Separating the sheep and the goats - vocational programs in

Victorian schools

Inaugural Professorial Lecture Annual Jack Keating Memorial Lecture

Professor John Polesel

Melbourne 1901

Melbourne Grammar School

Melbourne Continuation School est. 1905

Sunshine Technical School est. 1912

Swinburne Girls’ Junior Technical School

Ideological Enemies

• Donald Clark – First Chief Inspector of Technical Schools – Separating “the professional and the industrial,

the sheep and the goats” in the high schools

• Martin Hansen – Inspector of Teachers and Schools, later Director of Education – “the suppression of class consciousness and of

individual greed”

Democratic credentials?

• Martin Hansen – saw the divided system as “anti-democratic”

• Donald Clark – saw high schools as neglectful of the “social and economic circumstances” of working class children

Footscray High School staff, 1916

The Hansen and Clark themes

• A divided curriculum can be socially selective (Hansen)

• Vocational education and training has struggled to establish a role within mainstream secondary schooling (Clark)

Secondary schools – no home for VET?

We have observed a series of historical phenomena; let us see what ideas they may justify us in forming about what secondary education is…….

The preliminary and purely negative observation…… is that secondary education has never had an essentially vocational goal……

Émile Durkheim, 1904

The Technical Schools – Victoria

• 1905 – FIRST STATE HIGH SCHOOL • 1912 – FIRST TECHNICAL SCHOOL • 1929 – UNIFICATION PROPOSAL DEFEATED • 1986 – TECHNICAL SCHOOLS ABOLISHED • 1994 – VET IN SCHOOLS INTRODUCED • 2002 – VICTORIAN CERTIFICATE

OF APPLIED LEARNING (VCAL)

The Research Evidence

• Low in status hierarchy (Goodson 1993) • No parity of esteem (Green 1995) • Has a weak knowledge base (Young 2007) • Merely a response to skills shortages (Jephcoate &

Abbott 2005), co-opted to serve economic needs or absorb unemployed “men” and returned soldiers from the World Wars

• Social selection (Ringer 2000, Baudelot & Establet 1971, Polesel 2008)

School completion and university

VET in Schools in 2014

Vocational subjects offered as part of senior certificate – Victorian Certificate of Education Subjects count towards senior certificate May count towards university entrance rank Mainly delivered in schools, but also in adult VET providers, like Technical & Further Education Institutes

VET participation by sector

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

100000

State Catholic Independent

Sector

Year

10,

11&

12 e

nrol

men

ts

VETiSNon-VETiS

91,454 students

34,770 students32,312 students

31.30%

25.50% 12.80%

VET participation by SES

VETiS enrolments by SES, Victoria 2010

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Highest Next highest Middle Next lowest Lowest

%

VET by sector and SES

SECTOR VETiS ENROLMENTS BY SEIFA VALUE

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

980 990 1000 1010 1020 1030

SEIFA value

% e

nrol

men

ts

ADULT

STATE

CATHOLIC

INDEPENDENT

Rainforest High School VET in Schools Participation By Father’s Education

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Completed primary Completed secondary Apprenticeship/technical University degree

%

Rainforest High School Views of Teachers

• “The problem is if a teacher can teach maths and VET, maths gets priority. The issue is competition for staff”.

• “It’s a struggle to put staff through Certificate IV training – this allows them to assess VET in any area. But then we are told that if the teacher becomes permanent, they won’t be allowed to teach VET. They will teach a ‘proper’ subject”.

Teachers and school culture

“Yes, the school culture supports VET, but staffing is the problem. The school is five teachers short. So, VET might miss out – academic teachers get priority…”

VETIS and Gender

• Patterns of gendered subject selection persist, e.g. in STEM (Warrington & Younger 2007)

• Patterns of selection prematurely affect the career options of young women (Dawkins & Holding 1987)

• In VET, “culture and practices… remain masculinised” (Butler & Ferrier 2000)

• Employment prospects at top levels much weaker (Weaver-Hightower 2003)

Destinations by Gender, 2013 - VCAL

%

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

University Cert IV + Cert I-III Apprentice Trainee Employed FT Employed PT Unemployed Inactive

Females

Males

Occupations & Working Hours Of VCAL Graduates by Gender

• Both males and females are concentrated in low paid casual work

• Girls are most likely to be sales assistants or food handlers • Boys are dispersed across a wider range of occupations

• Both males and females are more likely to be working part-

time than full-time • Males are much more likely than females to be working

full-time • Females are much more likely than males to be working

part-time

Problems With VETiS?

• Poor image • Low level qualifications • Neither specific nor broad generic competencies • Diluted programs • No specialist providers • Continuing social selection • Gender differences • Weak transition to labour market – to part-time,

casual low-paid jobs

VET in Schools The Positives

Provides curriculum options for range of learners Engages reluctant learners Exposes young people to world of work & employers

Status should be raised and quality improved Need to change priorities in allocation of staff & physical

resources in schools Need to provide coherent, structured programs, not one

or two subjects unrelated to the rest of their studies Need to see VETiS as the first step in a pathway to broad

families of occupations not narrowly specific jobs

Principles for an improved approach

Need to ensure that government, social partners, employers and industry contribute to the training of young people

Principles for an improved approach

CRC Sydenham – a different approach

CRC Sydenham