers were redirected into the framework of the Commitment. It must be emphasised however that the Commitment should not be provided at the expense of resources currently being invested in education to support school completers. Any move in this direction would defeat the purpose of trying to ensure that the maximum number of young people completed basic education or had opportunities equivalent to this qualification.

Is it affordable?
It would add just 1.3 per cent to government outlays on education based on 1998 expenditure levels, and lift government outlays on education as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product by .1 per cent to 4.5 per cent. This is at time when, despite rhetoric about a learning society and a clever country, education spending by governments as a share of GDP has declined noticeably during the 1990s - from 4.9 per cent in 1992-93 to 4.4 per cent in 1997-98.⁴⁹

Among the states, education spending as a proportion of all state government expenditure has declined markedly in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory in the 1990s.⁵⁰Increased outlays for the Commitment would only impact marginally on each of the states, as the costs could be shared equally between the states and the Commonwealth. Cost sharing on a 50:50 basis would be roughly equitable, given that the states are responsible for 70 per cent of the cost of primary and secondary education, and most of the long term costs of disadvantaged early school leavers are met by the Commonwealth through lost tax revenues and social security outlays. The Commonwealth, because it is the primary government agency responsible for employment, has also largely funded school-to-work transition initiatives.

In 1997 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training recommended a form of Youth Commitment, specifically, "that the Government institute a National Youth Guarantee which entitles every Australian under 21 years of age, who has not attained Year 12 at school, to a funded place at a high school, TAFE or a recognised training provider to complete a Year 12 education or its equivalent."⁵¹The Commonwealth rejected the proposal, arguing:

4 9_{Australian Bureau of Statistics, Expenditure on Education. Australia 1997-98. Cat. No.} 5510.0. It is also important to note that total outlays on education, including private expenditures, have fallen from 5.6 per cent of GDP in 1992-93 to 5.2 per cent of GDP in 1997-98 5 0_Ibid.
5 1_{House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training, 1997,} Youth Employment. A Working Solution, AGPS, Canberra, 1997, Recommendation 3.2

*there are opportunities to complete Year 12 or equivalent through adult
evening classes, TAFE, and 'user pays' training providers
*the Youth Allowance strongly encouraged under 18 year olds to be involved
in an education activity
*vocational educational programs were being expanded and New
Apprenticeships were being introduced

Besides, "the provision of primary and secondary schooling is primarily a State responsibility."⁵²The Commonwealth argued that the states have an obligation to provide a school place for all young people under 18 years wishing to remain at school until Year 12. The reality is that all governments, given the dimensions and costs confronting them as a result of young people entering the labour market with precarious skills, have a responsibility to deliver a co-ordinated, integrated response. We cannot allow the one hundred-year battle over the responsibilities of the states and the Commonwealth to fail our young people. The proposals outlined in this paper represent a practical, achievable series of steps to ensure that overlapping government responsibilities do not allow vulnerable young people to 'fall between the cracks'.

Governments need to offer sustained support for the Commitment over an extended period, say five years. The waste of public funds flowing from start- stop initiatives needs to be acknowledged, and countered. There needs to be a period of consistency and stability in policy for 'at risk' young people, in order to give programs a reasonable chance of success, and to make best use of infrastructure and expertise that has been developed. For many young people the process of transition is quite extended, and assistance measures need to take this into account, including the time frames for funding and evaluation.⁵³In addition the local character of the Commitment means communities will need time to evolve and sustain the most effective responses. An initiative such as the Youth Commitment will need the co-operation of a number of stakeholders to be successful, and cost-sharing between the states and Commonwealth, while sometimes a messy mechanism, will ensure a co-operative framework is developed.

What would it achieve?
The fundamental objectives of the Commitment would be to provide a 'second chance' by helping early school leavers to either:

return to school or its equivalent in order to complete Year 12; or obtain an education and training qualification that is at an equivalent level such as a TAFE certificate or an apprenticeship; or
obtain a full-time job that is linked to education and training.

*
*

*

5 2_{Minister for Education, 'Training & Youth Affairs, 'Youth Employment. A Working Solution.} Government's Response to the Report', Canberra, 1999, p 9
5 3_{See C. Croce, Benchmarking Independence. An Issues Paper, DSF, Sydney, forthcoming}

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It would ensure that we absolutely minimized the potential for any young person leaving school to 'fall through the cracks'. It would enable each young person to make an informed choice about his or her future. It would be an important mechanism to enable schools and local communities to focus on the needs and aspirations of students and young people. It would become a key impetus for institutional change at the secondary level, encouraging schools to work harder to retain students, and to offer greater flexibility and choice. It would offer assistance and support at the most crucial stage of the transition process - when young people are considering whether to stay or to leave school. It would provide the tools for each young person eligible for the Commitment to be able to construct flexible personal action plans.

What form would it take?
The Youth Commitment should not be developed in the form of a voucher, because such proposals are least suited to our current eduction systems and place too much emphasis on educational cost rather than educational value.

A simpler and more effective approach would be to base the Commitment on an entitlement to access a minimum level of education and training in the post- compulsory years. Young people would have a guaranteed access to two or perhaps three years full-time equivalent education, which they could put together by combining a variety of options from schools, other providers and accredited on-the-job-training. A guarantee of fee exemption until such time as the young person has accessed their minimum entitlement and 'filled up their skills bank' would apply. Providers would however be able to offer educational services on a fee-for-service basis to other students and industry.

Thus the minimum entitlement under the national Youth Commitment would be expressed in educational level and skill terms rather than monetary terms. This would also assist to preserve the operational autonomy of state authorities and focus policy development on the educational value of programs rather than the monetary cost.

It should be emphasised that this proposal is built on the premise that the minimum school leaving age remains the same. The Commitment would create an environment where young people are encouraged to exercise informed choices from a more dynamic array of educational providers. This would also assist in building responsibility amongst young people for planning their education and training in the post compulsory years and strengthen their commitment to lifelong learning.

An agreement would need to be struck between the Commonwealth and the states that, firstly, all young people have guaranteed access to at least two years full time education and training post the minimum school leaving age; and secondly, that the commitment to this could be through a variety of institutions and settings, to be chosen by the young person, including but not limited to

schools.

How will the Commitment be delivered?
The delivery mechanism for such an initiative will be crucial. Too often in public policy, programs are developed that allocate sufficient resources but fail because the implementation mechanisms are inadequate. The Commitment needs to be funded centrally but it is crucial that it be delivered locally, preferably through umbrella Community Partnerships for young people.

Community Partnerships, based on local government and Area Consultative Committee boundaries, would bring together the range of key actors involved in providing services for 'at risk' young people: local governments, schools and their School Councils, TAFE, Job Network brokers, Centrelink offices, employers, training organisations, unions, community agencies, and so on. The Community Partnerships would act as umbrellas, providing participating organisations with a common framework, focus and a collaborative means of developing the life skills, education, employment, training and active citizenship of each young person in their community. However it would be a mistake to envisage the Partnerships as conforming to one standard format, dictated by the funding agencies. Ideally the Partnerships would result from organic local responses to the transition issues of 'at risk' young people, and the range of partners and their ways of co-operating will vary from community to community.

The Partnerships would develop benchmarks to be met by the participating organisations, which would be written into Memoranda of Understanding/Spirit of Co-operation Agreements and the annual plans of each organisation. The benchmarks would particularly focus on:

lifting school retention or its equivalent
developing a range of clear, definable and rewarding options providing Year 12 equivalence
support, advice, mentoring and case management to enable young people to exercise those options
dismantling barriers to education and learning becoming lifelong experiences enhancing employer commitment to workplace learning, training, and to youth employment opportunities
developing flexible and responsive school learning environments that seek to integrate rather than exclude

*
*

*

*
*

*

Effectively the Partnerships would also become a way of ensuring existing resources are used more efficiently. They would be a vehicle to provide the services and create the options for what in practical terms would become a local Youth Commitment.

In essence the Community Partnerships become a means to embed a national approach into every local community, taking advantage of local expertise,

20

knowledge and capital, and making the Commitment a flexible and locally adaptable program. Allocation of Commitment funding would be dependent on local areas demonstrating that viable Community Partnerships had been established. This should not become a checklist exercise but should be flexible and responsive to local circumstances. Some short term funding would need to be set aside to help build the capacity of areas currently unable to develop sustainable Community Partnerships. This means that not all the Commitment funds would be accessed in the first year and the program would build gradually as new Community Partnerships were formed and accredited.

The Partnerships would receive funding for an established period, preferably five years. Funding would be based on a needs analysis similar to that currently used for JPP.⁵⁴The Partnerships would have discretion over the services used to meet the Commitment, consistent with the principle that the maximum level of local knowledge and resources should be applied to meet the Commitment. Evaluation should be simple and based on data reporting the extent to which the Partnerships had delivered against the fundamental objectives of the national Youth Commitment. Policy and program innovation should be shared between Partnerships, and each Partnership should be driven by strategic re- assessments of needs and proven, evaluated performance.

Crucial to the delivery of the Commitment, as demonstrated by the value of the Brotherhood's transitions project, is the placement of a 'transition broker' in at least every government secondary school, and disadvantaged private sector schools.⁵⁵The brokers would work with each 'at risk' early school leaver.⁵⁶Key tasks for the broker would include:

engaging with teachers, parents, and students to identify 'at risk' young people especially in Years 9 and 10
constructing individual action plans with each potential early school leaver identifying needs, goals and purchasing appropriate supports, especially through the local Community Partnership (these could include personal, welfare, educational, training, and employment placements) monitoring and case managing early school leavers at each stage of their action plan
developing community and student mentors for 'at risk' young people to assist

*

*
*

*

*

5 4_{See DETYA, Request for Tender for the Jobs Pathway Programme for 1999-2000. RTF 275,} Canberra, May 1999
5 5_{See MacDonald, op cit .}
5 6_{It is interesting to note some similarities between this proposal and policies taken to the recent} Victorian election. The Coalition proposed to create an extra 200 positions to give secondary schools resources, "to provide the welfare and counselling services that best suit the needs of their individual schools." Clearly this would provide scope for these positions to be part of a local Community Partnership brokerage. See, Caring for Our Children's Education, Liberal Party, Melbourne, 1999, p 10. Labor too, developed education and employment policies stressing the importance of School to Work transition, and improved retention rates. In NSW the State Government is committed to establishing Youth Partnerships, and School to Work plans for 2,000 Year 10 school leavers.

them achieve their personal action plan
working from schools (engaging early school leavers before they leave) and at offices outside school (for those who have already left school) providing data and information for school about why young people are leaving and suggesting reforms including curriculum reform and alternative programs, to prevent early school leaving and encourage the creation of further re-entry opportunities
identifying gaps in non-school based education and training (eg TAFE, private providers, community provision)

*

*

*

Clearly the brokers will need to be highly skilled, well informed about options and opportunities, and capable of stimulating change in some of our key community institutions. Many of the skills and attributes already exist within programs like JPET and JPP. The insights and experiences of these programs should be used to develop a strong skills and knowledge base for the new transition brokers. One lesson is not to apply resources too thinly so that minimal outcomes are achieved; well funded and focused intensive efforts often produce the best results. Another is the importance of drawing on existing community knowledge and expertise; for example, mentoring programs that provide positive local role models, and spread the level of involvement and commitment to young people. Based on placing one broker in each government secondary school the cost would be $65 million, and be funded from a total Commitment pool of $350 million.⁵⁷The brokers would be employed by the local Community Partnerships and they would act as a team within the local Partnership.

CONCLUSION

The evidence from OECD reviews of transition processes in member countries is that nations offering comprehensive systems of assistance for young people ill- equipped to enter the labour market tend to be the most successful. Providing an array of personal supports, clear choices and pathways, re-entry opportunities at numerous points - into both education and employment - are key ingredients. Australian governments and education systems have been relatively slow to adjust to the changing dynamics of labour markets, and the new cultural environments in which young people live. Important innovations in policy and programs have occurred over the past decade, but they do not go far enough or deep enough to cope with the dimensions of youth marginalisation now facing us.

The development of a national Youth Commitment would represent an important, and affordable, strategic policy advance. It would build on the good practices taking place elsewhere, and add to some of the good program innovation already put in place in Australia. In doing so it would:

5 7_{If transition brokers were placed in every secondary school, both public and private, the cost} would rise to $90 million per annum

22

build the capacity of, and better equip individuals to cope with the demands of the labour marketplace
emphasise individual pathways and action plans, with appropriate supports and assistance
provide all young people with the foundation skills to develop a capacity for learning through all the stages of life
be an important step in constraining educators and labour markets to be more responsive and accountable for their performance in terms of 'at risk' young people
take advantage of the fund of goodwill for young people that exists in many local communities, and channel it in constructive and meaningful ways

*

*

*

*

*

The Youth Commitment makes sense at every level: it offers better service, better outcomes and it is affordable. Indeed, as Anthony King demonstrates, the 'do nothing' alternative is in effect much more costly. For this comparatively small (cost saving) investment in a co-ordinated national strategy, better signposting and integration of options at the local level, we can do so much better by our young people and for the national good.