About me: The Dusseldorp Skills Forum seeks to achieve changes needed to enable all Australians to reach their potential through the acquisition of skills and knowledge. In particular, the Forum seeks to improve the learning and work transitions of young Australians by cooperating with communities, industry, government and non-government organisations to generate ideas, research, tools and information, and to build networks of common interest. DSF is an independent, not for profit body which funds its own work.
The Australian Industry Group and the Dusseldorp Skills Forum are releasing this discussion paper to stimulate debate and ideas on how young Australians can be better skilled and engaged over the long-term.
Because of Australia’s sustained economic achievements over more than a decade the country has a unique opportunity to invest in young people.
Australia’s long-term capacity to compete successfully in the global economy will depend on the depth of skills we nurture and the stake our young people have in the future.
It is crunch time right now to make the investments and reforms needed to open the doors to greater youth engagement in learning, in the economy and in the society.
This discussion paper recommends three key areas for policy focus –
1. ENGAGEMENT
2. ATTAINMENT
3. DEVELOPMENT
The not-so-clever country Read Tim Colebatch's opinion piece about the It's Crunch Time report in the Age, 18th September 2007.
In each section we’ve included video clips of young people - and their teachers, mentors and employers - describing the programs and support that work for them.
Key College has been running since 1996 under the Father Riley charity, Youth Off the Streets. The College offers a flexible curriculum to small numbers of 14-18 year olds who have become disconnected from mainstream education. It responds to their specific needs, interests and talents and assists students back into the mainstream of society, either to regular schools, TAFE or to work.
“If we want kids to achieve academically we first have to meet their social and emotional needs”
2. ATTAINMENT
CRANIUM HAIR SALON - best practice employer of apprentices
Talking with the apprentices at this salon you are swept up by their enthusiasm. While their apprentice wages are not high, they clearly recognise the benefits of the training and support offered at the salon and have a huge amount of pride in their work. Weekly staff meetings and a catch-up every eight-weeks with individual staff members allows Kelly (the employer) to determine what motivates her apprentices, and how best to support them. It’s not just the solid training and support that the apprentices receive that strikes you, it’s that they are all instilled with a sense of confidence in themselves and in their abilities.
“I was very blessed at getting an interview at Cranium and turning my apprenticeship around. Apprenticeships are hard and when you work somewhere where your boss appreciates you it is so different”
Plan-It Youth is a mentoring program that offers young people, who may be considering leaving school, the opportunity to be matched with a trained mentor in order to plan and co-ordinate their next step into education, training or employment. The Plan-It Youth program began on the Central Coast of NSW in 1997 and has since grown to involve more than a 1000 students from nearly 80 schools in that state.
Josh Lowe, student aged 15
“Before I met (my mentor) in Plan It Youth I thought that I wouldn’t be able to get a job. I probably would have just been a check out person or something. But now I think I’ll be able to get an apprenticeship”
“Each student has what I would call their personal trainer in helping them find out what’s out there for them after school”
COMMENTS FROM OTHER LEADING SOCIAL POLICY ORGANISATIONS
“Whilst the paper picks up on the necessary pathways and connections in employment and training it also picks up on the key issue of engaging young people and taking them along in the journey rather than simply providing another pathway”
“If we are really going to be a knowledge nation, if we are going to be an economically competitive country, if we are going to be a country that offers real opportunities to all of its people then you simply can’t have a situation where a possible 15% of young people in the country have such limited access to and such limited success in learning and life outcomes”
"An emphasis on training while they’re working is important … having a friend or mentor in the workplace … an individual orientation to their own achievements and progress - we know this works”
