Professor John Polesel

1. Separating the sheep and the goats - vocational programs in Victorian schoolsInaugural Professorial LectureAnnual Jack Keating Memorial Lecture Professor John Polesel

2. Melbourne 1901

3. Melbourne Grammar School

4. Melbourne Continuation Schoolest. 1905

5. Sunshine Technical Schoolest. 1912

6. Swinburne Girls’ Junior Technical School

7. 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”

8. 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

9. A divided curriculum can be socially selective (Hansen) Vocational education and training has struggled to establish a role within mainstream secondary schooling (Clark) The Hansen and Clark themes

10. 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 Secondary schools – no home for VET?

11. 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 Technical Schools – Victoria

12. 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) The Research Evidence

13. School completion and university

14. 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

15. VET participation by sector

16. VET participation by SES

17. VET by sector and SES

18. Rainforest High SchoolVET in Schools Participation By Father’s Education

19. “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”. Rainforest High SchoolViews of Teachers

20. 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…”

21. 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) VETIS and Gender

22. Destinations by Gender, 2013 - VCAL %

23. 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

24. 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 Problems With VETiS?

25. Provides curriculum options for range of learners Engages reluctant learners Exposes young people to world of work & employers VET in SchoolsThe Positives

26. Principles for an improved approach • 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 VETiSas the first step in a pathway to broad families of occupations not narrowly specific jobs

27. Principles for an improved approach • Need to ensure that government, social partners, employers and industry contribute to the training of young people

28. CRC Sydenham – a different approach

29. CRC Sydenham