School leaving age is being raised

[Tinks]

I've heard they're raising the school leaving age in Vic from 15 to 17 as of 2011 or 2012. (can't remember which year)

What do you think?

[Glamourcide]

I personally think that some kids need to get out of school and get an education that doesn't revolve around 'book-learnin''. Part of the reason there are so many disruptive, trouble-making kids in schools is because the government is forcing them to stay - if they were able to leave school at 15 and get a job or an apprenticeship, they'd be a lot happier and so would their classmates, who would probably find their studies easier if their teacher's time and attention was focused solely on aiding them learn instead of attempting to discipline the kids who just don't want to be there.

In my experience, some kids are just not geared towards sitting in a classroom reading textbooks. And forcing them to stay at school is unreasonable because if they don't want to be there, they're certainly not going to actually learn anything - they're going to be frustrated, bored, and teenagers have that marvellous knack of taking out their frustrations on the wrong people (in this case, fellow students and teachers who have no control over the minimum age of school leavers).

I think there's too much pressure on teenagers to get educated, really. Not all people are suited to a university education and the types of jobs that come with that. Give the poor kids a break - at the end of the day, that's what we're dealing with, and the late teens are well-known for being fraught with angst about so many things... the intense pressure to choose a career path and then follow it doggedly RIGHT NOW can really break a kid (hell, I should know, having had a nervous breakdown in year 12). I think if kids want to quit school at 15 or 16, there's probably a good reason for it. And even if they're not leaving school to take up further study (TAFE etc) or do paid work, so what? The majority of kids that age live with their parents anyway, it's not like they're *that* expensive when it comes to things like Youth Allowance, so why not let them just bum around for a couple of years and get their heads straight, figure out where they want to go with their lives? High school isn't the be-all and end-all of education - there's TAFE, STEPS (or equivalent course to get entry to university), and the real world out there waiting for anybody who decides they do need to further their skills in order to achieve their dreams... and they're SIXTEEN, they have their whole lives ahead of them! Plenty of time to take stock and change directions if they think they're heading the wrong way.

[thundanrozes]

.[/QUOTE]The majority of kids that age live with their parents anyway, it's not like they're *that* expensive when it comes to things like Youth Allowance, so why not let them just bum around for a couple of years and get their heads straight, figure out where they want to go with their lives? .[/QUOTE]

Agree completely our 16yr old is not eligible for youth allowance, we apparently earn too much. so its not costing anyone a damn thing but us.

Just making a hard time even harder

Make it our (the parents) responsibilty to get them into the workforce....or whatever
and not at the expense of teachers, willing HSC students... etc

Would save a whole lot of rebellion and crap that noone needs.

[Arcadia]

:yeahthat:

Part of me can see how further education is beneficial and part of me believes it is delaying the inevitable for many students - which is leaving before completion of year 12. There are many trades that don't need a higher school certificate, so why can't people leave at 15 to be apprentices? We have a shortage of labourers already...

I can see how an educated society is good for all, but by 15 surely they have the essential skills?

[HotI]

Victoria has VCAL as well as VCE, where young people do classes through TAFE that can be part of an apprenticeship. I'm not fully up on the details, but one person i know works at the childcare centre one day a week, has classes at the TAFE and classes at the high school, and it really works for her. Another couple of kids do it in building, and woodwork/carpentry (he is a chippie), so there are a few different options.

Maybe this is the reason for the raise in age, so young people can start their apprenticeship straight from school and don't leave school out of frustration and then be stuck with nothing do until they aquire an apprenticeship.

[Glamourcide]

^ That's a good point, but in my own experience, apprenticeships are offered at the end of year 10 (15 years old in QLD) and it's quite rare for a person to be offered a chance at a trade after that - purely because it's cheaper to employ a 15-year-old over an 18-year-old, and there's no point in wasting two years of potential training if you have no intention of going to uni. Obviously these systems differ from state to state, but most of my school friends found it really hard to obtain an apprenticeship in their chosen field after completing senior schooling, whereas the ones who quit at the end of grade 10 to learn a trade are now qualified and earning good money

[Lulu]

Do you really think its ok to let kids "bum around for a few years to get their heads together"? At the expense of the rest of us? If you (collective) have the luxury to bum around, go for your life but you can't expect YAL to foot the bill.

And how demotivating, and what lesson would that teach? The key is to keep the kids engaged and contributing whilst they find what they want to do - the place is already full of teens on YAL "bumming around" with no motivation to do anything but take their dole forms in and get shafted by crappy bosses that exploit their total lack of education.

[BrightSparkles]

Funny this has just come up as the legislation was passed in May this year. (For NSW anyway and will start from the beginning of next year 2010)

I think its a good idea IF you have programs to keep young people engaged.

Is saying this....alternative education providers are facing losing funding because young people will be forced to stay in school until 17. So why fund this types of organisations when the schools can do it for free????

I don't feel the government has thought fully about the consequences as there are no additional resources being put into this scheme and no extra teachers being employed to combat the increase in students at school.

[~clover~]

DH left school at 15, but only coz he had a job. That was the deal. After a few months he decided he wanted to go back to school. Working was harder!
Only lasted a few months, but has pretty much worked since.

My brother on the other hand was allowed to leave before he finished year 10 coz we moved towns & he did bum around. For years. We tried to get him a job & took him to meet DH's boss. He wouldn't even get out of the car!
He is now a hard working shearer & would work every day if he could & has grown up alot, but they don't need to sit around while they get their heads together. All they do is drink, smoke & get into mischeif.

Personally, I'll be doing the work or school thing. One or the other & no in between. Even if it is just working at Big W til they get their **** together.

I was 16 not that long ago & I was out working. I was 17 & pregnant & still working. I've always done some sort of work til I was heavily pg with DS. So IMO if they are grown up enough to leave school they are grown up enough to be classed as adults & contribute to society like everyone else.

I do like the idea in theory, but alot of kids do go too awol to stay at school. Not every one can do it. My DH was a rat, he needed to work. School drove him nuts & he was always suspended & kicked out of 2.

[Glamourcide]

*fuming* just wrote a huge post and then hit the wrong button. Dammit dammit dammit.


Lulu, perhaps I should have clarified a bit better than I did. By 'bumming around', I meant more along the lines that kids who leave school with no set career goals should study or be doing part-or full-time work, not career-driven but just at Big W or McDonald's, in order to take a break from the classroom and get some real-life experience in order to determine what direction they wish their lives to go in. I don't think I'm unusual in that I was unable to get any form of assistance from C'Link until I turned 21 if I lived with them, and their income is around $50k, so pretty 'average' as far as I'm aware... if I wanted to leave school and 'bum around', I either had to work or my parents had to support me, so it's not like there are a million teenagers sitting on the dole in their mum's living room at the age of 16, kwim? Yeah, I know some are, but their parents also have a choice, too - if they don't want to support their child, they can help them get work or boot them out on their bums - if they're mature enough to leave school they're mature enough to make those kinds of decisions.

As Dansta said, not 100% of people intend on going to university, not 100% of people are going to drop out, hit the dole queue and stay on it until they're grandparents, and not 100% of teenagers are clear on what they want to do with their lives when school finishes. If leaving formal education to take up paid work helps them decide, then surely that's better for everyone than to force them to sit in a stuffy classroom doing things they're completely uninterested in?

FWIW, I did do a program where I did 4 days at school, one at TAFE and twice a year I did two weeks of work experience. Nowhere did I learn anything about my rights as an employee, so I don't know if these programs have changed to include that kind of stuff but in my experience, they didn't, and so I was no better off being 'educated' than I would have been if I'd dropped out of school and worked at KFC from the time I was 15. I knew nothing about award wages or what lunch breaks etc I was entitled to as a worker.

I just think it's a really poorly-thought-out scheme. Fair enough, we want kids to stay engaged and get as much learning as possible before we unleash them into the big wide world. But why not just leave the age as it is, put more funding into alternative learning programs, and judge each school-leaver on a case-by-case basis in order to provide them with the right support? What is the difference between a 15-year-old school-leaver with no support, and a 17-year-old school-leaver with no support? I was offered an apprenticeship when I was in year 11, and my parents hit the roof at the thought of me not getting my year 12 certificate. So I passed up the opportunity, finished grade 12 and it's gotten me absolutely NOWHERE. It hasn't done a damn thing for me. I've worked casual jobs, in retail and hospitality, but I'm absolutely no closer to an actual career than I would have been had I dropped out in grade 10 and got a job at Macca's. I just think it's a really dumb idea to say that every 17-year-old with a high scool certificate goes on to big, bright things straight away - they don't.

Or is this whole idea a way for the government to stop providing support for 'premature' school-leavers? Meaning that if you transition from school to TAFE or an apprenticeship etc at the age of 15/16, the government and school will help you out with that, but when you graduate high school you're on your own with no help from anybody? So the government could well be making this legislation in order to shirk their responsibility to younger school-leavers...

[HotI]

Glamourcide

From what i understand the young people are doing part of the apprenticeship (the training side) whilst still at school, so the employer will then get someone who knows what the tools are called, and what to do with them. So they will be more useful to the employer. It also involves on the job training, so one day a week- or during school holidays they work with an empoyer getting on the job experience.

If it is Statewide thing, then all employers will be taking on 17 years old with some prior experience, rather than 15 year olds (cos they will still be at school), thereby removing the disadvantage.

The process (if it is done well) will also teach the young people about their rights at work and who to go to if things aren't right that can help with bullying or incorrect payments in the workplace.

I also know adults whohave gone back to do apprenticeships, because they have realised their passion for a certain career. Employers reap the benefits when they do hire these people.

[Dansta]

Victoria has VCAL as well as VCE, where young people do classes through TAFE that can be part of an apprenticeship. I'm not fully up on the details, but one person i know works at the childcare centre one day a week, has classes at the TAFE and classes at the high school, and it really works for her. Another couple of kids do it in building, and woodwork/carpentry (he is a chippie), so there are a few different options.

Maybe this is the reason for the raise in age, so young people can start their apprenticeship straight from school and don't leave school out of frustration and then be stuck with nothing do until they aquire an apprenticeship.

I did VCAL. in year 11 and year 12. for me it was school monday, tuesday part of wednesday and part of friday. thursday was my 'work day' year 11 i did two jobs one was in a hotel kitchen, the other a helping hand in a family run bakery, plus i also had a 'personal job' at the same time. i also had to do a personal project and another project - i cant think of the name of it right now. year 12 i did the same, but my work was in Cafe Kitchen. by the end of year 12 i was working thursday, some firdays saterdays and some mondays so around the 30hr mark. I also did Tafe on wednesdays in cookery. Vcal is a good thing provided you have an idea of what you want to do (mind you i was the only VCAL student at my school, so i didnt have much leeway in it) but the only down side for me was being the only one doing it - seeing the 'out side world' before the rest of my class mates, knowing that after a 12hr + day i had school at 8:30 the next morning, but it was the best thing for me as i wanted to leave school to become a chef (im now a Pro. family cook )but it kept me on the path i wanted to be on and wouldnt change it for the world.

as for raiseing the school leavers age - i'd question that. if some one wanted to leave at 15, with the right support (my careers teacher was worth her weight in gold and then some) they could make it work. i think that if the government also had a way of helping (not so much with $$ but with finding work IE apprenticeship for school leavers who wanted them) it may work -as others have said we need more tradies. My dad put it really well once "Howard wanted every tom, d!c.k and harry to go to Uni and get some kind of "higher education there" but he forgot that we need Tradies to build the buildings they sit in, someone to wire up the buildings they use so they dont get fried and some one to make sure that their sh*t wont end up flowing onto their shoes, and now we have no one wanting to get their hands dirty because of it we all suffer, every one 'cept howard" (this is going back when i was in year 12, so '06) I also think that at 17/18 knowing what you want to be for the rest of your life is not an easy thing to work out, considering how exxy some corse fees can be (mine wasnt too bad around $700, but thats just the corse, not the uniform, knifes, books ect) to start something and find out you hate it can be an expensive venture. many of the girls i went to high school with are *still* trying to figer that part out. which for some means a HEX or what ever its called debit will be a large one once they work out what they want to do.

...well thats my :2cents:

[smiles4u]

.............. darn great idea, i'm all for it for all sorts of reasons

But my only concern would be those students that don't thrive or are suited in an educational enviroment playing havoc in school because they want ' out' sooner whilst those who want/enjoy being there suffer to a certain degree !!

[Tinks]

I meant to come back to this and write my thoughts but have had a busy day and forgot....

Anyway, without having read previous relpies (which I will go back and read in a few mins) here's briefly what I think:

I think it's a great idea provided the kids who aren't as academic are given an alternative education like a trade course or similar. I know these are being offered now at some schools but hope they will be offered by all secondary schools seeing as the leaving age has been raised.

[Lulu]

.............. darn great idea, i'm all for it for all sorts of reasons

But my only concern would be those students that don't thrive or are suited in an educational enviroment playing havoc in school because they want ' out' sooner whilst those who want/enjoy being there suffer to a certain degree !!

But that's the entire point. Why keep kids at school when they don't want to be there -it's a waste of everyones time.

I'm not sure what is being down in relation to Career Guidance atm, but I'm of the opinion it's pretty bloody useless. My daughter did it recently and it was a joke.
There is not much point giving a student a list of "things they like to do", getting them to tick a box and spitting out the result (cos mine would have been lying on the beach back then) based on that. OR like DD - given a book containing all the courses and told to pick a few

Proper personality/aptitude testing would go a long long way. My father approached a few schools when he was first looking at retirement and none of them were interested. I can't tell you how many people we saw over the years that would rather be doing the exact opposite of the jobs they were doing at the time, and all the time wasting as a result.

[smiles4u]

Lulu .......... i would have explained myself but my local is wearing off from the stitches at both ends of my arm that i had done today !!

......... too keep it very short (due to some slight pain here) i would be swinging in favour to keeping students in longer to encourage those that need to be there not cause they think it's a better option to leave early ... My sister is a secondary schoolteacher and i have heard first hand over the past 15years of her teaching at different schools the WHY's of why some leave as soon as they can ... I'm putting my hand up for those that would have potential to stay in school longer (little hard to explain right now, will come back when i can) ... lets's just say many of my sister's students over the years and at various schools think leaving school to have a baby at 15 is a better career option then being in school (one of my reasons) ... ooooh, PAIN kicking in now, ouchhy must GO

[butterfly_warrior]

I don't see how raising the leaving age is going to stop the have a baby route out of school. It's been going on for a long, long time... Unless you have a lot of schools like Sydney's Plumpton High, then you're going to have a lot of kids still use the baby exit path. Do you really think the government won't pay benefits to parents under the age of 17?

I have to say from the perspective of a secondary teacher, the sooner some kids are out, the better. Some kids just aren't built for a classroom and will never thrive in that environment. Keeping them at school is hard on them, hard on the teachers and hard on the other students. If they raise the leaving age, then they damned well better back it up with alternative paths out of the education system that don't force kids to sit through another two years of irrelevant (to them) schooling. More vocational education is needed if they are going to do this.

BW

[smiles4u]

........... but at least they will be a couple of years older with a baby !!!!!!!!!!!

(my own Mum was pregnant at 17) ... this is not my sole reason as it looks to be taken & i did mention that it's not.

Tinks ... wanna say great thread (thanks for letting us know as i wouldn't have)

.... To put it kindly i like for my own personal opinion to be voiced like everyone else but i'm not a person that debates on a topic (no offense to anyone) so i will nicely leave now ... smiles now leaving the building